Wudougaoshan Opera
01 · Historical Records
People in Yulong and Longxing call it “acting stories” and “walking the stage”, and it was formally named “mountain opera” in October 1959. Over time this “shaman praising the gods” activity, whose purpose was to entertain the gods, gradually evolved into the folk recreational form of bazhi dance that entertains both the performers and the audience.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Mountain opera, also called “mountain drama”, is one of the two genres peculiar to Gansu, circulating mainly in Yulong town, Wudu district, Longnan city, Gansu. Yulong town lies in the north-east of Wudu district, amid high mountains and deep gullies with poor communications and relatively backward economy and culture. Historically, in disaster years or at temple fairs people gathered, inviting the “shaman” (sorcerer) to worship the gods and pray for blessings and avert calamity. At the beginning of the Ming the people of Yulong formed the custom of staging opera to commemorate the great general Li Wenzhong (Lord Da'an), and the bazhi dance likewise rose from casual singing at field edges and in front of and behind houses to the dramatic performance of “setting out stories” on stage, finally forming mountain opera after several hundred years of development. Its singing is ringing and bright, beautiful and natural, its costume a style of its own, its performance stressing the “four skills and five methods”, with a distinctive manner. Its performing plays (stories) number more than six hundred pieces and it has more than three hundred primitive qupai besides.
The Repertory (More Than Six Hundred Pieces)
Mountain opera's performing plays (stories) number more than six hundred pieces, with more than three hundred primitive qupai besides.
The Old with a Young Heart
One of the fine mountain opera plays created, scored and directed by the inheritor since the 1960s.
Trading Old for Young
One of the fine mountain opera plays created, scored and directed by the inheritor.
Going to Market
One of the fine mountain opera plays created, scored and directed by the inheritor.
Night Escape
One of the fine mountain opera plays created, scored and directed by the inheritor.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wudu mountain opera centres on Yulong town, Wudu district, Longnan city, Gansu, and circulates in the mountains of the Xihanshui and Bailongjiang valleys in Wudu, Kang county and Wen county; because of the high mountains, deep gullies and poor communications its singing, costume and performance preserve a fairly archaic aspect, and in Yulong and Longxing it was anciently called “acting stories” and “walking the stage”.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Mountain opera culture contains the ancient working people's world view, values and view of history and is a vivid embodiment of China's folk culture and dramatic culture, with important research value. The inheritor, who loved mountain opera from childhood under the influence of his elders, learned and performed it with them from five or six, went on stage with his father Yin Dianrong at seven and was already an influential local child actor by his teens; long taking part in mountain opera performance, creation, arrangement and scoring, he changed the situation of “performing without scripts” in its several centuries of transmission and is praised as the “mould of mountain opera”. From the 1960s he has created, scored and directed such fine mountain opera plays as The Old with a Young Heart, Trading Old for Young, Going to Market and Night Escape, and has taken more than twenty disciples in its performance, playwriting and music.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yin Weixin 03-1147
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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