Huanglong Opera
01 · Historical Records
Drawing on the Jilin volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu and local Nong'an materials, huanglong opera's predecessor was the “local shadow” popular around Nong'an and the folk short plays evolved from it; in 1959, on the basis of collating the local shadow tunes and folk short plays, the genre was formally named and a professional troupe established.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Huanglong opera is a local operatic genre peculiar to the north-east, circulating in Nong'an county, Jilin, and its surroundings. Its singing takes the “local shadow” tunes as its base and absorbs Shamanic song and dance, folk storytelling and north-eastern folk ditties, using both ban styles and qupai, its recitation touched with north-eastern pronunciation, its performance having operatic conventions yet keeping the humorous exaggeration of shadow-puppet figures' movements. It is built on the music of the “local shadow” (the local artists' name for their native shadow puppetry) and the folk short plays evolved from it (locally called “singing the thing” or “half shadow” and “ground-leaping shadow”), fully absorbing and drawing on local Shamanic music and dance, folk storytelling, oral literature and folk ditties to become an independent genre.
Wuzhu and Yingge
A large huanglong opera on a Liao-Jin historical story composed by the inheritor, winning awards in provincial and municipal performances.
Grievances at Changshan Tun
A large modern huanglong opera composed by the inheritor, winning awards in provincial and municipal performances.
The Local Shadow (Shadow Tunes)
The basis of huanglong opera's music, the local artists' name for their native shadow puppetry; its tunes and the folk short plays evolved from it together form the source of the genre.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The genre's foundation lies in the music of the “local shadow” and the folk short plays evolved from shadow puppetry, fully absorbing native Shamanic music and dance, folk storytelling, oral literature and folk ditties to form an independent genre.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Huanglong opera was born in the deep zone of northern hunting and nomadic culture and shows the vigorous and plain ethnic traits of the horse-back peoples, of extremely important reference value for the study of the history of folk custom, of social fashion and of northern culture. The inheritor, born into a folk artist's family, learned folk drum music from his father as a boy and in the late 1970s and early 1980s, under the guidance of local veteran artists, devoted himself to studying huanglong opera's music and its base music, the local “ground-leaping shadow” music. Boldly innovating on the basis of fully inheriting traditional singing, he gradually enriched huanglong opera's singing music into a local traditional operatic music of distinctive artistic charm and regional cultural colour. He has independently composed more than forty large works for huanglong and Liao opera, successively bringing out such pieces as the large huanglong opera on a Liao-Jin historical story Wuzhu and Yingge and the large modern huanglong opera Grievances at Changshan Tun, winning awards in provincial and municipal performances and giving the ancient huanglong opera fresh vitality.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhao Guijun 03-1101
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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