Yunnan is a region where ethnic minorities gather, so the lantern theater has been developed in the ethnic minority areas.
Mengzi has been a major military and defense town for generations. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the continuous combination of the garrison soldiers and the indigenous peoples has made the culture of the Central Plains gradually open up the barbaric land. With the implementation of land reclassification and the central power of the dynasty, Mengzi social economy from the slaves quickly into feudal landlord system. The flourishing imperial examination system has created a number of indigenous intellectuals, thus promoting comprehensive cultural exchanges between the frontier and the mainland. The Mengzi Yi lanterns were born out of this historical and cultural background.
Mengzi Yi lanterns originated in Xinyikong village of Yi township by the sea of Changqiao, i.e. Yongning village of Yubianpu town. As early as the Tongzhi period in the Qing Dynasty, Xinyikong village has a lantern singing activities, and in the village of the scholar Yang Hongyi's advocacy and participation in the local folk material into the drama, mocking and scourging of power, revealing the plight of the people, conveying the bottom of the poor people's feelings of joy, anger, sadness and happiness in the rap lantern songs and dances. It left behind more than 10 plays such as "Little Carp Sea", "Flower Drum Gong", "Fishing", "Goat Herding" and more than 10 songs such as "Gold and Silver Point", "Guess the Flower Tune", "Comb and Makeup Tune", "New Year's Day Tune" and so on.
Mengzi Yi lanterns are a combination of songs, dances and dramas, with all the lines being in Chinese, and the actors, dancers, clowns and actors performing in the same opera, with lively plots, witty language, beautiful dances and joyful music. Instrumental music mainly consists of pipa, sanxian, dianhu and huqin, with no percussion. The props are only scarves, fans and flower whips. Sheng, dan, chou, last corner have certain lines, face Chong natural light makeup.
Mengzi Yi lanterns in the participation of intellectuals, through the refinement of generations of artists, with its unique style of performance, rich local flavor, beautiful folk song charm of its own, y rooted in the south bank of the Red River Yi folk, more than a hundred years and not decline.
Mengzi Yi lanterns survive and develop in the form of guilds. Early folk lanterns will organize a set of agreed rules and etiquette, that is, the light of the new year, set up sacrifices "Chongtian Beacon Tang Wang Lantern God", the executive card lamp makeup tour, door to door to the members of the New Year's greetings, set up public performances, after the 15th of the first month after the closure of the light.
Members of the household must be actors and actresses, and must contribute a certain amount of dues every year. When the lantern society is invited to perform at red and white wedding ceremonies, a certain amount of performance honorarium will be collected to subsidize the funding of activities, costumes, props and musical instruments.
Mengzi Yi Lanterns focus on the principle of realism, advocating that "the play should be beneficial to the wind, not just for entertainment", and the pursuit of artistic "singing with rhyme, dance with string points".
Mengzi Yi lanterns masters, oral instruction, succession of teachers out of a door, acting skills show spring and autumn. Widely circulated in Jianshui, Kaiyuan, old and Mengzi County Yi folk lanterns, all by the second generation of Yongning Village lantern artist Li Zhan. So far, the fifth generation of lantern artist Yang Jinhui and his disciples are still active in the traditional Yi lantern stage, in the inheritance and innovation, and actively for the traditional customs of this nation, for the construction of socialist national culture.
Yi lanterns are a kind of local folk theater combining song, dance and drama, with a strong local flavor and unique national style, with a history of more than a hundred years. The main traditional dances are "La Hua", "Playing Flower Whip", "Green Kingfisher Clam Shell Dance", "Bench Dragon", "Playing Flower Drums", etc., which are mostly for the service of marriage and funeral, and are heavy on entertainment.
The Yi lantern dance has been refined over a long period of time, and has formed its own unique performing style according to the aesthetic interest of the Yi people, which is "to be disciplined and dexterous, and to be generous and bold". Lahua" is a group dance in Yi lanterns, which plays the role of opening and calming down the scene. When jumping Lahua, the whole dance of men and women is in contrast with each other.
The "Lahua" has been passed down and has evolved into a kind of multi-scheduling, innovative, beautiful and fascinating multi-people group dance, which makes the opening atmosphere more enthusiastic. This dance is a basic combination of dances, reflecting the performance skills and stylistic characteristics of Yi lantern dances in general.
"Playing Flower Whip" is also called "Playing Overlord Whip", which is a kind of skillful dance in Yi Lantern Song and Dance, and it is performed in the Lantern Song and Dance "Four Ministers" drama. It can also be danced alone. It can also be used for self-entertainment. The music, such as Guaihua tune and combing tune, is relatively beautiful and cheerful, and has been widely circulated until now as long as it is in the areas where the Yi people live, regardless of whether it is in the mountainous areas or in the dam areas.
The Green Kingfisher and Mussel Shell Dance is a customary dance with a dramatic plot, almost like a street play, which began to circulate in the mid-1930s in the Yi and Han folklore of Mengzi, where it is performed at weddings, funerals, and festivals.
Legend has it that Jiang Ziya, who lived in the mountains before he was sacked by King Wu of Zhou, used to fish in the river with a straight hook. One day, he saw a kingfisher chasing and pecking a clam, so he lured the kingfisher with his own fish, thus protecting the clam. Originally, this clam was originally a fairy in the Palace of Heaven, because of Si Fan want to run to the earth was found by the Jade Emperor, punished it to become a clam living in the water, never see the sky, and ordered a day of God as a kingfisher in the sea to monitor, see the clam out of the water will be pecked to death immediately.
The Green Kingfisher and the Dance of the Mussel Shells is an expression of this mythological story. In the beginning, there were only three actors: Jiang Ziya, the clam spirit and the kingfisher, but later it developed into a large square dance for celebrating festivals.
"Bench Dragon" is a kind of entertainment and fitness dance with a bench as a prop and a dragon as a prop, and it was introduced to Mengzi in the early 20th century, and was widely circulated in the Yi area, and gradually became a lively program of the folk lantern festival. This dance in addition to the festivals in the performance, every time the village sacrifices the dragon for rain, as a kind of ritual entertainment dance performance, praying for blessing the wind and rain, grain harvest.
"Playing Flower Drums" is a traditional Yi lantern play combining song, dance and drama, reflecting what a pair of Anhui Fengyang flower-drum artists saw and heard when they went to Yunnan, with lyrics that can be improvised and adapted according to the characteristics of the region where the play is performed, and dance movements that are cheerful and dashing.
Floral lanterns of ethnic minority areas, in addition to the Mengzi Yi lanterns and the Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture Yaoan County lanterns. The lanterns of this region have no specific heirs and compilers, relying on the words and teachings of the parents and the young people, and have been passed down from generation to generation.
Performances of the lanterns are usually held during the Spring Festival, when farmers organize lantern-playing groups to go to each village and each household to perform. Yaoan lanterns have deep roots, rich flavor, unique features, and are widely circulated, and mass participation is also wide. Its performances are usually during the Spring Festival, organized by the farmers to play lamp class to the village households to perform, some were received by a special performance, the host family to prepare tea and rice hospitality.
The performance of Yaoan lanterns is mostly sung by the interrupters who sing a toast first, then pull flowers, and then perform a play. In the performance, there are gongs, drums, cymbals, small gongs, flutes, erhu, moon zither, three strings and other musical instruments accompanied, and in the march or play the dragon or lion. The main types of Yaoan lanterns are Xiaoyi Lahua, Lotus Flower Drop and Damzi Cavity.
Xiaoyi Lahua is a kind of song and dance program that has been passed down in Yaoan lanterns, and it used to be the opening play, with the basic formation of a circle, and it also plays the role of expanding the field during the performance in the square, which is why it is called "dustbin light" and "group field play".
The dance is centered on a man who plays a fork in the road, with four or five male and female dancers, a man who plays a fork in the road with an anointed umbrella, and dancers who use handkerchiefs and colorful fans as props. The dancers use handkerchiefs and colorful fans as props. They also sing and dance tunes with flat accents, opening the door to wealth, guessing the tune, picking flowers in December, and running the score. The tunes are generally playing the fork tune, bird name haunted five nights, the banker haunted five nights, the big embroidered bag of incense and so on.
When the show, the interrupter first came on the stage, with a number of boards to sing very interesting interrupter words, leading to the male and female dancers out to the circle as the main formation, singing and dancing, occasionally accompanied by a paragraph or a few paragraphs of the interrupter words, to the joyful jumping in the running score and the end of the interrupter guided by the interrupter off the stage.
In the circle dance, there are side fish playing in the water, twisting twists, wearing flowers, old ox rubbing his back, magpies, flies rubbing their legs and so on. In the body dance, there are the eagle sunbathing on the wing, fishing for sun at the bottom of the sea, the small fish grabbing water, the double face, the lion ringing the bell, and the independent branch.
And Fai step, no matter men and women, young and old, or form, Fai step throughout, but in the Fai step according to the characters in the different lines, "Fai" out of the characters of the different characters, there is a word Fai step, Ting Fai step, cross Fai step, and upside down step, step, big four-square step, small four-square step, and so on.
The dance movements of the lantern show are characterized by "wai", so the singing lanterns are also called "wai lanterns", and the main props are fans and pads. "The main props are fans and handkerchiefs. The more the lanterns are waied, the more they like it, and the more the handkerchiefs and fans go round and round," is a true portrayal of the lanterns' dance.
La Hua full dance in addition to the use of Yaoan's unique flat cavity and other tunes, and more use of Yaoan lanterns in the dance movements, these dance movements are also along the name of the music, but each has its own variations, so as to form a relative existence of the set, the formation of a unique style of Yaoan lanterns.
The Lotus Flower Dance of Yaoan lanterns was introduced to Yunnan from abroad, and with a group of beggars settling down in Yaoan, this art form was also passed down here. The singers are mostly poor peasants who lost their land, and most of them are women, who are forced to sing Lotus Flower Dance and wander around, and sell their songs to get a thin reward for their living, which is anciently called the "Fate Tune" and the "Beggar Tune".
Lianhuadu singing is mostly a person singing, the crowd, or crowd singing, a number of people dial. There are many different kinds of helpers, and the liner notes change a lot, so it sounds full of life and unique flavor.
In the 1940s and 1950s, only three or four songs were sung, such as "Watching Sisters" and "Counting the Names of Flowers". Later, due to the expansion of the activities of the region, the artists continue to draw on the ditties, lanterns, songs, etc., circulating throughout Yunnan, enriching the tunes and repertoire of the Lotus Flower Tree, the tunes increased to more than 30, the repertoire reaches more than 100.
The content of Lotus Flower Tribe singing is wide-ranging and very rich. There are traditional stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, such as Cutting the Liver and Saving the Mother, Cao An Killing the Son, Zhu Yingtai, and Zhu Hong Playing Horses, etc. There are songs about love, marriage and family. There are songs about love, marriage and family, such as "Watching Lang", "Abducting Dry Sisters", "Embroidering Lotus", "Watching Sisters" and so on. There are also songs about the world, such as "Counting Yaozhou", "Counting the Names of Places", "Picking up Girls", "Mountain Tunes", "Catching Horses", etc. Most of these songs are self-written and self-arranged. Most of these songs are self-written and sung, reflecting the real life and many aspects of the people's feelings and customs in a real and simple way.
After the establishment of New China, the artists were highly respected by the people, and the conditions of production and living improved, so they no longer made a living by selling songs, and the Lotus Flower Pipe, a kind of drama with local flavor and rich living atmosphere, was preserved and improved, and it became a wonderful flower of the national literature and art.
Yaoan lanterns of the dam cavity is divided into the upper dam cavity and the lower dam cavity. The Upper Damzi Cavity is sung with a slight and heavy voice, with a low and elegant rhythm, and a feeling of deep emotion. The lower dam cavity singing voice high, exciting and bright, let a person have a kind of light and smooth feeling, and the most test singer's voice voice and eloquence.
The Damzi accent is sung in the form of male and female duets, with the lyrics divided into two parts: the main word and the subword. In the whole singing, the melody is inseparable and interdependent, which makes Yaoan Damzi accent unique and charming.
In order to promote the inheritance of the unique Yaoan lanterns, Yaoan County Lantern Troupe was established in 1956, and in 1983, the Farmer's Drama Creation Group was set up, which is the Farmer's Drama Association, and it has long insisted on creating performances and counseling amateur performance teams to perform.
In recent years, Yaoan County dam area townships, village committees, neighborhood committees at any time can be convened twenty or thirty people lantern song and dance performance team. Yaoan lantern song and dance throughout the city and countryside, men and women, young and old can sing, is an important part of the Yunnan lantern.