Minjian Shehuo Performance
01 · Historical Records
Folk shehuo is a popular self-entertainment activity performed during the Spring Festival; it originated in the ancient worship of the earth god and the fire god. Xun County lies in northern Henan Province. Its folk shehuo is a traditional mass entertainment activity of the locality, with a long history: it had already begun to take shape as early as the Tang and Song dynasties, and it reached maturity and its height from the Ming and Qing periods through the Republican era.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
"She" refers to the god of the earth; "huo" is the ancestral founder of fire, the legendary fire god. Historically a country founded on agriculture, China used its land for cultivation and its fire for cooking food and keeping warm; both were the material basis of people's survival and development. In antiquity, primitive thinking led people to believe that fire too had a "spirit," and they came to worship it as a divine object of special significance, thus forming the idea of venerating fire. From the ancient worship of the earth god and the fire god grew the custom of sacrificing to she and huo. As society developed and people's understanding deepened, elements of entertainment were gradually added to these sacrificial rites, which in the end developed into a folk entertainment activity of great scale and rich content. By performance form, shehuo falls into two categories: tableau shehuo and performance shehuo. Tableau shehuo includes the procession forms of cloth shehuo, back-carried shehuo, horse shehuo, cart shehuo, core-frame shehuo, mountain shehuo and mask shehuo, which mainly display character modelling and craftsmanship; performance shehuo includes ground-platform shehuo and stilt shehuo, which mainly stage combat performances in courtyards. Shehuo draws on folk legends and dramatic stories for its themes; one or a group of figures presents one story, and one story constitutes one "turn" of shehuo. The performers paint shehuo facial make-up, wear shehuo costumes and carry shehuo staffs. In a shehuo procession a scout on horseback goes first, followed by the shehuo association banner, the firearm (cannon) squad, the flag squad and the shehuo troupe, with the gong-and-drum band bringing up the rear. Reform and opening up brought new vitality to the art of folk shehuo; under the new conditions the traditional art has been carried forward and has become a folk cultural activity that the masses greatly enjoy. The temple fair held each year on the fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first month in Xun County is the largest traditional temple fair in northern China, and Xun County shehuo chooses the fifteenth day of the first month, the Lantern Festival, and the ninth day of the first month before it, as its days for going out on parade. The performance forms of Xun County shehuo mainly include lion dance, stilt-walking, yangge, dry boats, bamboo horses, dragon lanterns, carried songs and back-carried songs, the "carried old fourth," head-lamp dances, big-head dances and floating river lanterns; when performed, the spectators gather like clouds and the scene is extraordinarily lively. The folk arts encompassed by Xun County folk shehuo are of many kinds; at each year's temple fair nearly seventy shehuo troupes with more than thirty thousand performers take part, and the audience numbers over three hundred thousand.
Two appearances: the ninth and the fifteenth
The local rite takes the ninth and the fifteenth as its two performance days, keyed to the great northern temple fair.
Carried songs, the borne pavilion and Tai Lao Si
From lion dance to stilts, boat and lantern, the programme includes carried pavilions, lit heads and river lantern floats, drawing huge crowds.
Wheeled frames for the carried pavilion
Sun Shulin converted sixteen-, twenty-four- and thirty-two-person lifts to wheeled frames, sparing a hundred porters and steadying the ride.
Stage make-up and opera dress on the frame
Sun proposed painting faces, wearing opera dress and playing characters, creating new pieces such as Chaping Ji and Shaimiao.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Xun County's folk shehuo grew up attached to the local temple fair: the fair held each year on the fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first month is the largest traditional temple fair in northern China, and shehuo accordingly fixes the fifteenth day of the first month, the Lantern Festival, and the ninth day of the first month before it as its days for going out on parade — two appearances within the one year. The fair days are also when the shehuo troupes assemble: nearly seventy shehuo troupes with more than thirty thousand people gather in the grounds, and the audience reaches over three hundred thousand. The kinds of performance are spread out in order across these two days — lion dance, stilt-walking, yangge, dry boats, bamboo horses, dragon lanterns, carried songs and back-carried songs, the carried "old fourth," head-lamp dances, big-head dances and floating river lanterns — with each village sending its best items to the front of the stage. Carried-pavilion types require the cooperation of frames and carrying poles; old artists such as Sun Shulin converted the large frames carried by sixteen, twenty-four and thirty-two people into wheeled frames, saving the labour of as many as a hundred people and making the pavilions travel more smoothly and safely. He also proposed a complete scheme of painting stage make-up, wearing opera costume trunks and playing dramatic characters, so that opera figures genuinely appeared on the pavilions.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Xun County shehuo has evolved from its original sacrificial form into a folk entertainment activity, showing a general tendency in the formation and development of folk art, and it has important reference value for the study of folk culture. At present many of the old artists able to perform Xun County shehuo have died one after another, and some ancient performance skills are also disappearing day by day; rescue and protection are urgently needed. Sun Shulin (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of the Han nationality, born in April 1937, a native of Xun County, Henan Province. From childhood he was passionately fond of the art of back-carried and shoulder-carried pavilions. Adapting to changing times, he boldly reformed the making of traditional frames and other props, converting the large frames carried by sixteen, twenty-four and thirty-two people into wheeled frames, sparing the manual carrying labour of as many as a hundred people and making the pavilions steadier and safer. In the performing arts, he was the first to propose the complete scheme of "painting stage make-up, wearing opera costume trunks and playing dramatic characters," and created new performance content such as "Chaping Ji" (The Tea Vase), "Shaimiao" (Killing at the Temple), "Loutai Hui" (Meeting at the Terrace) and "Shuang She Yan" (Shooting Geese in Pairs). He is a representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage projects — folk shehuo (Xun County folk shehuo).
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Du Tonghai 03-1470
- Zhao Xiwen 03-1471
- Yang Fengshan 05-2992
- Zhao Zhigao 05-2993
- Lvchunjing 05-2994
- Sun Shulin 05-2995
- Li Jianzhong 05-2996
- Pei Baolin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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