There are many roles of Flower Drum Lantern, and the division of labor is also very fine. The main actors are "Lahua" (also known as "Orchid") and "Drum Shelf". Female characters are generally called "wax flowers" and are the core members of the performance; Male characters are generally called "drum shelves".
The artists of the ancient painting lantern team are generally composed of gongs and drums, actors, lamp holders and lamp assholes. The performance of Flower Drum Lantern is divided into opening, upper drum, middle drum, venue drum, duet and small play in the backcourt.
Dance is the main component of Huagu Lantern, including "big flower field", "small flower field" and "drumming". The emotional dance of the collective performance of "Big Flower Field"; "Little Flower Field" is a small dance drama with characters and plots improvised by two or three people, namely "Drum Shelf" and "Flower Pull", and it is the core part of the flower drum lantern dance. "Pangu" is a combination of dance, martial arts and skill performance, with plastic arts characteristics.
The singing part is collectively called "Lantern Song", and most of them are duets or solos by "Drum Shelf" and "Tile Flower" between "Big Flower Field" and "Little Flower Field", which can be long or short and have strong improvisation.
Flower-drum lantern gongs and drums are an extremely important part of flower-drum lantern, including scene gongs and drums and light-field gongs and drums, which have the characteristics of passionate emotion, changeable rhythm, vivid compactness and strong appeal. Scene gongs and drums can exist independently and play alone; The gongs and drums in the light field are integrated with the dance of flower drum lanterns and the performance of small plays, which plays the role of accompaniment and rendering emotions.
Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the popular area of ancient painting lanterns has gradually expanded, forming more than 20 counties and cities in Anhui, Henan, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces with Bengbu, Huainan, Fuyang and Haozhou as the center, and there have been programs such as spring outing, grabbing fans and grabbing benches. After 1930s, people like Feng (stage name "Little Golden Lotus"), Tian (stage name "Little Silver"), Zheng Jiuru (stage name "Little White Shoes"), Chang Chunli (stage name "Old Toad") and Shi Jinli (stage name "Stone Monkey") appeared one after another. Especially in Huaiyuan County and Yuhui District of Bengbu City, Anhui Province, Fengtai County of Huainan City and Yingshang County of Fuyang City, farmers have been playing lanterns for generations, men, women and children, and every village has lantern classes. At that time, there were at least two groups of lanterns in every township in the middle reaches of Huaihe River, some as many as three or four groups, forming a grand occasion of "thousands of gongs and drums, hundreds of lanterns".
However, due to the rapid changes in society, the acceleration of the pace of rural and urban culture and the immigration of foreign cultures, the living environment of ancient painting lanterns has deteriorated sharply, and the spread range has shrunk rapidly. At present, it is mainly concentrated in Huaiyuan County, Yuhui District and Fengtai County under the jurisdiction of Bengbu City, Anhui Province. There are only four or five teams of ancient painting lanterns that really keep the original form of ancient painting lanterns, and they are on the verge of extinction!