Yi Opera
01 · Historical Records
Drawing on the Yunnan volume of the Annals of Chinese Xiqu and local Chuxiong materials, Yi opera gradually formed in the traditional festivals and folk activities of the Yi people and was formally named after being collated and refined by literary and art workers in the 1950s; fusing Yi folk literature, music, dance and painting and performed in the Yi language and Yi vocal style, it is the ethnic drama peculiar to the Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yi opera is a local ethnic drama peculiar to the Chuxiong Yi and is widely found in the Chuxiong Yi autonomous prefecture of Yunnan. It formed and developed in the Yi's traditional festivals and folk activities, fusing the essence of such traditional arts as Yi folk literature, music, dance and painting. It attaches great importance to using music to set off and heighten stage atmosphere, further expressing content through ethnic music rich in rustic flavour around different tunes and arias. It performs in spoken Yi and attends to highlighting the Yi's habitual use of metaphor in dialogue, implicitly expressing characters' psychological activity; in on-stage dialogue it uses Han speech with Yi accent, especially bringing out the humour of Yi vernacular. Its performance combines the Yi people's gift for song and dance, making great use of such everyday Yi steps as the “three-bend”, “mountain-climbing”, “jumping” and “dancing circle”, so that the movements become dance-like, both enriching the genre's own artistic vocabulary and distinguishing it from other operatic performance forms.
The Midnight Bleat of Sheep
One of the Yi opera plays in which an inheritor appeared.
Manmo and Maruo
One of the Yi opera plays in which an inheritor appeared.
The Meige Tune, the Mountain-Crossing Tune, the Guest-Welcoming Tune
Yi folk songs and instrumental pieces commonly used in Yi opera; the inheritors can skilfully sing several dozen such works in the Yi language.
The Young Village Head
A short Yi opera written, directed and performed by an inheritor, winning first prize for performance.
The Meige by the Fire Pit
A Yi opera work in which an inheritor appeared, winning a silver award at the Yunnan mass culture Caiyun Awards.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yi opera has a sharply contemporary character, distinctive local features and a rich ethnic style; the props used in performance are all the everyday working tools of the local Yi people, while its costume and headdress are carefully hand-made by Yi women.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It truthfully expresses the social life of the Yi and displays the Yi people's national spirit, religious belief and value orientation, of important value for studying minority art and for anthropology, ethnology and folklore. The inheritors are able to sing in the Yi language several dozen Yi folk songs and instrumental pieces such as the Meige Tune, the Mountain-Crossing Tune and the Guest-Welcoming Tune and have appeared in such Yi opera plays as The Midnight Bleat of Sheep and Manmo and Maruo, their voices beautiful and melodious and their suona playing ringing and bright and highly skilled, much loved by local people. One inheritor, who learned Yi song, dance and folk instruments from his father Pu Guodong from childhood and could sing and play proficiently by his teens, later received guidance from the old Yi opera artist Yang Sen and systematically learned its performing technique, fully mastering its performance and arias and becoming a principal actor and organiser of Yi opera; he has long been devoted to Yi opera research and the training of transmitters and has taught disciples such as Li Zizhong, and his self-written, self-directed and self-performed Yi short plays are melodious and much favoured locally, winning awards such as first prize for performance and a performance award for his village-head roles in the short Yi plays The Young Village Head and The Baicao Ridge Ensemble and a silver award at the Yunnan mass culture Caiyun Awards for The Meige by the Fire Pit.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Maorong 03-1149
- Puwenxue 05-2464
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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