Gongs and drums

Gongs and drums

Gong and drum zaju, also known as "zaju of Gong and drum" and "long Yan zaju", is one of the local traditional dramas in Shanxi Province and Henan Province and one of the national intangible cultural heritage.

According to the stone tablets of Longyan Temple in Linyi County in the second year of Zhenyuan in the Tang Dynasty, there were miscellaneous operas in Longyan Temple. According to the old customs, in the first month of the lunar month, Longyan Temple in Linyi County performed Gong and drum miscellaneous operas to worship the gods and sacrifice Buddhas, so Gong and drum miscellaneous operas are also known as "Longyan miscellaneous opera".

The singing music system of Gong and drum Zaju is intonation style, which is mainly composed of intonation and prose. The accompaniment instruments of gongs and drums Zaju are not strings, but mainly gongs and drums. There are many fixed formulas in the performance of Gong and drum zaju, such as gun-picking and helmet-muffling, knife-cutting horseshoe, bowing and archery, fighting breakthrough and so on, which mostly originate from Wushu and are appropriately empty.

In May 2006, Gong and drum drama was listed in the first national intangible cultural heritage list of traditional drama categories, numbered IV-88.

historical origin

Regarding the origin of Gong and drum zaju, there are no records of historical records and local chronicles, and there are several different opinions in academic circles. First of all, its predecessor was "Hundred Village Opera" since the Han and Tang Dynasties, which was advocated by Mr. Ren Guangwei. He elaborated on it in the article "Competition Opera, Two Explorations of Gong and Drum Opera" in the thirteenth volume of "Chinese Opera". Another said that Gong and drum Zaju "as early as the Tang Dynasty has the embryonic form of this art," and "the construction of Longyan Temple in the Tang Dynasty has a close relationship," see "Introduction to the two kinds of operas in Shanxi". Another said that Gong and drum Zaju began at the end of the year in the early Min Dynasty, and cited the existing Gong and drum Zaju in Xinzhuang Village, Linyi County, Shanxi Province, "Three Invitations for Zhuge" as an ancient copy of the text before Yao Zhiwen Tang as a proof: "My village has so-called zaju, I do not know when it was caused, meaning its farmer's suffering, happy when it was old, such as the story of Tang Feng Cricket Zhang." These three statements have their own grounds. The Gong and drum operas in southern Shanxi are prepared and rehearsed every winter. They are performed during the Lantern Festival in the first month of next year. It is at the end of the year and at the beginning of the year. It is a kind of self-entertainment for local farmers when they are idle. It is reasonable to say that they originated from the ancient tradition of "Happy in the Year of the Year". However, this kind of entertainment folk custom does not exist alone. It is combined with the worship belief of the ancestors of Jin Dynasty and exists as an integral part of the sacrificial activities.

Ancient Fenyin area in southern Shanxi (now Wanrong and Linyi counties) is one of the cultural activities centers of ancient Han nationality. It has a long history of sacrifice. It is said that Emperor Xuanyuan and Huangdi swept the ground and offered sacrifices here. Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty also built Tu Temple in Fenyin Ya (now Wanrong). Since then, temples in this area have been built one after another, and sacrificial activities are very common. During the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, Fanjiazhuang, Hejin County, recorded in the Monument of Restoring Music Tower: "Only the temples are set up, Jin is very complicated, and Hedong (now the southern part of Shanxi Province) is the most. Or business is still ghosts, Geng is the capital of business, Geng (Hejin is Gugeng) has a strong legacy along the way. There must be sacrifices, but there should be sacrifices for the gods to enjoy. These sacrifices have material aspects, such as grains, wines and fruits, and spiritual aspects, such as singing, dancing and music skills. It is not surprising that the technique of singing and dancing can entertain gods and gods as well as people. Therefore, it is not surprising that the activities of sacrificing gods should be combined with the entertainment activities of "pleasure at the age of five".

Along the Tang Dynasty, this kind of sacrificial activities combined with the entertainment activities of "Happy New Year". Firstly, due to the introduction of Buddhism, the sacrificial objects, in addition to the original folk gods, have added the content of ritual Buddha in some areas. Second, the art offered during the sacrificial ceremony has brought about new music and dance, and even the embryonic drama. Take Xinzhuang, Shangli and Gaojiaduo villages in Linyi County, where Gong and drum Zaju are the most popular performers, for example. They perform Gong and drum Zaju at Longyan Temple between the three villages during the Lantern Festival every year.

Longyan Temple was built in the second year of Zhenyuan (786) in Tang Dynasty. It was built by Ma Zhao, the envoy of Hedong Festival at that time. Ma Zhao was appointed to defeat Li Huaiguang's rebellion and was awarded the title of Linyi. He organized military and civilian rehearsals of the large-scale battle music and dance "Ding Ding Ding Di Song". Tang Taizong Li Shimin also lived in Hedong when he was king of Qin Dynasty. His music and dance "Breaking the Front Music of Qin King" came from the local folk songs of Baibi (now Xinjiang). These battle music and dances are accompanied by gongs and drums, cymbals and cymbals. They perform battle stories of historical figures, including dancing, dialogue, and a set of formulas to express battle battles. They influence the singing and dancing techniques in sacrificial activities and gradually form a primary theatrical form with songs and dances, mainly showing war stories. To this day, gongs and drums Zaju performance still has the "swing" ceremony, performing with gongs, drums, cymbals accompanied by recitation mainly, accompanied by dance and martial arts, obviously retained the traces of battle music and dance in the Tang Dynasty.

Cultural characteristics

Music for voices in a Chinese Opera

The singing music system of Gong and drum Zaju is intonation style, which is mainly composed of intonation and prose. The recitation of poetry is called "cloud". Every cloud sentence, with a gong in the middle, after a period of cloud, beat a gong and drum. The majority of the sentences are symmetrical sentences with seven characters and cross, with prose and Tao Bai in between.

"Singing" is not very important in the play. Its main tone is playing sentences (chanting and praise sentences). Besides the commonly used seven-character sentences and cross sentences, it also uses stacked and reduplicated sentences, which are divided into urgent tones and common tones. It is the main tone of Gong and drum zaju, and singing sentences (palace tune and bow tune) without drumming is called dry singing.

Accompaniment instrument

The accompaniment instruments of gongs and drums Zaju are not strings, but mainly gongs and drums. The instruments used include big drums, battle drums, small drums and gongs, one pair of cymbals and cymbals, one pair of cymbals and two pairs of sonars. The drummer is the drummer and conducts the whole orchestra. There are eight basic drum points: rolling drum, battle drum, walking drum, brake drum, three drums, ghost drum, falling drum and running drum.

According to the different changes of the two armies'chanting of Tao Bai, marching scenery and marshal's raising account in the play, various gongs and drums are used respectively. Suona has only two simple cards, which are used in combination with small drums and cymbals at the end of martial arts, banqueting and raising accounts. The costume props of Gong and drum Zaju are generally leased to the owner of the box and used in ordinary costumes. Some villages make their own armor, featuring earthen cloth or cardboard brushing paint, clay moulding scales, animal heads.

perform

There are many fixed formulas in the performance of Gong and drum zaju, such as gun-picking and helmet-muffling, knife-cutting horseshoe, bowing and archery, fighting breakthrough and so on, which mostly originate from Wushu and are appropriately empty. The main performance figure of Gong and drum Zaju is the confrontation of ghosts. The performer's right arm arcs to the upper right front, palm facing outward, left arm slightly backward, palm facing left rear; face facing forward, full of air, called ghosts. One person acts as a single-handed ghost, two as double-handed ghosts, three ghosts, five ghosts, burning ghosts, knife ghosts, etc. The set of the match has three battles, five battles, old battles, rush battles, etc. The whole process is slow and simple. Actors raise their hands and sing, chant, read and whitewash with Gong and drum rhythm, so the miscellaneous opera actors have "to perform miscellaneous operas, learn to step on drums first". It's hard to learn when the drums are not stepped on correctly.

Representative repertoire

Drum and Gong Zaju plays mainly focus on military themes, especially in the Three Kingdoms. Up to now, there are more than 100 kinds of Gong and drum Zaju performances, such as "Vassiqi", "Leyi Vaqi", "Three Invitations for Zhuge" and so on. There are now more than ten manuscripts of Gong and drum miscellaneous dramas such as Bronze Sparrow Terrace, among which Huiluoyang is a 12-year manuscript of Qianlong.

Inheritance and protection

Inheritance value

Gong and drum zaju, closely attached to the sacrificial activities in the rural areas of southern Shanxi, is an indispensable artistic composition of local religious sacrifices. It can not exist independently. In the countryside of southern Jin, where there are sacrificial activities, there must be gong and drum Zaju performances, and where there are Zaju performances, there must be Temple sacrifices, which can not be separated. In this sense, Gong and drum Zaju is a kind of religious sacrificial drama. In studying the historical development of Chinese drama, we should not forget this kind of drama style.

Inheriting characters

Zhang Jun, male, Han nationality, born in September 1937 in Linyi County, Shanxi Province. In December 2012, Zhang Jun was selected as the representative successor of the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects and declared in Linyi County, Shanxi Province.

Li Zhengqin, male, Han nationality, born in 1930 in Linyi County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province. A performer of gongs and drums. In June 2009, Li Zhengqin was selected as the representative successor of the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage projects and declared in Linyi County, Shanxi Province.

protective measures

In the early 1980s, the Chinese Academy of Drama and the Shanxi Academy of Drama filed their videos twice, which left valuable video materials for the inheritance of zaju.

social influence

On November 19, 2017, the gong and drum miscellaneous opera troupe of Linyi County Cultural Hall in Shanxi Province performed "Ancient City Fair", "Yellow Crane Tower" and "Bronze Sparrow Terrace" and "Playful Facebook" at the first Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan Traditional Drama Exhibition.

On November 29, 2017, Shanxi Linyi folk artists entered Beijing to perform gongs and drums.