Xiushan Festive Lantern

Xiushan Festive Lantern

Xiushan lantern is an important school of lantern art in southwest China. It is a folk cultural phenomenon and folk performing art that integrates religion, folk custom, singing and dancing, acrobatics and paper tie art. It is also a valuable national folk music cultural heritage in China.

Xiushan Lantern is named after the most representative art of lantern in Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County of Chongqing City. It is also called dancing lantern, playing lantern and lantern opera. It is an ancient folk singing and dancing art, which is widely spread in the Tujia inhabited areas of Sichuan, Hunan, Guizhou and Hubei provinces.

Xiushan Flower Lantern is a popular folk song and dance in Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County of Chongqing. It has a long history and has spread to villages and towns throughout the county. Among them, Pass, Qingxi, Lanqiao, Pingkai, Yingfeng, Yongdong, Ocean, Rongxi, Emolong and Yuping are the most prosperous places. There are two traditional performances of Xiushan Lantern.

On May 20, 2006, Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County of Chongqing declared "Xiushan Flower Lantern" which was approved by the State Council and listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

historical origin

Xiushan Lantern, which originated in Tang and Song Dynasties, continued in Yuan and Ming Dynasties and flourished in Qing Dynasty, is a comprehensive performing art with songs, dances, dramas and folk blowing as one.

Xiushan County is known as "the land of Lantern singing and dancing". Its lantern opera originated from the "lantern children's play" of the Han nationality. Later, it integrated the singing and dancing skills of the Tujia and Miao nationalities in Xiushan and developed into an artistic form with novel style, moving singing and dancing, and popular with the people of Han, Tu and Miao nationalities.

Xiushan Lantern is a kind of simple, humorous and beautiful Lyric art, which integrates song, dance and rhyme, and is accompanied by percussion and stringed music. According to historical records, it originated from the Yuan Dynasty "Dance League" (that is, men and women on the table to upload songs and dances, even talking and singing), and the Ming Dynasty also integrated into some forms of dance and singing performances of tea-picking opera, beginning with the name of "lantern". Later, it developed into flower-setting, flower-lantern unilateral drama and modern flower-lantern drama.

Xiushan Lantern Show begins on the second day of the first lunar month every year and ends on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. It is called "thick-faced lantern" after the sixteenth lunar month. Traditional performances of Xiushan lanterns have unlimited venues, such as courtyards, dams, halls, streets and lanes, as long as there is a flat area of more than 10 square meters. Due to the needs of performance form, style and content of Lantern classes, special venues are also needed. For example, to perform "high-rise lantern", two or three traditional wooden square tables are needed. The two performers perform the two-person duet of lanterns on the tables overlapping several tables. Flower lantern plays need to be "set up a platform" and simple settings. They are usually performed on the earth platform of the dam or on the hanging-feet building. After hundreds of years of development, Xiushan Lantern gradually formed a unique style of folk art.

artistic characteristics

Arranger

Initially, the lantern opera with heavy singing and dancing elements was performed. Afterwards, influenced by Yunnan Opera and other operas, the lantern opera artists also absorbed relevant tunes to change, expand and renovate when improving the more complicated plots, and created a new tune of Lantern opera. The newly-compiled lamp tune is composed by tune connection, which has some characteristics of slab music and is suitable for performing traditional operas. Besides, Xiushan Flower Lantern Opera also has various folk tunes, which occupies an important position in the whole opera.

Moving law

The performance of Lantern opera pays much attention to dancing. The basic rhythm characteristic of lantern dance is "Wei". There is a saying that "no Wei can't make a lamp". Watchers see lantern dancing is to see whether it is "Yide Tuan". That is to say, whether the waist and hip twist is large, whether flexible and coordinated, and whether the body is natural. Especially the focus is on natural posture, foot shape is not strained, natural lifting, leisurely; the gesture of the hand should swing naturally with the footsteps, like wicker fluttering, so the "waddle" style is called "wind swing willow".

Waterfall is the basis of "dance step" of lanterns. When "Er", the writhing of waist and crotch should be coordinated with the flexion and extension of knee, and the writhing of crotch should be larger. In addition, there are such movements as "equi-point step", "positive step", "reverse step", "trampling step", "oblique stride fan", "snail turning back". The waist movement in these movements should be more prominent. Flower lantern's various "swing steps" often correspond to certain characters'personalities, such as the simplicity and generosity of "right swing", the leisurely lyricism of "female swing back", the arrogance and vigor of "big swing back", the liveliness of "male swing back" and the flexibility and relaxation of "trampling back". "Xiao Bi" is relaxed and lively, and "Da Bu" is spicy and steady.

In addition to the "waddle step", the lantern dance figure is also unique, including "turn step" and "jump step". "Turn step" includes "Weiye step turn", "cover fan reverse flower turn", "snow cover top turn", "small fish hold water", "rock eagle spread wings", "mandarin duck draw legs" and so on; "jump" includes "jump", "side pedal jump", "clam jump", "back kick jump", "jump paddle step", "carp across the river", "Wulong stretch leg jump" and so on.

"Wai Bu" has hand movement coordination, which is manifested by various changes of props and fans in the hands of "hand flowers" and "fan flowers". For example, "flower in hand" includes "flat twist flower", "lower twist flower", "pick twist flower", "back twist flower", "double twist flower", "side twist towel", "small twist towel", "backscarf" and so on. "Fanhua" is more, it is said that there are more than 70 changes, and some names are also very poetic and picturesque, such as "holding the moon in your arms", "dragonfly dotting water", "golden thread rolling embroidery ball", "snow capping", "Feng nodding" and so on. These arrangements add to the mood and charm of the colorful singing and dancing of the Lantern opera.

Music

Xiushan Lantern is well known for its beautiful melody, lively rhythm, unique style and wide spread. Famous lantern songs such as Huangyang Bian Duan, a handful of rapeseed, etc., have reached the national hall of elegance and enjoyed a good reputation both at home and abroad.

Xiushan Lantern Music, in addition to the external music elements, also integrates the local folk songs, folk songs, minor tunes, operas and other beneficial elements, forming a musical form with local national style and customs, beautiful melody, novel tune, standard structure, distinct rhythm, full of dance, giving people a humorous, funny, festive and joyful. A sense of joy.

Form

After long-term development and evolution, the performance forms of Xiushan lanterns include: lantern duet (single lantern performed by two people), double lanterns (double lanterns performed by four people), lantern group dance (multi-performer group lanterns), lantern play (drama), etc.

In the performance, the lyrics sung by the actors are called Lantern lyrics. Flower lantern lyrics have a strong local flavor, state the content, express the plot, express emotions and attract the audience. Among them, some lantern lyrics absorbed some folk minors of the Han nationality with the original lyrics of landlord operas such as Tea Picking Opera and flower drum opera.

Except for the Lantern show, there are only two roles in the performance, one is once ugly, the other is called Youmei, the other is Laihua Zi. When dancing, Youmei combs her hair, wears a big skirt, holds a silk-laced folding fan in her right hand, holds a colorful towel in her left hand, straightens her waist, and performs innocent, lively, witty and spicy roles in dancing and singing. Lai Hua-zi tied his headscarf into a half moon, wore a pair of skirts, tied a red ribbon around his waist, held a big cattail fan, stepped on a short pile step, and revolved around his younger sister with the action of "swinging willows in the wind". He performed funny and humorous roles with flexible lyrics and sentences, which could be long or short. He could sing on the street, help the audience and the actors could communicate with each other. Inosculate as a whole.

Lantern duet

This is the main performance form of Xiushan Lantern. Judging from the status of Youmei and Laihuazi in the performance, they are different from the popular "two-person duet" in other parts of the country, but have the characteristics of authentic "door-to-door" duet jumping; they are the inheritance of "duet jumping group". They are men's turn around women, ugly turn around beauty, short turn around height. Female, beautiful and high in the central position, with "both feet stand side by side back to the body", retains the obvious characteristics of primitive female worship.

Double lanterns

That is, two men and two women (Er Ugly Er Dan) sing and dance at the same time. Mainly used to express lively, festive and other larger scenes, such as "Double Tea Picking", "Big Red Lantern", "Loud Hall" and so on, is performed in the form of double lanterns. In some places, performances and folk acrobatics such as "flower interruption" and "turning over factories" were added to the performances, thus adding a warm atmosphere and fun.

Flower Lantern Dance

It was formed from the development of "flower lantern duet". It is the crystallization of the diligent research and exploration of professional literary and artistic workers in the past 30 years. It is a popular performance form among the people, and it is also a performance art that is most closely connected with the new era. Its performance form is a large-scale lantern singing and dancing performed by two women, two men, four women, four men, more women and more men. The performance should have a professional stage.

Lantern Opera

Xiushan folk traditional lantern opera, also known as "unilateral opera", also known as "lantern singing and dancing drama" and "lantern opera". Xiushan Lantern Opera is a kind of opera derived from Xiushan Lantern Opera, which carries songs and dances. Its formation date can be traced back to the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China. Under the influence of advocating "New Culture Movement" at that time, Meijiang, Hongan, Shidi, Rongxi and Erong in Xiushan border area were successively introduced into Chenhe Opera, Yangxi Opera, Lantern Opera, Peking Opera and Sichuan Opera. Some Flower Lantern artists were inspired to create a series of 10 - 30 minutes. Their roles were limited to Sheng, Dan and Ugly, and their stories were short and single.

Performing procedures

Xiushan lantern performance, there is a complete set of procedures, including: setting up a lamp hall, turning on the lights (please lights), jumping lights, words.

In Xiushan lanterns, setting up lantern halls is a performance activity with strong traditional rituals. Before the lantern class comes out, it must set up a lamp hall to worship the "Miss Golden Flower" and "Two Niangs of Silver Flower" gods. The lamp master lights incense candles and burns paper money to worship the God of lanterns. He prays for and blesses the people who jump the lantern to do everything smoothly and safely and auspiciously. After the worship ceremony, they sang and danced in the lamp hall. The lamp master led the singing of "Settlement", "Singing Note" and "Open Light". After that, he sang "Lighting Tune" together and sang the tune to be performed once. After the Lantern ceremony, the lantern class can go out and jump out.

Dancing lantern is the main performance of Xiushan lantern. The lantern squads are all jumping in the houses and yards of the people receiving the lanterns. Sing "Guan Lantern Tune" and "Congratulations Tune" first, and sing "Xie Zhu Tune" before leaving.

Speech lamp. On the 15th night of January every year, the lantern troupe holds a speech lamp ceremony at the river bank dam to worship the gods and sing "Send the lamp tune". The lantern troupe master sings all the lantern tunes sung during the Spring Festival. Then the lantern and the throne were burned, and the clothes of the jumper were thrown over the fire, praying that the jumper would be safe for a year.

Main repertoire

Flower lantern plays are mainly distributed in Lanqiao, Rongxi and E-Rong areas of Xiushan. The main repertoires are: Shepherd Boys Watching Cattle, Watching Cattle Playing Chess, Three Daughters-in-law Respecting Life, Hoop Barrel Craftsman, Little Daughter-in-law, Panhua, Cousin Panhua, Old Companion Panhua, Three Bowls of Rice Panhua, Flower Drunk, Xu's Family Godson, Xu's Matchmaking, Yule Bottle, Xia Nanjing, Flower Story, Five Cups of Wine, Three Bowls of Rice, Samsung Delivery of Children, Girl Painting in the Same Year, Nourishing Jiangzhou, Chen Gu Catching Pan, Four Seasons Scenery, Wanhua Pool, Baoer Yujie, Tailor Stealing Cloth, Liu Huzi Brother's Chess, Fishing for Life, Madame Wang's Replenishing Cylinder, Hundred Flowers Giving Swords, An'an Giving Rice, Newspaper Delivery, Five Gentlemen, etc. have more than 30 discounts. Most of these plays reflect the people's work, love and daily life. They are lively, relaxed, funny and full of local flavor. Although the content is monotonous and shallow, they are popular with the people.

Inheritance value

In the long-term performance, Xiushan Lantern has formed the characteristics of dancing, singing, drama, simulation, nationality, regionality, procedure and popularity, and is deeply loved by the general public. To rescue and protect Xiushan lanterns is of great practical and academic value for enriching people's cultural life and promoting the study of Tujia folk music and dance art and its history.

Inheritance and Protection

The State attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 20, 2006, the folklore was approved by the State Council and listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists.

Origin controversy

Xiushan Lantern has a long history. For thousands of years, through the inheritance, inheritance and development of Folk Lantern artists from generation to generation, it has become a regional culture centered on Xiushan Mountain and spread to the border areas of Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan and Guizhou provinces. On the origin of Xiushan Lantern, according to the relevant historical records and various rich and vivid folklore, it is preliminarily summed up, mainly three kinds of indigenous theory, exotic theory and indigenous exotic combination theory.

Aboriginal theory

Xiushan, located in the southeastern border of Chongqing, is the junction of the four provinces (cities) of Chongqing, Guizhou, Hunan and Hubei. The terrain is dominated by Intermountain basins of different sizes, with hilly and undulating terrain, Camellia shallot cages, vertically and horizontally walled streets, villages dotted with villages, and meandering Meijiang River, Pingjiang River, Rongxi River and Youshui River. Xiushan has beautiful mountains and rivers, suitable climate and abundant products.

For thousands of years, the people of Tujia, Miao and Han nationalities have been living on this land with self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy and living together, forming unique customs and cultural arts.

In the folk, it is generally believed that lantern art is "indigenous". Because its performance form, dance, music, lyrics, costume props and performing customs are self-contained and unique. It is essentially different from Yunnan lanterns and Guizhou lanterns. Its performance form and artistic style are different, and it is more different from the folk art of other places.

In the "light-on" ceremony of jumping lanterns, lanterners (folk lantern artists) first set up lanterns halls in their own halls, honoring their ancestors, and then they can walk through villages to jump lanterns, in the folk arts and customs. This is unique.

The lyrics of lanterns are mostly in dialect. For example: "Old people look at the lights, turn home in the middle of the white hair to turn green... The second farmer looked at the lamp and went home to run the spring festival. ","... In winter, the purse is embroidered into one, and the purse embroiders the lover brother. My husband does not dislike the thick thread and hides his father's and mother's black touch.

The clown in the lantern duet (Laihua Zi) uses a thin prop fan made of brown leaves, which is quite different from other places. Xiushan Lantern Music is similar to Gan Tong Ku Tune in a large part to the melodic mode of local folk songs, which is obviously evolved from folk songs. Such as the famous "Huangyang Bian Duan", "Four Seasons Acacia", "Embroidered Lotus", "Huanghua Grass", "Shangchashan" and so on.

Some folk artists heard legends from their ancestors that the native Xiushan lanterns were gradually introduced to the north, western Hunan and Youyang, Qianjiang and Pengshui in southeastern Chongqing in the mid-Qing Dynasty.

Exotic theory

Some folk artists hold the view that Xiushan lanterns were introduced from outside. Its basis is: in the section of Xiushan Lantern Lighting Singing "Big Red Lantern", there are: "The lamp is for, the lamp is the lamp, where does the lamp start? When did the lamp come into being? Emperor Renzong ascended the throne of dragon, and the mother of state was blind. She allowed three thousand and six hundred red lanterns, two of which are still circulating today. "About the persecution of Li Mi, the birth mother of Song Renzong, by Empress Liu, she was blind, and the official history of wild history has been recorded. According to legend, Song Renzong (Zhao Zhen) is the sixth son of Song Zhenzong (Zhao Heng), and his mother, Li Shi, is the servant of Empress Liu of Zhenzong. After giving birth to the whole family, Li was seized by Empress Liu as her son, and Li was put into the cold palace. This is the "civet cat for prince" in wild history. It was not until Song Renzong ascended the throne that he knew the truth. At this time, Li's eyes were blind because he cried and grieved at the lonely lamp year after year. In order to pray for the mother's eyes to see the light again, three thousand and six hundred red lanterns were allowed to make a scene in the capital. The lanterns became the symbol of dispelling illness, eliminating disaster and praying for light and happiness, which is also reasonable.

At that time, there were five surnames in Xiushan area: Dragon, Stone, Zhang, Luo and Fang. During the whole year, there were as many as four or five hundred people in the tribute troop at a time. They saw the emperor "promised 3600 red lanterns" in the capital city, praying for the brightness of his mother, and brought back several red lanterns symbolizing auspiciousness and eliminating diseases and disasters. Then it passed down from generation to generation and gradually evolved. This has become today's lantern art. Today's dragon surname and stone surname all have a family of lanterns, probably the descendants of the five surnames Pan who paid tribute to Shangjing at that time. Some lanterns are similar in shape to palace lanterns, and some are similar in tune to palace music. It can be considered that the lanterns were introduced to Xiushan from Kaifeng, capital of Song Dynasty, in the Northern Song Dynasty.

Some of the lantern classes have "the lamp is the lamp, the lamp is the lamp, when does the lamp start? When did the lights start? The lamp began in Tang Dynasty and prospered in Song Dynasty. "The lyrics. According to legend, there were lanterns in Tang Dynasty when Fig Gang put out lanterns. This can roughly confirm that the lanterns were introduced into Xiushan in the Tang and Song Dynasties.

Combination theory

Some scholars believe that in the early years of the Yuan Dynasty, Chen Youyou-you and Zhu Yuanzhang were defeated in the battle of Poyang Lake. Most of the defeated soldiers were from Anhui and Jiangxi. They were exiled in Western Hunan and southeastern Chongqing. They settled here dispersedly and stayed with the Aborigines for a long time, thus integrating the folk arts from other places with the local lanterns. Most folks believe that in the first year of Qianlong in Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1736), Wuling Mountain abolished the Tusi system and introduced the advanced Han culture after "land conversion". A large number of Han people from Jiangxi and Huguang migrated to Xiushan. They opened fields and ridges, built their country and promoted the development of productive forces. At the same time, they also introduced Han folk art. This is the historical achievement of "Huguang filling Sichuan". Over the past two hundred years, immigrants and the local Miao and Tujia people have worked and lived together, intermarried with each other, and the customs of Fenggu have gradually melted into one. Folk art has complemented each other's strengths and weaknesses, thus forming a unique lantern art. Nowadays, some tunes in the lantern music are similar to those of tea picking in Jiangxi and flower drum lanterns in Anhui. This is the embodiment of the fusion of exotic excellent folk art and local folk art.