Guilin Yugu
01 · Historical Records
It is generally held that Guilin yugu developed and evolved gradually out of the merging of Hunan yugu, which was brought to Guilin from Hunan in the early 18th century, with the local speech and musical tunes of Guilin, Guangxi; by the early 20th century it had developed into an important storytelling performance form in the Guilin area.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Guilin yugu is a traditional drum-song (gushu) form of quyi performed in speech and song using the Guilin local accent. Guilin yugu is transmitted over a wide area, reaching some forty counties and cities in the four regions of northern, central, north-eastern and north-western Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region where Guilin Mandarin is spoken, as well as parts of the counties and townships of Nanning City and Chongzuo City. There are two forms of Guilin yugu performance. The first is “dan tong” (single-drum playing), in which one performer holds the yugu drum in the left hand and beats it with the right, playing and singing unaided; the second is group singing and speaking by two to seven or eight persons, or even more than ten, with the performers taking up different instruments for accompaniment or for joining in the singing. The principal instrument, the yugu drum, is made of nan bamboo about 11 centimetres in diameter and about 2 chi long (a chi being about 33 centimetres); the drum head may be covered with snake skin, frog skin or pig lard skin, and it is used together with jianban clappers, erhu, zhonghu, yueqin, zhongruan, sanxian, dizi, saucers, wine cups and so on. The music of Guilin yugu belongs to the pentatonic scale in the zhi mode, and has a southern route and a northern route; it is a four-sentence single-tune form whose qi-cheng-zhuan-he (rise, carry, turn, close) structure is comparatively simple. The structure is in paired lines, rhyming on every second line and carrying a single rhyme throughout; the melody follows the words, and the final syllable of an upper line must be oblique while that of a lower line must be level. The vocal styles change according to the tone and emotional colouring of the sung words: the northern route expresses a mood that is clear, cheerful, high-pitched and stirring, while the southern route expresses melancholy, low and meditative feeling, sorrow and indignation; using the two different styles of melody, the narrative of the story and the changes in the different emotions of its characters can be expressed more vividly and accurately. The traditional repertoire of Guilin yugu is mainly of medium and long length, and more than fifty works are known, such as Yudai Ji (The Jade Belt) and Lansi Dai (The Blue Ribbon); newly composed programmes number several dozen, among them Erjie Zuomeng (Second Sister's Dream) and Shuishang Zhuafei (Catching the Bandit on the Water). Places of performance mainly include village ancestral halls, market places and the main rooms of farmhouses. Guilin yugu records and corroborates the history of the blending among the Central Plains culture, the Chu culture and the Luoyue culture, depicts the many aspects of human life from many angles and on many levels, and gives people enlightenment and education. Owing to its humorous and witty style full of the flavour of everyday life, it is deeply popular and enriches the cultural life of the people.
Solo and ensemble formats
Its two formats are the solo single-tube performance and ensembles of two to a dozen singers sharing instruments and chorus.
Traditional titles
Traditional titles among over fifty medium and long pieces.
Newly composed pieces
Examples of the several dozen newly composed modern items.
The bamboo drum
The main drum is made from a two-foot length of bamboo about eleven centimetres across, headed with snake, frog or pork skin.
Southern and northern styles
In a pentatonic zhi mode, the northern style is bright and high while the southern is sombre and reflective.
Li Weichen and her pupils
The inheritor Li Weichen, born in 1941 into an artistic family, trained under Wang Renhe and Liu Yuying and has taken fourteen pupils.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Guilin yugu divides into a southern route and a northern route by vocal style: the northern route is high-pitched and bright, and is good at heroic legends and festive stories, while the southern route is low and mellow and is mostly used for plots of sorrow, indignation and melancholy. It is transmitted through nearly forty counties and cities of northern, central, north-eastern and north-western Guangxi where Guilin Mandarin is spoken, as well as parts of Nanning and Chongzuo; performances are mostly given in village ancestral halls, market places and the main rooms of farmhouses, and at funerals it is customary for the family of the deceased to invite performers to sing traditional yugu pieces during the “nuan sang” (warming of the funeral).
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Traditionally Guilin yugu was performed on village opera stages, and it is welcomed by art lovers in town and countryside for being easy to learn, easy to remember, easy to perform and easy to compose; today the more than a thousand art troupes active in towns and villages are all able to sing Guilin yugu. In the local Guangxi funeral custom of “nuan sang” (warming of the funeral), the family of the deceased often invites performers to sing traditional yugu pieces. Li Weichen (as recorded in the official file on the associated inheritor): female, of Han nationality, born in October 1941, native of Guilin City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. A member of the staff of the Guilin Municipal Mass Arts Centre. She comes from a family of artists; in 1961 she became a professional quyi performer, and was a disciple of the famous artists Wang Renhe and Liu Yuying, among others. Her articulation in speech and song is clear and nimble, her melodic phrasing gentle, her stage manner free and her bearing elegant, giving her a distinctive artistic personality. In 1982 she was transferred to the Folk Arts Research Office of the Guilin Municipal Mass Arts Centre, where she collected materials on folk quyi, and has devoted herself throughout to the study, research, organisation and dissemination of Guilin yugu. In recent years she has taken on fourteen disciples in succession, including Peng Chenghong, Deng Weidong, Gu Qing, Zhang Liying and Liao Guangming. Representative inheritor of Guilin yugu in the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Li Weichen 05-2530
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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