Sixian
01 · Historical Records
According to historical records such as the Gazetteer of Wugang Prefecture, Wugang Sixian took shape in the Ming period; through constant summarizing and refining on the part of the performers it developed a distinctive artistic style and came to be sung widely.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Sixian is a form of folk quyi with a singing history of more than four hundred years. Wugang Sixian is current mainly in Shaoyang, Longhui, Dongkou, Chengbu, Xinning and other places centred on Wugang, and is an important and distinctly distinctive component of Hunan quyi. The melodies of Wugang Sixian are soft and tender and indirect and roundabout, its diction is refined, and its lyrical manner light and lively. Most of the pieces express the plaintive emotions of women in the feudal era, and there is also witty and humorous content. In Wugang Sixian, Facing the Solitary Lamp Alone, Sitting Alone in the Embroidery Tower, Picking Grapes, Yue Diao, Autumn River and The Two Descending the Mountain are highly representative. Later, owing to social change and the impact of outside cultures, Wugang Sixian declined more and more and came close to extinction. The repertoire of Wugang Sixian consists mostly of short lyrical pieces; the subjects are concentrated on boudoir laments, partings and everyday small matters, and the song texts are careful about diction and parallelism, with filler syllables and melodic interludes often inserted within lines. There are also short witty and humorous pieces such as Picking Grapes, which amuse the audience with exaggerated colloquial speech. The vocal styles are assigned by tune pattern: one tune pattern can be used repeatedly for many sets of lyrics, and when a long story is encountered several tune patterns are linked together. Because the singers are mostly women and townspeople, they neither wear make-up nor walk the stage in performance, and the seated singing form is the rule, with saucers and danban wooden clippers occasionally added to mark the beat.
Alone Before the Lamp
Representative pieces expressing the sorrows of women in the old order, noted for their tender, ornate tunes.
Picking Grapes
A representative comic sketch, using exaggerated colloquial speech in contrast to the genre's plaintive pieces.
The Yuediao tune
A tune title that also names a piece, repeated over many stanzas or linked with others for long tales.
The Dulingfeng troupe and the research society
The local bodies set up to study and transmit the art: a research society and the Dulingfeng song-and-dance troupe founded in 2007.
Seated self-accompanied singing
The basic manner of performance: singers seated in a circle, each accompanying themselves on plucked and bowed strings.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Wugang Sixian is centred on the street-and-lane musical societies of the Wugang urban area and of the Duliang area (the ancient name of Wugang), and is current in such counties as Shaoyang, Longhui, Dongkou, Chengbu and Xinning in the upper reaches of the Zi River; it shares the same origin as, but flows in different channels from, the Sixian of other parts of Hunan centred on Changde, Changsha, Liuyang, Hengyang and Pingjiang. In former times, performance inside the Wugang city took place mainly in courtyards, teahouses and the central halls of private houses, with the singers seated in a circle, each holding a yangqin, pipa, yueqin, erhu or other Sixian instrument and singing self-accompanied, the melodies soft and tender and the diction refined. Because the Zi River was navigable, Wugang Sixian also spread with boatmen and travelling merchants to Chengbu and Suining further upstream.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Changde Sixian.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the cultural departments of the government carried out repeated collecting and collation of Wugang Sixian and successively printed such materials as Wugang Sixian Music, Wugang Sixian and A Collection of Wugang Folk Sixian Music. The Wugang municipal government attaches great importance to the rescue and protection of Wugang Sixian: a Wugang Sixian Research Society has been established and a special allocation of funds set aside for research into this folk art. In 2007 the Wugang Duliang Feng Song and Dance Troupe was founded, dedicated to the performance, transmission and protection of the art of Wugang Sixian. Wugang Sixian, this folk art with its own distinctive character, will be transmitted and developed. The rescue work on Wugang Sixian began with written records: in the second half of the twentieth century the local cultural departments successively printed materials such as Wugang Sixian Music, Wugang Sixian and A Collection of Wugang Folk Sixian Music, gathering up the melodies and lyrics that had been dispersed in the hands of folk performers; in 2007 the Wugang Duliang Feng Song and Dance Troupe was founded to take charge of the performance and the teaching of Wugang Sixian, staging mainly traditional passages, and the Wugang Sixian Research Society was set up with a special allocation of funds for research.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chenxiaohui 02-0738
- Zhu Xiaoling 02-0739
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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