Tongzi Opera

01 · Historical Records

Since the Northern and Southern Dynasties the land at Nantong gradually formed, and administrative establishment there began only in the Xiande reign of the Later Zhou, when the place was called Hudouzhou. The exiles and migrants gathered there were of mixed origin, from the north and from the south alike; those who were banished or moved to Nantong brought with them the custom of shaman singing and of praying for blessings and averting disasters, known locally as shang tongzi or tongzi shang sheng. In 2004 Nantong tongzi opera went to South Korea for a visit performance, contributing to international folk cultural exchange.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Tongzi opera is one form of dramatic performance in the folk blessing activities of Jiangsu; it circulates in Nantong city and in the central and western parts of Tongzhou city and some surrounding areas of Jiangsu Province, and its form of performance has a history of more than a thousand years. In the early period after the land had formed, the place was surrounded on all sides by water and cut off by poor transport, so it became a place where exiles and migrants gathered. The tongzi is said to move freely among the three realms of gods, ghosts and human beings, and by this means to averts disasters and illnesses for the people, to win auspiciousness and to pray for blessings. The skills of the shang tongzi can be summed up in two main parts, biao and sheng: biao means presenting a memorial to invite the heavenly gods, and sheng means the heavenly gods descend to earth and attach themselves to the body of the tongzi. The simplest form when a family sings it privately is hua lan men, which needs only one tongzi and whose process is comparatively simple; the most elaborate is nine biao and thirteen sheng, of great scale, the whole process taking three days and three nights and involving as many as several tens of tongzi. Besides private family singing, there is in Nantong folk custom also a tongzi hui of public performance, also called the disaster-averting victory assembly; this is a collective activity for averting disaster and praying for blessings, generally of considerable scale, in which the civil tongzi sing seated while the martial tongzi display their finest martial skills in order to attract the audience. The shang tongzi sing in the Nantong dialect, accompanied at the same time by the beating of percussion instruments; their vocal styles are strange and grotesque, high-pitched and mournful, with a strong impact, and what they sing is mostly connected with subduing demons and catching ghosts and with the doings of gods, immortals and spirits. In this special form of performance, primitive religion and drama (including dance and acrobatics) are the outward and inward aspects of one and the same thing, and the plays performed include the Journey to the West, Tang Wang Tours the Underworld, Liu Quan Carrying the Melon and Shen Bao Gong (Judging Bao Gong).

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Tongzi opera circulates in Nantong city and in the central and western parts of Tongzhou city and some surrounding areas of Jiangsu Province. The Nantong area gradually formed into land from the Northern and Southern Dynasties onward and was first established administratively in the Xiande reign of the Later Zhou, when it was called Hudouzhou; in the early period after the land formed it was surrounded on all sides by water and cut off by poor transport, and became a place where exiles and migrants gathered. These exiles came from the north and from the south alike and brought the custom of shaman singing and of praying for blessings and averting disasters, known locally as shang tongzi or tongzi shang sheng. In 2004 Nantong tongzi opera went to South Korea for a visit performance, contributing to international folk cultural exchange.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Nantong tongzi opera is of considerable value for academic study, and a body of monographs about it has already been published at home and abroad. Hu Xiping (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Influenced and moulded by his elders, he took a liking to tongzi opera from childhood, and he also trained hard in martial skills, laying a solid foundation for his artistic career. He not only fully inherited the performing art of his elders but also innovated boldly; the skills of dao quan dai wan, dao gang dao quan, san zhang ban ping tai and tai pan are all innovative works within the traditional art. These skills were in turn passed on to his son Hu Dexin, promoting the transmission of the art of Nantong tongzi opera. Male, of Han ethnicity, born in March 1929, died in July 2011, a native of Nantong County, Jiangsu Province. Representative inheritor of tongzi opera, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project of the third national-level batch.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Hu Xiping 03-1112

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Tongzi Opera (Tongzhou, Jiangsu) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Hu Xiping · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗