Shangluo Flower Drum is a unique form of artistic expression in China. This entry provides a detailed introduction to the historical origin, contemporary development and artistic characteristics of Shangluo Flower Drum, an art form with a long history, which has the role of a living fossil in the study of the history of the development and evolution of opera and music, and which is now included in the Intangible Cultural Heritage. Shangluo Flower Drums, also called Jumping Flower Drums and Dancing Flower Drums, is a kind of folk art that raps and sings in jumping and dancing, therefore, jumping and dancing become one of the most prominent features of flower drum performances, which is carried out throughout the performances of characters of flower drums in a hall. Flower drum jumping method is diversified, the posture is robust and beautiful, there are jumping, flashing jumping, bouncing, twisting jumping, stepping jumping; there are rabbit jumping, sparrow jumping, side jumping, one-legged jumping, double stomping jumping; there are triangular jumping, cross jumping, the word jumping, inflection line jumping, double eight jumping. Although there are a lot of jumps, there is no fixed program for the performances, and the performers give free play to the jumps, making them beautiful, natural, vivid and enjoyable to watch.
The musical structure of Shangluo Flower Drum Opera belongs to a joint song. It organically links up a branch of flower-drum ditties, or use them separately or use several ditties to express the content of the drama, constituting a specific flower-drum opera cantata. Its musical form, according to the content can be divided into three kinds of big tube, eight forks and flower drums. Flower Drum Opera is mainly performed in folk songs and ditties, also known as ditties, reflecting the labor and love life of the local people, with representative plays such as "Ironing", "Playing Straw Shoes", "Brother Receiving Sisters", "Blind Man Touching His Wife", and "Jia Jinlian Going Back to Henan", etc. The Eight Forks Opera is performed in eight forked tunes, also known as eight-forked operas, reflecting the erotic stories of the male son and the female son, and the tunes are divided into two kinds of tunes: the yang bajiao and yin bajiao; the yang bajiao is also known as hard bajiao or big bajiao, and the yin bajiao is also called Big Bajiao, Yin Bajiao also called soft Bajiao or small Bajiao, representative repertoire of "sitting in the west building", "send fragrant tea", "small east building", "small teeth building", etc.; big tube to tube huqin accompaniment, also called tube play, belongs to the flower drums in the large and medium-sized play, more performance of historical stories, folk tales and mythological content, representative repertoire of "blue bridge carrying water", "Liu Hai play golden toad", "blood knife", "ten thousand lifetimes", "Shanbo visit friends", "four", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the", "the" and "the". Shanbo Visits Friends", "Four Sisters Come Down to Earth", "King Zhengde Visits the Virtuous", etc. The Shangluo Flower Drums are famous for performing the Three Little Flower Drums. Shangluo Flower Drums mainly performs three small plays, in which the young student, the young dancer and the clown are its main characters, and the performances are vivid and lively, rich in folk colors. Big Tubes
(also known as Two Sheds, Tubes Opera): This is a more advanced type of Flower Drum Opera, which has civil and military scenes and is close to the form of opera. Because the shed is its stage, its stage is second to the stage of the play, greater than the stage of the play, so it is called two shed. And because the instrument used in the cultural field is called tube Hu, its shape is like Erhu, the head is thicker, the tone is crisp, bright, rough, thick. There are seven kinds of tunes: Xiao Sheng tune, Lao Sheng tune, old with fewer tunes, half-board, board half, Yin tune, put mourning son.
The Eight Forks
There are two kinds of tunes: Yang Bak Forks and Yin Bak Forks (Yang Bak Forks is also known as Hard Bak Forks and Big Bak Forks; Yin Bak Forks is also known as Soft Bak Forks or Seven Forks). Because the main tune for the eight fork tune, so the folk called it "eight fork theater". Yang Bajiao is characterized by one person to sing, the crowd to help the voice. Accompaniment form for the actors singing, gongs and drums with the section, that is, the actors singing, in the cavity sentence interspersed with fixed gongs and drums point accompaniment, without strings, the end of the sentence by the back of the stage to help the cavity, become a person to sing and the crowd of the form of cooperation. Its vocal structure is a combination of subcavity, co-cavity and appeal board; Yin Bajiao has a cheerful, bold and lyrical tune. Rhythm is chic. It is a five-tone tune. Generally used for singing at the beginning of the play or on the road. In the use and can be added to other ditties to sing. As long as there are these two tunes in the middle of each small opera can be called Yin eight fork theater.
Flower Drums
(also known as the minor operas): Because the tunes in the play are composed of folk songs, so it is also called the minor operas, which are characterized by: maintaining the original appearance of the general folk songs, less dramatization; more tunes, melodic rhythms, modal variations are more abundant. Some of the repertoire is sung in the form of a song with many variations until the end, and some are sung in the form of a variety of tunes with a variety of variations. The structure of the tunes has both a dyadic structure and a form of beginning, middle and end. Gong, Shang, Jiao, Zheng, Fei are all kinds of tunes. To Shang, Zheng, Fei tunes are mostly, especially Shang tune characteristics are more obvious and prominent (such as pomegranate baby burning fire tune), singing colorful; by the name of the play from the name of the tune, the tune is short, fast-paced, melodic and fluent. Its accompaniment is only added with gongs and drums according to the needs of singing in a section of each tune or at the end of the tune, and there is no strict limitation on the word frame, with five, seven, and ten sentences, as well as irregular forms of wearing sentences. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 250 tunes.
Because of the different spreading regions, it can be divided into two kinds: Shangdan Road and Zhenzhu Road. In terms of music style and language tone, Shangdan Road uses Guanzhong language family and local native language (part of it also uses Xihe language), and its tunes are fluent, beautiful, soft, and melodious. Zhenzha Road generally adopts the local sound (i.e. Northwest Hubei language family, locally known as Xihe language) in its music style and language tone, and its tunes are mostly high-pitched, bright and cheerful. Time: 2006
Category: Traditional Drama
Region: Shaanxi
Number: Ⅳ-61
Declared Region or Unit: Shangluo City, Shaanxi Province
The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, and on May 20, 2006, Shangluo Flower Drums were approved by the State Council to be included in the the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.