Sai Opera
01 · Historical Records
In Handan, Hebei, the plays staged are mainly Three Kingdoms plays, with Han and Song plays secondary; Wu'an performs several dozen, of which Youzhou, Sanguan, Guangwu Shan and Night Attack on Dengzhou are fairly representative; She county has Chixian and Ningwu Guan telling historical stories of the Shang and Ming dynasties; and Shuozhou in Shanxi has such plays, familiar to audiences, as Three Heroes Fight Lü Bu and Meng Liang Steals the Bones.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Sai opera, also called “sai” or “saisai”, is an ancient operatic genre popular in Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hebei and Shaanxi; neither its historical origin nor its time of formation is recorded, but from such performance features as the wearing of masks and the chasing and driving out it may share the same historical origin as the “nuo” formed in the Zhou dynasty and the nuo opera derived from it. “Sai” originally meant the thanksgiving sacrifice, an activity of honouring the gods with insignia, drum music and hundred entertainments. The whole performance of sai opera includes sacrificial rites, dramatic performance and square shehuo, with male roles predominating and in some places no female roles at all, accompanied by such percussion as the great gong, great drum and great cymbals. Its plays differ from place to place but are mostly historical stories, with some on revolutionary themes. Sai opera is a dramatic form fusing folk ritual and performing art, primitive and plain in performance and relatively strict in form, of extremely important reference value for the study of Chinese operatic and folkloric history.
Youzhou
One of the fairly representative plays of Wu'an sai opera.
Sanguan (The Three Passes)
One of the fairly representative plays of Wu'an sai opera.
Guangwu Shan
One of the fairly representative plays of Wu'an sai opera.
Night Attack on Dengzhou
One of the fairly representative plays of Wu'an sai opera.
Chixian
A play of She county sai opera telling historical stories of the Shang dynasty.
Ningwu Guan
A play of She county sai opera telling historical stories of the Ming dynasty.
Three Heroes Fight Lü Bu
A play of the Shuozhou branch in Shanxi, familiar to audiences.
Meng Liang Steals the Bones
A play of the Shuozhou branch in Shanxi, familiar to audiences.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wu'an sai opera is popular in the villages on both banks of the Ming river in Wu'an city, Hebei, performing several dozen plays of which Youzhou, Sanguan, Guangwu Shan and Night Attack on Dengzhou are fairly representative; the troupes are mostly run by the villages themselves, the performance taking as its basic conventions the herald-officer's announcement, masked make-up and drum-and-gong accompaniment.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Sai Opera · Sai Opera · Sai Opera.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In many of the traditional plays performed the inheritor served as herald officer and leading actor and was also the chief organiser of the sai opera performance; able to recite its lyrics and speech fluently, he often coached villagers in its singing and performing technique.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Pang Xiaobao 03-1095
- Tang Xiangping
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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