Zhuangju Opera
01 · Historical Records
Yunnan Zhuang opera circulates mainly in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan; it has three branches—Funing native opera, Guangnan sha opera and Wenshan Lexi native opera—whose origins differ. Among them Funing native opera formed earliest, with a history of more than three hundred years, and the earliest vocal form of Yunnan Zhuang opera derives from it; Guangnan sha opera and Wenshan Lexi native opera both formed in the Guangxu reign of the Qing.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yunnan Zhuang opera, building on the fusion of Zhuang mountain song, dance, music, narrative-singing and folk story while steadily absorbing the strengths of outside drama, has through long development become a mature local genre. At the “Longduan festival”, the most solemn of Zhuang festivals, Zhuang opera is an indispensable item, with the saying “Longduan must have opera, without opera there is no Longduan”. Yunnan Zhuang opera embodies the spiritual aspirations, ideals, beliefs and values of the Yunnan Zhuang people, its repertory covering all aspects of their daily life, festival celebration and marriage and funeral rites, like an encyclopedia of Yunnan Zhuang society. To consolidate the cultural concepts and customs of the Chinese nation through artistic performance full of national feeling and national style is the special value of Yunnan Zhuang opera. Yunnan Zhuang opera is sung in the Zhuang language with accompaniment of maguhu, tuhu and sanxian; its roles are mainly sheng, dan and chou, and its performance fuses such Zhuang folk dance vocabulary as the handkerchief dance and fan dance, its language humorous and strongly rustic.
Aidinu (A Funing Native Opera Vocal Style)
One of the representative vocal styles of Funing native opera and part of the earliest vocal forms of Yunnan Zhuang opera.
Yihehai (A Zhuang Opera Vocal Style)
One of the commonly used vocal styles of Zhuang opera, which the inheritor Nong Xueliang mastered thoroughly.
The Longduan Festival Repertory (Traditional Zhuang Opera)
Zhuang opera is indispensable at the Zhuang Longduan festival, hence the saying “Longduan must have opera, without opera there is no Longduan”.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture lies in a border area, where various foreign cultures influence the local people's thinking in tangible or intangible ways. Yunnan Zhuang opera divides into three branches—Funing native opera, Guangnan sha opera and Wenshan Lexi native opera—of which Funing native opera formed earliest and is the source of the genre's earliest vocal forms; the three branches each have their own features in singing, repertory and performance, together making up the overall character of Yunnan Zhuang opera.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Zhuangju Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Nong Xueliang (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Zhuang, born in October 1949 in Funing county, Yunnan. From childhood he studied Zhuang opera singing and movement under the old artists Gong Tianfu and Huang Shanzhang, went on stage at fourteen and at twenty-four had fully mastered various Zhuang opera vocal styles such as “aidinu” and “yihehai”, becoming a Zhuang opera all-rounder able to perform, write, direct and play. From 1994 he served as the sixth-generation head of the Zhuang opera troupe of Houzhou village, Guichao town, Funing county. He is a representative inheritor of Zhuang opera in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects and has attended to training transmitters, bringing up two cohorts of Zhuang opera inheritors. Its repertory covers the daily life, festival celebration and marriage and funeral rites of the Zhuang people and is called an “encyclopedia” of Yunnan Zhuang society, giving it value for ethnological and folklore research; the Funing County Ethnic Culture Work Team sustains the genre through creating and staging plays and training inheritors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Qinyin 02-0638
- Bikejian 02-0639
- Nongxueliang 05-2393
- Wang Zhijun
- Huang Zhiyuan
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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