Pansuoli
01 · Historical Records
Pansori (Pansuoli) is the narrative singing music of the Korean ethnic group and came into being in the 18th century. There are two accounts of its origin: one holds that it was created by itinerant artists on the basis of a certain kind of drama, while the other holds that it derives from songs in shamanic ritual. The term Pansori is a literal transliteration from Korean, and simply means a song sung before a large audience. The “Guanghanlou Yuepu” (Guanghan Tower Music Score) of the early 19th century records: “In the theatre of the singing actors, one person stands and one person sits; the one standing sings, and the one sitting marks the rhythm with a drum. Among the miscellaneous songs there are twelve arias, and the Xiangniang Song is one of them.” Korean Pansori circulates in the three northeastern provinces and is transmitted chiefly in the Korean settlements of Tieling, Kaiyuan, Changtu and other places. Because Pansori is rich in narrative and makes it easy to express a character's inner feelings, it gradually became a musical form deeply cherished by the Korean masses.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Pansori features one performer playing many roles, “entering into and coming out of” the characters; song predominates, speech is interwoven with singing and singing with speech. A high-level Pansori performance is a synthesis of many arts: the single performer, in coordination with the drummer, uses only her own singing voice, spoken passages, bodily movements and a single fan as a prop to depict the relations of conflict and reconciliation, of good and evil, and of beauty and ugliness among all things in the world. Pansori integrates music, literature and performance into one whole.
The five surviving song cycles
Of the original twelve cycles only the main passages of the Song of Chunhyang, Sim Cheong, Heungbu, the Underwater Palace and the Red Cliff survive in Tieling.
One performer, many roles
A single singer slips in and out of many roles, blending song and speech with gesture and one fan to portray conflict, good and evil, beauty and ugliness.
The drummer and the fan
The staging is minimal: the singer stands with a fan as prop and gesture aid while a seated drummer follows the turns of the plot.
The Tieling transmission line
The Tieling line runs from the folk artist Li Zhufeng through Zheng Lerui and Hong Huafeng to Hong Yongji and Jin Lihao.
The twelve modes recorded in 1800s scores
An early nineteenth-century score records the form's staging—one standing singer, one seated drummer—and its twelve modes, of which the Song of Hyangnang is one.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Pansori circulates in the three northeastern provinces, and the Korean settlements of Tieling, Kaiyuan, Changtu and other places are the main areas of transmission; the Tieling Municipal Korean Ethnic Culture and Art Hall is the protecting unit. In Tieling the arias have been carried on through master-to-disciple transmission: the folk artist Li Zhufeng passed the principal Pansori arias and singing methods in his possession on to Zheng Lerui of the village and others; Zheng Lerui then taught Hong Huafeng, who, while serving as a music guidance cadre in the Tieling County Cultural Centre, trained further disciples including Hong Yongji and Jin Lihao. Early Pansori comprised twelve great scenes, but today only the principal arias of five of them — “Chunxiang Song”, “Shenqing Song”, “Xingfu Song”, “Shuigong Song” and “Chibi Song” — have been handed down; the other arias have been lost.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Pansuoli.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The most influential transmitter of Pansori in Tieling is the folk artist Li Zhufeng, who passed the principal Pansori arias and singing methods in his possession on to Zheng Lerui of the village and others; Zheng Lerui in turn taught what he had learned to Hong Huafeng and others, and Hong Huafeng, later serving as a music guidance cadre in the Tieling County Cultural Centre, trained a number of disciples including Hong Yongji and Jin Lihao. Early Pansori comprised twelve great scenes, but today only the principal arias of five scenes — “Chunxiang Song”, “Shenqing Song”, “Xingfu Song”, “Shuigong Song” and “Chibi Song” — have been handed down by old artists of Tieling such as Li Zhufeng, Zheng Lerui and Hong Huafeng; the other arias have been lost, and the art is in an endangered state. Jin Lihao (as recorded in the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Korean ethnic group, born in February 1954, a native of Tieling City, Liaoning Province. At the age of 17 he became a disciple of Hong Huafeng to study Pansori, learning the singing methods and singing techniques and mastering its principal arias, “Chunxiang Song”, “Shenqing Song”, “Xingfu Song”, “Shuigong Song” and “Chibi Song”. For nearly ten years he has devoted himself to the transmission of Pansori, collecting and sorting out nineteen sung lyrics and thirteen musical scores, and gathering seventeen physical items including performance costumes and props. Representative inheritor of Pansori, a project in the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. In 2010 Pansori teaching bases were established in a number of primary and secondary schools in Kaiyuan City, Liaoning Province, where more than six hundred pupils from Shenyang, Anshan, Panjin, Yanbian and other places were trained.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Jiang Xinzi 04-1731
- Jin Lihao 05-2522
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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