Caidiao
01 · Historical Records
Caidiao is a local operatic genre formed when the liuzixi (willow-seed play) of northern China in the Qing dynasty reached northern Guangxi and was closely joined with the local folk ditties and small tunes; because its singing commonly takes "na ge yi ge hai" as a sung interjection, it is popularly called "na ge hai" or "yi ge hai" in the folk. In 1955 it was uniformly named "Caidiao opera".
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The singing of Caidiao belongs to the lianqu (joined-tune) system and falls into three great categories of ban, qiang and diao. The ban include su ban, ku ban, ma ban and you ban; the diao include forms such as bigu diao and zouma diao; the qiang are distinguished by role type, with xiaosheng qiang, dan-role qiang, chou-role qiang and the like, and are distinguished by the identity and occupation of the character, with xianggong qiang (young scholar's tune), huazi qiang (beggar's tune) and the like; those that express bodily action include tiaodan qiang (carrying a load), yinjiu qiang (drinking wine) and the like. Besides these, the singing of Caidiao has also absorbed a number of folk ditties current in the Jiangnan area, such as xianhua diao (flower tune) and shiyue hua (October flower). The musical accompaniment of Caidiao is divided into the left stage and the right stage, the left stage carrying the string instruments and the right stage the percussion. The string instruments include the diaohu (also called the great barrel, similar to the erhu), yangqin, pipa, sanxian, suona, dizi and so on, with the diaohu as the principal. The gong-and-drum qupai of the percussion are comparatively simple; those commonly used include Santou Dian (Three Head-Nods), Yitiao Long (One Whole Dragon), the one-bian and the four-bian passages. The repertoire of Caidiao is mostly on labour, love and family life, and a great many orally transmitted and hand-copied scripts circulate among the people. In performance it is sung in the Gui-Liu dialect and takes mainly the three-xiao form of xiaosheng, xiaodan and xiaochou, the singing and the dancing being joined together; the steps, the turns, the pose-display, the fan figures and the hand figures of the chou and dan roles are extremely characteristic, the steps in particular being the most prominent. Because it is deeply rooted among the village people and closely joined with the local folk ditties and small tunes, Caidiao has formed a performing style whose content is humorous and lively in form; the fan, the handkerchief and the coloured ribbon — the "three treasures" of Caidiao — play an important part in performance. After the founding of the People's Republic of China Caidiao developed fairly rapidly; especially the staging of outstanding plays such as Liu Sanjie extended the influence of the genre throughout the country. At present, however, Guangxi Caidiao has fallen into a predicament in which it can hardly be sustained for want of a performance market; fewer and fewer people know about and understand Caidiao, hundreds of Caidiao troupes have dissolved one after another under the impact of the market economy, and of the professional troupes only a very few remain — the Guangxi Caidiao troupe, the Liuzhou Caidiao troupe and the Guilin Caidiao troupe — while the numbers of amateur Caidiao performers have fallen sharply and are hard to sustain.
Liu Sanjie
After the founding of the People's Republic of China Caidiao developed fairly rapidly; especially the staging of outstanding plays such as Liu Sanjie extended the influence of the genre throughout the country.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Caidiao is distributed very widely and the names differ from place to place: in Guilin, Liuzhou, Hechi and other areas it is called "diaozi xi" (tune opera), "caicha" (tea-picking) or "na ge hai"; in Ningming, Baise and other places along the Zuo and You rivers it is called "dachaicha" (great tea-picking) or "ge hai xi"; in Pingle, Lipu and other areas it is called "shan hua deng" (mountain flower lantern), "cai deng" (coloured lantern) or "caicha xi" (tea-picking opera), and so on; but the names "diaozi xi" and "caicha xi" are the most widely used.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The rescue and protection of Caidiao are urgent. Fu Jinhua (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Her command of Caidiao is solid and accomplished, her performance delicate and restrained, her range of roles broad and complete, her feeling rich and lifelike; her voice is soft, round, clear and sweet, her singing bright and flowing with correct diction and true tone, rich in the flavour of folk song, and she is equally good in singing and acting, quite distinctive in style. Her representative works include Longnü Hanpeng (The Dragon Girl and Han Peng). Female, of Miao nationality, born in 1939, died in 2013, native of Rong'an, Guangxi. Representative inheritor of the Caidiao national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the second batch, a first-class actor, enjoying the special government allowance of the State Council. Qin Mingde (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Zhuang nationality, born in April 1947, native of Guilin City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A first-class national actor. His performance style is delicate, humorous and witty, his singing languid and mellifluous, and his body movements and fan figures highly expressive; he is skilled in such Caidiao techniques as the twisted short-stance step and the left-right millstone turn. He attaches importance to the transmission of the art and devotes himself to carrying the essence of Caidiao forward; through lecturing, coaching in technique, theoretical study and other means he has trained a large number of disciples, and the folk Caidiao performing groups he has coached reach throughout the northern part of Guangxi; he has also taken two foreign disciples, one from the Netherlands and one from Ukraine. Representative inheritor of the Caidiao national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fourth batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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