Wa Qing Opera
01 · Historical Records
Before the Xianfeng reign of the Qing, passing merchants, soldiers and civilians brought Hubei Qing opera to Ganzhe village, Tengchong county, Yunnan, a key point on the ancient silk road, where it spread among the Wa people of Ganzhe village and gradually evolved into Wa Qing opera.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
In the late Ming and early Qing the people of Hubei created Qing opera, a new dramatic form, on the basis of the ancient Qingyang qiang. Wa Qing opera's vocal music comprises the “nine arias and thirteen bans”, tunes that rise and fall, pleasing to the ear, good both at narrative and at lyric, preserving the primitive and archaic features of early Qing opera and possessing fairly strong artistic expressiveness and appeal. Wa Qing opera's language is beautiful, its plots vivid and its characters sharply drawn; the regularly performed plays handed down include more than a dozen excerpts such as Jiang Gu Teases Her Sister-in-law, Driving Out Madam Pang, Meeting in the Reed Grove and An'an Delivers the Rice, all drawn from the Han folk stories The Record of Three Filial Piety and The White Crane Legend.
Jiang Gu Teases Her Sister-in-law
One of the plays commonly staged by Wa Qing opera, drawn from the Han folk story The Record of Three Filial Piety.
Driving Out Madam Pang
One of the plays commonly staged by Wa Qing opera, drawn from the Han folk story The Record of Three Filial Piety.
Meeting in the Reed Grove
One of the plays commonly staged by Wa Qing opera.
An'an Delivers the Rice
One of the plays commonly staged by Wa Qing opera, drawn from the Han folk story The Record of Three Filial Piety.
The Record of Three Filial Piety
One of the Han folk stories from which Wa Qing opera's often-performed plays are drawn.
The White Crane Legend
One of the Han folk stories from which Wa Qing opera's often-performed plays are drawn.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wa Qing opera centres on Ganzhe village, Hehua town, Tengchong county, Yunnan, and circulates in Tengchong and in the mixed Wa and Han villages west of the Nujiang; because passing merchants, soldiers and civilians brought Hubei Qing opera in and it spread and evolved among the Wa people, it is a typical case of Han opera being localised in a frontier ethnic area.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The inheritors (including Li Jiaxian, born November 1934 in Tengchong, Yunnan, a Wa, died October 2013) have a fairly deep understanding of Wa Qing opera's vocal music, repertory and historical development and are important transmitters of the genre, fully commanding the singing of its “nine arias and thirteen bans” and fairly fluently singing several dozen traditional plays such as Jiang Gu Teases Her Sister-in-law, Driving Out Madam Pang, Meeting in the Reed Grove and An'an Delivers the Rice; their performance adds some new movements and their technique is masterly, their singing rising and falling and pleasing to the ear. Born in Ganzhe village in Hehua town, the place of Wa Qing opera's transmission, one inheritor learned to sing it from the elders of the stockade from childhood and later studied under the national-level transmitter Li Jiaxian, being thoroughly versed in its vocal music and plots and devoted to training a younger generation of Wa Qing opera transmitters.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Jiaxian 03-1148
- Wang Zufang 05-2463
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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