Suzhou Pingtan (Suzhou Pinghua, Suzhou Tanci)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Suzhou Pingtan (Suzhou Pinghua, Suzhou Tanci)

Applicant: Jiangsu performing arts group

Item No.: 237

Project No.: V - 1

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: quyi

Region: Jiangsu Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Jiangsu performing arts group

Protection unit: Jiangsu Performing Arts Group Co., Ltd

Introduction to Suzhou Pingtan (Suzhou Pinghua, Suzhou Tanci)

Applicant: Jiangsu performing arts group

Suzhou Tanci was born and popular in Suzhou, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai. It was sung in Suzhou dialect. Suzhou Pinghua is popular in southern Jiangsu and Northern Zhejiang, and it is also called "Pingtan" together with Suzhou Tanci. Suzhou Pinghua is a big book, Suzhou Tanci is a small book, which is called "Shuoshu".

Suzhou Pinghua, originated from the Song Dynasty, is an oral language art of telling stories in Suzhou dialect. Its language consists of two parts: the first person, the language of the storyteller, and the third person, the language of the characters in the story. This is qualitatively different from the language of drama. It's storytelling, not storytelling. The first person language is called Biao, and the third person language is called Bai. Biao and Bai are mainly prose. But it can also be used for reciting a small part of the verse, including Fu Zan, guakou, introduction and rhyme. Fu Zan is used to describe the scene, the state of things, and to render and contrast the psychological state and personality characteristics of the characters. Hang up is the character's self introduction. The introduction is the storyteller's introduction or topic. The rhyme is the expression of the rhyme, or the narration of the plot, or the summary of the previous paragraph.

Suzhou Pinghua attaches great importance to gimmicks, saying that "gimmicks are the treasure of the book". The comic factor produced in the contradiction between character and plot is called "gimmick in the flesh". It can be used as analogy, foil, metonymy and explaination. Similarly, using a few words to arouse the audience's laughter is called "small sale".

Tanci has a long history, which was quite popular in the Qianlong period of Qing Dynasty. Generally speaking, they hold Sanxian in their hands and Pipa in their hands. They play and sing by themselves. Most of them are legendary novels and folk stories about love between children and women. Wu Nong's soft language is pleasant to the ear, and the performance is often interspersed with some jokes, which is full of wit. The Tanci is sung in Wu's voice, with cadence, lightness, clearness, softness and gentleness. The strings and pacong Zheng are very pleasant.

Suzhou Tanci can be roughly divided into three kinds of performances, namely, one person's single performance, two person's double performance and three person's three performance. The actors all play and sing by themselves, accompanied by small Sanxian and pip. The main melody is the book melody which can sing different styles and contents. At the same time, it also absorbs many tunes and folk tunes, such as Feijia tune, random chicken crow and so on. Shudiao is the basis of the development of various schools of singing. It has formed rich and colorful schools of singing through different artists. It can be roughly divided into three schools, namely Chen (Yuqian) tune, MA (Rufei) tune and Yu (Xiushan) tune. After more than a hundred years of development, there are new schools which inherit the styles of these three masters and create and develop their own style. Such development and multiplication has formed a prosperous scene of Suzhou Pingtan school.