Hangzhou Pingci
01 · Historical Records
Hangzhou pingci is commonly called “xiaoshu” (“little storytelling”); in the past it was also known as “wenshu”. It developed out of the tanci of the Ming dynasty and is current in Hangzhou, Zhejiang and the surrounding region.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
At a Hangzhou pingci performance the mode is chiefly narrative: the singer accompanies himself on an erhu and speaks and sings in the Hangzhou dialect, at times describing situations from the story in the voice of a storyteller, narrating and commenting as he goes; at other times he speaks for a character in the book, while at the same time using posture, expression, gesture and props such as the waking block, the folding fan and the handkerchief to characterise the figures. One performer takes many roles, stepping in and out of them with complete freedom. The vocal style of Hangzhou pingci belongs to the banqiang system, and the singing insists on clear diction and a full, rounded tone. The basic melody is called “ping diao”, within which there are further divisions of “joy tune”, “anger tune” and “sorrow tune”. The sung text insists on rhyming on every couplet; the style is plain and readily understood, mostly using seven-syllable lines, with a few three- or five-syllable lines mixed in and now and then a padding word inserted into a line. The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
Han Xin Seeking a Divination
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
The Old Fisherman by the River
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
Ten Views of West Lake
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber)
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
Twin Pearl Phoenixes
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
The Pearl Tower
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
Six Beauties
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
The White Snake
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
The Green Snake
The repertoire of Hangzhou pingci falls into two classes: one is short, finely worked singing passages called “ti tangshi”, also known as “opening piece”, sung entirely in seven-syllable rhymed prose, with such pieces as Han Xin Seeking a Divination, The Old Fisherman by the River, Ten Views of West Lake and Xi Xiang Ji (The Romance of the Western Chamber); the other is the traditional long-form book repertoire called “main text” (zheng shu), a single one of which can be sung for a month or two, with more than forty representative works including Twin Pearl Phoenixes, The Pearl Tower, Six Beauties, The White Snake and The Green Snake.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The stories of The White Snake and The Green Snake take place mainly in Hangzhou, and the plots and even the details of the books fully display the regional character of Hangzhou, sharply distinguishing them from works on the same subject in other kinds of narrative singing and drama.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present the ranks of Hangzhou pingci performers are seriously ageing and few people are coming behind them, so the art urgently needs protection and transmission. Hu Zhenghua (official archive record of the associated inheritor): He joined the Hangzhou Pinghua Wengu Society in 1950, and in 1958 joined the Hangzhou Quyi Troupe, serving as the principal pingci performer of the pinghua team. His representative repertoire is The White Snake and Twin Pearl Phoenixes, and he is especially skilled in The White Snake. Not only skilled in performance, he was also diligent in compiling and performing new repertoire, and the new long-form Hangzhou pingci works he compiled and performed, such as Yu Qian and Fifteen Strings of Cash, have had considerable influence. Throughout the 1960s he went on performing Hangzhou pingci for the people in factories and teahouses in his spare time, and devoted himself to collecting and sorting out material on Hangzhou pingci; the performance script of the traditional long-form Hangzhou pingci work The White Snake, dictated by him and edited by Chen Qingsheng, was printed as a book in 2008. Male, of Han nationality, born in September 1926, died in February 2011, a native of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province. He is the representative inheritor of the third national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage item Hangzhou Pingci.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Hu Zhenghua 03-1171
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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