Nanping Nanci
01 · Historical Records
Nanping nanci is a form of quyi popular in Nanping in northern Fujian; it is generally held that the nanci of the Jiangnan region was transmitted to Nanping during the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty and thereafter gradually developed by fusing with local folk minor tunes. Nanci reached Nanping in the late eighteenth century, and as soon as it arrived the well-known performing society 'Jingyixuan' appeared; more than two hundred years have now passed, it has had as many as nine generations of inheritors, its artistic tradition is quite deep and its artistic vitality is very tenacious. After nanci entered northern Fujian it did not simply copy the old Jiangnan tunes: the performers blended the nanci tunes of the Suzhou area with local dialect intonation and folk minor tunes, and further absorbed the popular short tunes of northern Fujian, gradually forming Nanping nanci with a character of its own. According to local performers' recollections, activity in the early period was organised by amateur nanci societies of the 'xuan' and 'she' type, whose members were mostly the sons of merchants and scholars; those who took it up first learned the tunes and their metrical patterns (ban yan), then the role types and their several voices, and once they had mastered it they made friends through nanci without making a living by it.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The performance form of Nanping nanci is that one person leads the singing while several others, each holding a different instrument, sit in a row around them and take turns to join in the speech-and-song performance according to their different role types. In seated singing, Nanping nanci calls for one lead singer with many voices in support; the singer and the instrumentalists sit together, role types are linked by taking up the singing in turns and by antiphonal singing, and it is not divided into acts and parts as in operatic theatre. The tunes sung are mainly the basic nanci mode transmitted from the Jiangnan region, combined with local folk minor tunes; the vocal style is melodious, with few words and many notes to the syllable, and the spoken parts use the Nanping dialect in a tone close to everyday speech. The scale of a programme depends on the occasion: at refined gatherings mostly short pieces are sung, narrating a single event or scene; on celebratory occasions several tunes are linked together to sing a whole story, which may continue for hours.
Jingyi Xuan
The celebrated society formed soon after nanci reached Nanping, with nine generations of transmission over more than two centuries.
Seated turn-taking
The basic manner of performance: one leading singer, others seated around with instruments, taking turns by role.
Nanci opera
The stage drama developed from nanci tunes after the 1950s, which carried part of the repertory into theatrical performance.
Recording the tunes and scripts
The tradition lived in amateur societies and manuscript songbooks; today the local centre records tunes and texts and runs regular theatre performances.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yanping (today the urban area of Nanping City) is the centre of activity for Nanping nanci; it spreads to Jian'ou, Shunchang, Shaxian, Jiangle, Shaowu, Jianyang and other places in northern Fujian, and belongs to dialect and tune systems different from the nanyin popular in southern Fujian and the buyi art popular in Fuzhou. Nanci has long taken seated singing as its basic form: artist friends sit around in a single room, one person leads the singing, and the others each hold an instrument and take turns to join in according to their role types; there is no makeup and no stage movement, and it is usually performed at festivals, celebrations and refined gatherings. The Jingyixuan lineage in the city of Nanping in the late Qing and early Republic period has been handed down continuously and has already gone through nine generations of inheritors, making it the longest-surviving branch locally; from the 1950s onward, nanci was moved onto the stage, and Nanping nanci opera developed out of it.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
However, problems have arisen in the development of Nanping nanci today: it lacks successors, faces difficulties on every side, and urgently needs support and protection. The original form of nanci depended on nanci societies, and once a society dissolved, singing and playing activities ceased with it. From the second half of the twentieth century nanci changed from seated singing to standing singing with gestural performance, while Nanping nanci opera was composed to nanci tunes, so that some tunes and repertoire works were preserved on the operatic stage; in recent years the Nanping City Nanci Art Inheritance and Development Centre has taken on the task of transmission, recruiting students through training classes and visits to schools, collating vocal styles, tunes and scores, and arranging regular performances on the strength of the People's Cinema Theatre.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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