Taige

Ⅹ-87Folk CustomsPujiang, ZhejiangBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Taige (raised pavilions) originated in god-welcoming festival processions in the Central Plains, later spreading gradually to the southeast coast and the northwest, where it flourished for a time in the Qing dynasty; in the course of transmission it combined with local conditions and formed distinct characteristics. The Pujiang Yinghui began in the Song dynasty and reached its peak in the Qing dynasty. In the tenth month of the twenty-ninth year of the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty (1849), a Yinghui procession was held at Qingshan Rock in Tonghua Township, an event of unprecedented splendor.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Taige, also known as taijiao (carried roles), taige (raised songs), gaotai (raised platforms), naoge, naoge (head pavilions) and gaozhuang (high costumes), is a folk parade performance form in traditional festival activities. In a taige performance, several children dress as characters from traditional opera and, following the plot, form striking tableaux fixed to the iron pillars and supports of a square pavilion, which bearers then carry forward. Traditional taige tableaux mostly draw on plays such as The Butterfly Lovers, Tianxian Pei (The Fairy Couple), Legend of the White Snake, Journey to the West, Zhaojun Goes to the Frontier, The Blue Bridge Rendezvous, The Yellow Crane Tower and The Fisherman's Revenge. The tableaux stand about 3 to 5 meters high; the pavilions range from three to five tiers, generally with one person on each tier, though some have four people on the bottom tier, five or six in the middle tiers and one on the top tier. In a taige parade, generally four pavilions are used, and at most six or even eight; each pavilion is carried forward by four or eight bearers. Taige fuses painting, opera, colored paper framing and paper sculpture into a single art form; its tableaux are elegant and its scenes spectacular, much loved by the broad masses, and it has flourished among the people for a long time without decline. The Pujiang Yinghui is a highly distinctive folk festival procession, said to have originated in sacrificial rites honoring Lord Hu (Hugong Dadi); it has long been popular in Huangzhai, Qianwu, Tonghua (now part of Lanxi) and other places in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province. Taige parading is one of the important activities of the Pujiang Yinghui; for this reason the Pujiang Yinghui is also called “taige”, and it wins its reputation through strangeness and thrills. The Pujiang taige consists of five parts: the procession table, the carrying poles, the table railings, the table bearers and the child performers who stand on the table. For each table, several lively and pretty boys and girls aged three to five are chosen to play characters from traditional opera stories, standing suspended in the air or flying above the table; the tableaux take traditional opera figures as their basis and subject them to further artistic design. Each procession table is carried by four to sixteen young and strong men, and while walking the performers must also change their poses. The Pujiang Yinghui names each procession after the story shown on its table, such as “Sun Wukong Borrows the Fan”, “Cleaving the Mountain to Save His Mother”, “Jiang Taigong Fishing”, “Three Invitations to Lihua”, “Borrowing the Umbrella” and “The Grand Peach Banquet”; one table is one play. The Yinghui procession opens with copper and iron cannons, led by dragon-and-tiger flags, long banners and ceremonial canopies, with great gongs clearing the way; the procession tables and the shijinban (multi-instrument ensembles) follow closely behind. The procession is huge in scale and spectacular in momentum. As times have changed, the connotations of the Yinghui have shifted, and it has gradually become a celebration at festivals and various folk ceremonies.

Each table is a play

Tables take their names from their story, so each carries a complete play.

Firecrackers and banners leading the way

Guns and crackers open the way, banners and canopies lead, gongs sound and the tables follow.

Changing poses while the table moves

Four to sixteen young men bear each table, and the costumed players change pose on the move.

Aerial and dispersed table design

Players stand on the table or float in the air, modelled on traditional opera figures and further stylised.

Peach Banquet and the Eight Immortals

Inheritor Zhang Genzhi built nine tables of different sizes, among them the Peach Banquet and the Eight Immortals.

Roots in the worship of Duke Hu

The festival traces its origin to rites honouring Duke Hu and has long been popular in Pujiang.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Pujiang Yinghui procession tables are mounted in Huangzhai, Qianwu, Tonghua (now part of Lanxi) and other places; each village names its procession after its own chosen subject, and the gear for building the tables and the strong men who carry them mostly come from the village itself — a contest between villages of strength and of storytelling. In the tenth month of the twenty-ninth year of the Daoguang reign of the Qing dynasty (1849), the Yinghui held at Qingshan Rock in Tonghua Township was an event of unprecedented splendor, which shows how wide the gathering was in those days. Today's procession tables are led by the line of the inheritor Zhang Genzhi, who was born into a Yinghui family; he has designed and created nine large and small procession tables, adopting an open-air dispersal method to give the limited tables a spatial effect beyond their limits.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

With the acceleration of modernization, taige activities have gradually declined; in the countryside the craft of making taige faces a shortage of successors, and related rescue and preservation work is extremely urgent. The Pujiang Yinghui embodies in concentrated form the traditional folk culture of central Zhejiang and the Jiangnan coastal region, which is based on popular belief; it preserves the performance traditions of folk arts such as opera and acrobatics, and has irreplaceable value for the study of folk customs. Zhang Genzhi (associated inheritor, per official archives): Male, Han ethnicity, born in May 1943, from Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province. Born into a Pujiang Yinghui family, influenced by his family and village, he loved taige art from childhood, mastered traditional taige design concepts and a range of techniques, and has designed and created nine large and small procession tables, adopting an open-air dispersal method to give the limited tables a spatial effect beyond their limits. He has led Pujiang Yinghui works to events including the 35th Chingay Parade in Singapore, the Beijing International Tourism and Culture Festival, the Shanghai World Expo and the 8th National Games for Persons with Disabilities, winning acclaim from all quarters. Representative works include The Grand Peach Banquet, The Eight Immortals at the Grand Gathering and Xianyi (Offering Art). Representative inheritor of Taige (Xinzi, Tiezhi, Piaose) — Pujiang Yinghui — a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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