In Yunnan's rural areas and small towns, there is a kind of religious cultural activity called Huifu. The "Huifu", or "social fire", is held every year between the Lunar New Year and the Lantern Festival, or on occasions such as praying for rain.
Hui Huo activities are organized by the rotating village, Hui Huo team, in addition to carrying the "Lord of the soil", the rest is a cultural procession, including martial arts, acrobatics, and a lantern show team. The lanterns are combined with the rituals of the local gods, and are the main content of the local social fire activities.
According to the Qing Dynasty local journal "Yuanmou County Records", "Yang Tianshun is good at singing and playing, and Shun's skill in Qianfu must be made to serve the side of every banquet." The song of the bomb is the original lantern.
The final draft of "Huazhu Xinzhu" in the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty recorded that "on the day before the spring, the spring official offered spring singing, Duangong danced the spring stick, the teacher's wife played the sheepskin drum and the, the people of Fanjiazhong stepped on the song and played the reed-sheng and the" social fire performances and "Rongsai songs and dances, the folk to get together as a joy! "
Social fire organization of the Qing Dynasty.
During the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty, Yuanmou County Magistrate Wang Jiangu wrote three lantern lyrics after seeing the Yuanmou Lanterns: "A Lantern teamed up with a song, and a row of life dedicating public halls".
The sound of understanding contains the old year, and I would like to be among the populace on the spring stage. The first one is the one with the most important thing in the world, and the second one is the one with the most important thing in the world.
We are ashamed to be adrift in the world, but we are still at home in our dreams. The three contenders are the thin official stagnation of the end of the world, the interest is not satisfied with the years.
This evening, I suddenly heard this song, the green shirt of the Secretary of the encounter lute.
Yuanmou County governor in the Qing Dynasty, Tong Yitai see lanterns, see is already "Mang Shen fat, calves high, lion play dragon lanterns spring pride. Pleased with the eight barbarians, the first drum music, blowing the sheng joint arm step song grip" scene. This shows that Yuanmou County at the end of the Ming Dynasty, there are folk lantern artists who can sing and dance.
Yuanmou lantern old artist ZhangWanyu recalled that Yuanmou's Honggang lanterns have been passed down 13 generations, the earliest of the first generation in the Ming Wanli years. The first generation was around the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. Yang Shengan, a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, also wrote in his poem "Watching the Swing":
The Dian song cries out in unison,
Social drums and fishing lanterns are still alive at night.
The "social drums and fishing lanterns" mentioned in the poem have a close relationship with the lantern program "Yanglao Drum".
Because the most primitive form of lantern performance is to participate in the fire activities, so the formation of the performance is more special. Generally, they first worship the four directions, praying to the gods to bless the wind and rain, the country and the people, and then start the performance. When the "head lamp" leads the lantern team to the receptionist's house, the receptionist usually sings first: "Silk strings ringing, calling three times, honoring the sound of the head lamp to listen to the reasons for the lamp from where? Where did the lanterns start? Tell me from the beginning, and I'll let you in to see the Buddha and the gods."
The "head of the lamp" sang back: "Silk strings ring, call three times, the master of the voice of honor to hear the reason, the lamp from the Tang Dynasty, the play from the Tang King to remember, from the beginning one or two to tell you, let me go in to see the Buddha and the God."
Such a disk and answer, lamp head are answered correctly, before being released into the field.
These performances are performed in the plaza, and the rituals of the performances are much the same everywhere. The performance program is generally the first collective lantern songs and dances such as "Yanglao drum", "big head baby play Liu Cui", "group field" opening, and then perform small lantern songs and dances or lantern drama.
Yuanmou traditional lanterns have a traditional repertoire of more than 100 plays, divided into cultural theater, martial arts theater, temple theater, which is divided into robes and belts theater and three small plays. The traditional lantern repertoire has been transplanted from foreign dramas and created by local artists, all of which have formed a distinctive style of Yuanmou's local lanterns after integrating local folk songs, ditties and local operas.
Yuanmou lanterns have more than 150 music scores, collected and organized by literary and art workers, such as "Yuanmou lanterns music", "Yuanmou lanterns music", "Yuanmou lanterns information" and so on. In addition to the repertoire and repertoire, Yuanmou lanterns are full of songs and dances, with strong performances and strong local flavor, especially the lantern society performs traditional lanterns, which are quite traditional.
In addition to the Yuanmou lanterns, the lanterns in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, are also unique. As early as in the Ming Dynasty, after the Jiangnan soldiers and civilians moved to Yuxi in Yunnan, the lanterns in Yuxi combined with the Jiangnan songs to form lanterns that mainly sang Jiangnan songs. Ming Dynasty's "Jingtai Yunnan Tujing" play recorded, said:
The custom is good eulogy, the state in the Yi-han mixed, its young people beautiful sound gas, like eulogy, the Qing Dynasty night, let go of the self-compatible, heard everywhere.
This lantern show is also known as singing lights and skip lights, is because singing lights are performed in the square. Later, with the rise of kunqu, the lanterns absorbed a section of the kunqu play "Fisherman's Delight" by Zhu Zuozhao in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties.
In 1670, during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, Yunnan abolished the six guards and dispersed the army for the people, which greatly contributed to the development of the economy, and the lanterns in the fireworks were gradually transformed from praying for a good harvest to congratulating the rich households.
To the Qianlong period, Yunnan, many folk theater began to rise, lanterns because of the much loved by the people to get a big step forward. Initially, the lanterns were mostly short and long plays, because most of them were sung to the tune of Ming and Qing songs. Therefore, Xu Jiarui's "History of Yunnan Rural Opera" refers to the lantern plays of this period as the old lantern plays.
The lantern activities in this period were mainly songs and dances, which were generally called old lanterns. Moreover, most of the lanterns at this time belonged to the nature of amateur singing in the rural areas during the New Year festivals, and the collection and dispersal of the lanterns was uncertain. Although there are many enthusiastic singing lantern masters, but there is no fixed professional artist team. Although it can also be taught by word of mouth, but for a long time no one attaches importance to it.
After the end of the Qing Dynasty, Yunnan Yuxi Yushantou, Dingqitun, small carry on Zizi, Lianchi, Meiyuan, Danying Street, Research and, Songguan, Chengjiang West Street, Zilong Street, Yimen Chengguan, Huoning Qinglong, Tonghai four streets, such as the organization of a more stable lanterns, there are hundreds of them.
These lanterns will be based on lantern performances, with some simpler plots, singing various tunes strung together, and enhance the performance of the dance, becoming a song and dance program with a plot.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the economy of Yuxi, Yunnan Province, developed rapidly, and the singing of lanterns by the civic class began to flourish. Yunnan Yuxi lantern artists drew nourishment from other types of theater, such as Dian Opera, and transformed the lanterns, making the Yunnan Yuxi lanterns famous throughout Yunnan with new lights. There were many artists who made significant contributions to this period, and Xiong Jieshen was one of them.
Xiong Jieshen was born into the family of a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner in the northern township of Yuxi County. His father has been practicing medicine for decades, and his medical skills are superb. All patients who sought treatment from Dr. Xiong were able to recover from their illnesses. Dr. Xiong had planned to pass on his medical skills to his son, Xiong Jiechen, but Xiong Jiechen did not love Chinese medicine, and from his teenage years he loved the art of lanterns, which are indigenous to the Yuxi folklore.
Xiong Jiechen started elementary school in 1918, studying during the day, and often went to watch folk singing lanterns at night, and over time, he became more fond of lantern art. When he was just 13 years old, he formally worshipped Mr. She Si, a folk lantern artist in Yuxi County, as his teacher, and learned to sing lanterns, specializing in the younger generation. Because of his diligent study and hard work, he was able to participate in the Yuxi Amateur Lantern Class to sing lanterns all over the world two years later.
As the saying goes, "The work is more refined than the work, and the art has no end." Xiong Jiechen first learned to sing a small folded opera, and then study the popular theater, learn from all the strengths, skills gradually refined. Since he played the lantern drama "to explore the dry sister" in the drama of dry brother, and "Shanbo visit friends" in the drama of Liang Shanbo and other roles, Xiong Jiechen in the lantern Xiao Sheng line, emerging, and therefore was hired to Yimen County, small streets, Dacun, Feicun, and other places as a lantern teacher.
From 1927 to 1932, Xiong Jiechen began to sing lanterns in the Spring Festival every year until the end of the rice-planting season. After the fall harvest, he began to teach lanterns in rural areas. In the dark old society, the life of the artists was not guaranteed. In addition to teaching and singing lanterns, the artists were unemployed for half the year, making life extremely difficult.
In 1951, after the Kunming People's Lantern Troupe was formally established, Xiong Jiechen became the head of the troupe, where he rehearsed plays such as "People Going Higher", "Husband and Wife Cooperation", "Lohan Money" and "Hebo Marries a Woman". In his later years, Xiong Jiechen rearranged the scripts of traditional lantern plays such as "Shan Bo Visits Friends", "Wuli Tang", "Yu Mei Love" and "Jade Treasure Vase", and newly created the lantern song and dance drama "Camellia Reopens".
Xiong Jiechen has been engaged in lantern art for 56 years, contributing his life's energy to the development of lantern art and the cultivation of lantern talents. His specialty is the small lantern singer, his performance is delicate, real, comfortable, his body dashing and elegant, just healthy and vulgar. During his lifetime, he had summarized his life's performance essentials of elegance, sprinkling, and the law of hair.
"Elegance" means elegance. In the classical theater, the young students are mostly scholars, so they must be elegant. Such as Dong Yong in the play "Tian Xian Match" a class of students, although to elegant, but because of his family's poverty, labor, so must have the temperament of the working people.
"Sprinkles" that is, the dashing, acting as a young man of talent and beauty and so on should act suave and elegant, but not slutty, not frivolous, avoid rendering pornography.
"Hair" that is soft and rigid, such as human hair is very soft, but can not be molded with the hand, the hand is loose, it is straight again. Therefore, the movements of Xiaosheng should also be soft on the outside and rigid on the inside, and the inside and outside should be complementary, and must be performed in a robust and simple manner.
Xiong Jiechen in more than 50 years of artistic practice, on the one hand, inherited the traditional art of lanterns, and on the other hand on the basis of the continuous development and innovation, and absorb and learn from the excellent performance characteristics of the brotherhood of the theater, the advantages of all, the integration, a thousand hammers, a self-contained family.
Xiong Jiechen's singing voice, the word is round, the flavor of the deep and long, rhythm and staccato distinct, pure and thick style, really unique, unique. He is for the traditional lantern singing. It is not a stereotypical imitation, but according to the plot, the different feelings of the characters, to innovate and create.
For example, later lanterns used in the Yuxi Daoxiang, is Xiong Jiechen and the older generation of artists according to the Yuxi old Daoxiang plate melody development and innovation for the current Daoxiang plate, through this development, singing up the drama has been strengthened, and the expressive power has been expanded.
Xiong Jiechen's noise is crisp, sweet, pure, soft, elegant, beautiful, until 1979 when he was nearly old, has not lost color, Yunnan People's Broadcasting Station asked Xiong Jiechen to record some lanterns singing, is still the style of rich, rich voice. Xiong Jiechen is not only a good singer and performer, but also a versatile playwright, director and performer, which is rare in the lantern world.
Because of the lantern artists on the old lanterns completely transformed, to create a large number of new lantern repertoire, the old lanterns from the countryside of the regimentation of songs and dances to the stage dramatization, officially became a play lantern opera, and then popularized in the province.
Three major changes have occurred in the new lanterns: one is the creation of a large number of new lantern scripts; the second is the lanterns into the provincial capital of Kunming, the formation of professional nature of the ticket-selling performances; the third is the emergence of a number of well-known lantern artists. These three major changes mark the full completion of the new lamp to replace the old lamp.
In the new lanterns, the plays reflecting the love and family life of young men and women in the countryside, "Double Pick-up Sisters" and "Going Out to the Factory", created by artists from Yuxi, Yunnan Province, were well received by the farmers. In the process of the development of the new lamp, the Dian Opera transplanted or adapted the "Python", "White Fan", "Golden Bell" and other lantern plays according to the good book of rapping. Performances of the original location of the rural courtyard dam square to the lantern building or ancestral temple in the theater.
The new lantern opera also utilizes some new tunes such as Ten Cups of Wine, Yu Mei Love, Zhaotong Tune, Dongchuan Tea Casting, etc., and most of its lyrics are neat cross sentences and seven-character sentences. The tunes and repertoire are further popularized, closer to the people's lives, and the theatricality is enhanced. The roles of the characters were also greatly developed compared with those of the old Lantern Operas, which soon became popular all over the world.
Before and after 1938, Wang Dandong and others created modern dramas such as "Zhang Xiaoyi Joining the Army" and "Killing the Enemy on Chashan Mountain", and formed the Peasants' Salvation Lantern Troupe mainly by Yunnan Yuxi Lantern Artists, which toured to Kunming and some other areas in western and southern Yunnan, expanding the influence of Yunnan Yuxi Lanterns in the province.
Flower Lantern Opera