Anshun Di Opera
01 · Historical Records
The Ming army established twenty-four wei and twenty-six shouyu qianhu suo in Guizhou, of which Anshun had three wei and two shouyu qianhu suo; the histories call the garrison soldiers “tunpu people”, and with the tunpu people dixi appeared. Drawing on local materials, the Ming garrisons in Anshun gave rise to the tunpu people, and with them dixi.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Dixi is a local opera popular in Anshun city, Guizhou; its emergence is bound up with the Anshun garrison troops who came from Anhui, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and Henan in the early Ming. Anshun dixi is performed by village, the actors being genuine farmers. Generally one village has one dixi, with twenty or thirty actors, headed by a “spirit chief”. Performances are held each New Year festival and in the seventh lunar month when the rice flowers, and villagers also invite the “spirits” of the dixi team, such as Guan Yu and She Taijun, to conduct “opening the gate of wealth” and “delivering the crown prince” when building a house for wealth or praying for children. Anshun dixi is an ancient drama whose distinctive feature is that the performers wrap their heads in black cloth, wear battle skirts about the waist, place masks on the forehead, hold spears, halberds and swords, and sing at random and dance in response. Their singing is narrative verse of seven and ten characters, accompanied by one gong and one drum, one leading and the rest joining in, with an echo of the old Yiyang tune; their dance mainly represents the combat of battle, vigorous and rough, archaic and robust. The thirty or so long books performed by Anshun dixi take as their heroes the Xue, Yang, Yue and Di family generals, Three Kingdoms heroes and Wagang heroes much loved by the tunpu people, praising loyalty and righteousness and extolling loyal ministers and good generals who serve the country, all stirring stories of war. But under the impact of modern culture its performances have gradually shrunk, the actors are older and fewer each year, and many villages with dixi teams have fallen silent for years. Its performances are organised by village, generally one dixi to a village with twenty or thirty actors headed by a “spirit chief”; the Anshun city cultural centre (Anshun City Culture and Art Training Centre) is responsible for the project's protection, and in some villages the dixi team is still invited to conduct “opening the gate of wealth” and “delivering the crown prince” when building houses for wealth or praying for children.
The Xue, Yang, Yue and Di Family Generals, Three Kingdoms Heroes and Wagang Heroes
The thirty or so long books performed by Anshun dixi take the above heroes, much loved by the tunpu people, as their protagonists, all stirring stories of war.
Si Ma Tou Tang (Four Horsemen Submit to Tang)
The principal play of the Anshun dixi inheritor Gu Zhiyan.
San Guo Zhi (The Three Kingdoms)
The principal play of the Anshun dixi inheritor Zhan Xueyan.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Anshun dixi performs its thirty or so long books with the Xue, Yang, Yue and Di family generals, Three Kingdoms heroes and Wagang heroes as its protagonists, praising loyalty and righteousness and extolling loyal ministers and good generals who serve the country, all stirring war stories; the Anshun city cultural centre (Anshun City Culture and Art Training Centre) is responsible for the project's protection.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Anshun dixi is rare living material for the study of the genesis of drama, anthropology, religion and folklore; the urgent protection of this ancient genre with its rich cultural content is a matter of no delay. Gu Zhiyan (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Han, born in 1940 in Xixiu, Guizhou. He is a representative inheritor of Anshun dixi in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. Gu Zhiyan studied Anshun dixi under Yang Bingqing in 1955 and in the 1990s passed it on to his son and grandson; he has comprehensively and deeply mastered dixi's history, repertory and performance skills, taking Si Ma Tou Tang as his principal play, and is an important seventeenth-generation transmitter of Anshun dixi, having won first prize at the Anshun Folk Art Festival in 1997. Zhan Xueyan (as recorded in the official dossier of an associated inheritor): male, Han, born in 1952 in Xixiu, Guizhou. He is a representative inheritor of Anshun dixi in the second batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects. Zhan Xueyan began transmitting dixi in 1980, taking San Guo Zhi as his principal play and presenting dixi's primitive beauty and dramatic beauty to the full; he is an important seventeenth-generation transmitter of Anshun dixi and won a special prize at the first Anshun county dixi festival in 1989.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Gu Zhiyan 02-0661
- Zhan Xueyan 02-0662
- Chen Xiansong 05-2405
- Ye Shouxing
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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