Yang Opera

01 · Historical Records

Shanghe Yangxi was in earlier times performed by shaman troupes, and a troupe of shamans who performed Yangxi was called a "yangxi tangzi" (Yangxi hall); the upper reaches of the Yuan River have always been a region where shamanistic custom prevailed. It took shape roughly two hundred years ago and is popular in the upper and middle reaches of the Yuan River, with such schools as "shanghe (Huaihua)" and "beihe (Zhangjiajie)". After the founding of the People's Republic of China Yangxi developed into an independent local genre; its important plays are the "two-small play" and the "three-small play", whose main content is the acting out of the labour and life of ordinary people — ploughing fields, cutting thatch, cutting chives, doing carpenter's work and so on — and most of them are comedies.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The upper reaches of the Yuan River have always been a region where shamanistic custom prevailed. Shanghe Yangxi was in earlier times performed by shaman troupes, and a troupe of shamans who performed Yangxi was called a "yangxi tangzi" (Yangxi hall). After the founding of the People's Republic of China Yangxi developed into an independent local genre. Its important plays are the "two-small play" and the "three-small play", whose main content is the acting out of the labour and life of ordinary people — ploughing fields, cutting thatch, cutting chives, doing carpenter's work and so on — and most of them are comedies. They distil the actions of daily life and labour into distinctive performance conventions, and include large plays in which several role types appear. In its form of performance, Shanghe Yangxi takes as its principal means of character modelling the wearing of masks without painting the face (called "nuo face shells"), while it also takes over the face-painting art of the flower-lantern clown (such as the "toad face"). Musically it takes the local mountain songs, work songs and ditties as its principal musical components (following such practice as separating the male and female vocal ranges, using the same tune with different tunings, keeping fixed musical notation and rendering the melody to the words, and alternating a cappella singing with envelope-modulation singing), and it absorbs the ditties of flower-lantern opera and learns and borrows the interlude music and the entrance formulas of "da yin" and "nian shi" from the local major genre of Chenhe opera. In performance it absorbs the performing arts of flower-lantern opera such as the "circle" and the "set" in which singing and dancing are combined, and distils the actions of daily life and labour into performance conventions that reflect local customs and folk feelings. Performers generally command the three arts of Yangxi, flower-lantern play and nuo play. Shanghe Yangxi is born together with nuo play, and testifies to the characteristic of Chinese theatre in which the religious and the secular coexist and the entertainment of the gods and of the people are coordinated.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Shanghe Yangxi is a traditional dramatic form popular in the upper and middle reaches of the Yuan River, with such schools as "shanghe (Huaihua)" and "beihe (Zhangjiajie)"; it is named for being popular in the upper reaches of the Yuan River (shanghe), and took shape roughly two hundred years ago. Its area of circulation includes Hecheng District, Zhongfang County, Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County, Xinhuang Dong Autonomous County, Hongjiang City, Huitong County, Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County and Tongdao Dong Autonomous County under Huaihua City of Hunan Province; Suining County under Shaoyang City; Tianzhu County, Liping County, Jinping County, Zhenyuan County and Sansui County under Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou Province; and Yuping Dong Autonomous County under Tongren City. It is deeply loved by the people of many nationalities, including the Han, Miao, Dong, Yao and Tujia. Shanghe Yangxi has long coexisted with the local nuo play (yin play), absorbing nuo vocal styles and nuo plays, and is represented by the performance of the "three-women play" (The Dragon King's Daughter, Lady Pang and Meng Jiangnu). Artists of the various nationalities have used Shanghe Yangxi to promote cultural integration, and it has fairly well met the spiritual and cultural needs of the local masses for aesthetic appreciation and entertainment; among its plays, the comedies are an important means by which the labouring people relieve spiritual pressure.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Zhangjiajie Yang Opera · Yang Opera · Yang Opera · Yang Opera.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Shanghe Yangxi is born together with nuo play, and testifies to the characteristic of Chinese theatre in which the religious and the secular coexist and the entertainment of the gods and of the people are coordinated. It is popular in the upper and middle reaches of the Yuan River — Huaihua, Zhongfang, Zhijiang, Xinhuang, Hongjiang and Tianzhu, Liping and Jinping in Qiandongnan — and is deeply loved by the people of many nationalities, including the Han, Miao, Dong, Yao and Tujia; artists of the various nationalities have used this genre to promote cultural integration, and it has fairly well met the aesthetic and entertainment needs of the local masses, its comedies being in particular an important means by which the labouring people relieve spiritual pressure.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

• Zhu Lizhen 05-2473
• Chen Yongxia
• Li Dafu
• Zhouchangzhi
• Liang Houfang
• Li Gang
• Yao Weiyun

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Yang Opera (Huaihuashihecheng, Hunan) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗