Dong Opera
01 · Historical Records
Dong opera circulating in Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County, Liuzhou city, Guangxi, and the villages of the surrounding Dong areas was introduced from Shuikou district of Liping county, Guizhou, in 1875; after more than a hundred years of development and reform its artistic colour is richer and its appeal stronger.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Dong opera is called “xigeng” in the Dong language and is the operatic genre of the Dong people. In traditional Dong opera performance the actors wear Dong dress and Dong jewellery and sing in the Dong language with simple stage arrangement. Its circulating plays include Chen Shimei, Shengsi Pai and Mei Liangyu, mostly transplanted from Han opera stories and adapted into the Dong language.
Chen Shimei
A circulating play of Dong opera, transplanted from the Han opera story of Chen Shimei.
Shengsi Pai (The Life-and-Death Tablet)
A circulating play of Dong opera, transplanted from a Han opera story.
Mei Liangyu
A circulating play of Dong opera, transplanted from a Han opera story.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Sanjiang Dong opera is popular in Sanjiang, Guangxi, and the surrounding Dong villages; introduced from Shuikou district of Liping county, Guizhou, in 1875, its long exchange with Dong opera in Hunan and Guizhou has, while preserving Dong-language singing and the master-disciple, oral tradition, gradually formed a northern Guangxi Dong opera local character.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Dong Opera · Dong Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Dong opera is a folk art relying on master-disciple succession and oral teaching, and its self-protection is very fragile. At present it faces the ageing of opera masters, a lack of successors and a shrinking audience, so governments at all levels urgently need to take active measures to transmit and protect it. Facing aged masters and a lack of successors, the Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County Cultural Centre (Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection and Development Centre) sustains the genre through supporting troupes, collecting material and training. Yang Kaiyuan (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Dong, born in June 1965 in Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County, Guangxi. From a Dong opera family, he is a folk opera master of high repute and influence in the Dong area. With solid basic skills and a studious bent, he is familiar with directing, playwriting, make-up and stage scenery. He has created thirty-two newly written modern plays, including San Xi Zheng Jiapo and Tuanyuan Zhi Ye. He has several times organised troupes to perform in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai and to take part in various showcase performances. He is a representative inheritor of Dong opera in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects and has long worked at showcasing Dong opera, collecting material and training successors; of the more than sixty disciples he has trained, most have become troupe masters, and the Dong opera coaching classes he has run have trained more than a thousand amateur Dong opera actors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Qigao 02-0640
- Wu Shengzhang 02-0641
- Wu Shangde 03-1071
- Yang Kaiyuan 05-2394
- Wu Shenghua
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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