Pingyao Shage Player

Pingyao Shage Player

Pingyao Shage Opera, commonly known as Shage Renren, also referred to as Shage, is one of the traditional handicraft techniques in Pingyao, Shanxi Province. Because it was usually placed in the cabinet covered with blue gauze at first, so it is named. It is based on the traditional drama as the theme, using a variety of techniques and techniques to produce drama characters, and then placed in the wooden cabinet. One pavilion, one play, one play, is like a small stage for people to enjoy. Pingyao Shage Players fill a gap in ancient Chinese plastic arts, and have become a rare material material for the study of traditional Chinese drama and folk art. They have extremely important cultural value and are a unique folk cultural heritage of Pingyao ancient city.

Brief introduction

Shage opera is also called "Shage", which is based on traditional Chinese drama. First, a wooden pavilion is made, and then, in the wooden pavilion, dramatic characters are put together with rice straw mud and gold-sprinkled rice paper. One pavilion, one play, like a small stage, is a plastic art with rich cultural connotations. Sprinkle gold Xuan paper has strong toughness, elasticity and surface tension. The clothes are straightforward and flat. The pleats are clear and natural. After coloring, the clothes look especially gorgeous and colorful. Like real yarn, the name of Shage opera performer comes from it.

Basic structure

The structure of Shage opera performers can be divided into four parts: wooden pavilion, partition, opera performers and props. The wooden pavilion is standard in shape. Each Pavilion is 77 centimeters high, 83 centimeters wide and 44 centimeters deep. Excluding the thickness of the board, the interior space is 64.5 cm high, 74 cm wide and 36.5 cm deep. The wooden pavilion is decorated with a canary on its forehead to make it look like a stage. There are grooves in front of the top and bottom boards of the wooden pavilion, and a lock key. After the exhibition, the boards can be inserted and locked. The partition includes the back wall of the Yarn Pavilion and the left and right wall. The back wall is the boundary between the front and the back of the stage. It mostly adopts the form of three folds and seven screens, omitting the entrance and exit doors. In the middle of the back wall, there are banners inscribing the title of the play. Seven screens are painted with rocks, flowers and birds, and the book has a couplet of words to persuade the world. There are inscriptions on both sides of the wall. They are either aphorisms or poems. At the end, they are signed with the shop name or the year and month.

Playwrights are the soul of the whole Yard Pavilion, which is the core content of Pingyao folk artists'elaborate production and efforts to publicize. The materials used are suitable for local conditions, convenient and desirable. Firstly, straw and cereal grass are used to form a skeleton according to the needs of the plot, and iron wire or hemp thread is used to fasten the skeleton to the bottom of the wooden pavilion. The head, hands and feet are made of local red clay and placed in the proper position of the skeleton. The head and feet are shaped by plaster moulds, then the facial expressions of the characters are modified according to the plot needs, and then the shade is dried and the makeup is applied. Paper wrapping is the most elaborate process in the production of theatre performers. Hemp paper or straw paper is cheap and flexible. It is an excellent material for wrapping theatre performers. Different gestures are displayed after wrapping up with straw paper. When the basic shape is finished, it should be brushed through and dried with glue to keep it for a long time. The playwright's outermost layer is carefully wrapped with gold-sprinkled rice paper. The pleated layers and light yarn texture of the costume depend entirely on the artist's ingenuity and the skill of using materials. The final decoration of the performers also goes through three processes: painting facial makeup, attaching head ornaments and wearing clothes. The main work is coloring and decals. Face makeup is directly painted on the face, decals should be first painted on rice paper and then cut and pasted. Headdresses are made of straw paper into hats, helmet, forehead towel and so on, then colored, decals and hairpins. The performers are full of ugliness at the end of their lives. They are vivid, vivid and brilliant. They teach people how to listen to their voices when they are in the scene.

Production process

The production of Pingyao Shage Players includes six techniques: conceiving scenes, designing frame, framing, clay sculpting head, face and limbs, depicting facial costumes, and making scenery props. The production process of Shage opera performers is divided into five procedures. Apart from plot design, the five technical processes are as follows:

Human skeleton

According to the different characteristics of the performers, sorghum straw and rice straw are tied into the center of gravity of support. Standers need two stalks and sitters only use one stalk. The actor's arm is wrapped with straw on the sorghum stalk, tied with wire, put in various postures, and finally fix the human skeleton on the bottom of the wooden pavilion.

Mud sculpture head and limbs

After making the mould with gypsum, the clay is first beaten and then colored. After 36 hours of shady drying, cover your head with three sticks and wrap it in paper.

Dramatists wrap paper

Paper wrapping is an important process. Whether the playwright's figure is beautiful mainly depends on whether the paper wrapped outside the straw is properly wrapped. The straw paper used is soft and crisp, and it is not easy to break. When the glue dries through, it is wrapped with a layer of golden rice paper to glue the front and back hearts. Sprinkle gold paper is soft and has a certain surface tension. It is as beautiful as light yarn.

Decorative Dramatist

Decorative performers include face painting, headdress and costume wearing, in order from inside to outside, mainly coloring and decals. Face makeup can be directly painted on the face, decals are first painted on rice paper patterns cut and pasted where needed. The decorated playwrights are particularly beautiful.

Making partitions and props

The partition is directly painted with Xuan Paper as a screen, which is pasted on the back wall of the wooden pavilion as a whole. Each fan has poems or pictures on it. The props are also made of sorghum stalk as a skeleton and then colored with paper. It is not until the tricks and props are fixed on the bottom of the gauze Pavilion and loaded into the pavilion that the production is finished.

Cultural origins

The cultural origin of Shage opera performers is related to the inheritance of paper-tied artifacts in folk funeral rites after Song Dynasty, the unprecedented prosperity of Zaju in Yuan Dynasty, the folk custom of praying for children in Ming and Qing Dynasties, and the commercial custom of Pingyao Shanxi merchant metropolis. In Ming and Qing Dynasties, Pingyao was a place where businessmen gathered. The local paper industry flourished because of the comparison among funeral customs. With the help of Shanxi businessmen and theatre fans, Shage opera performers gradually became a local cultural landscape. Pingyao Ancient Town Street Quzhou Center has become an important place for the exhibition of Shage opera performers. Platform corridors on the bottom floor of the city are the places where the performers of the gauze pavilion are displayed, and 36 performers of the gauze pavilion are placed around the corridors. During the Lantern Festival, people can enjoy it and store it in the market after the festival. In the past, there was a custom for newly married couples to buy lanterns and pray for children. They lit candles and placed them in front of the gauze pavilion to make wishes and repay wishes. In the event of a new funeral, the civilian people rented several pavilions of gauze men and placed them on both sides of the spiritual shed, which not only expressed their comfort to their ancestors, but also reflected their love for folk opera. Pingyao Shage Opera Man is a unique and gorgeous flower in folk arts and crafts. It is not only a typical historical material of plastic arts in ancient Chinese funeral customs, but also provides image evidence for the development and evolution of Shanxi local operas, which has a multifaceted cultural significance.

Expressive Content

The content of Pingyao Shage opera performers is mostly based on the traditional plays on the stage of Jin Opera, Beijing Opera and Kunqu Opera, which are well known and loved by the local people. 36 Pavilion Shage Opera has a wide range of materials, such as mythology, folk life, chivalrous romance, love between men and women; the form of literary drama, martial arts drama, short fighting drama, different Pavilion; the role of life, Dan, Jing, the end, ugly, well-done. These opera performers are vivid in shape, attractive in plot, with facial features in line with the character's personality and facial expression in line with the plot requirements. The cabinet has the effect of silence to win voice here.

Pingyao Shage opera performers show a wide range of drama content, roughly speaking, there are 14 kinds of historical drama, including three kinds of Spring and Autumn and Warring States drama, namely "Eight Yitu", "Anti-Tangyi" and "Jintai General". Two kinds of Qin and Han drama, respectively, "Dajin Palace" and "Hongmen Banquet"; one kind of Three Kingdoms drama, namely "Catching Dragon Boat"; one kind of Southern and Northern Dynasties drama, namely "Spring and Autumn Bi"; There are five kinds of story plays in Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties, namely Nanyang Guan, Zhanluoyang, Shuangzai Arrow, ManBed Wat and Feihushan. There are one kind of story plays in Song and Yuan Dynasties, namely Chopping Huangpao and Hundred Flowers Point General. In addition, there are six kinds of chivalrous drama, namely Simazhuang, Dengjiabao, Xianglin Mirror, Xihuangzhuang, Painting Spring Garden and Bad Tiger Village; three kinds of heroic drama, namely Shetangguan, Yuefeibeizheng, and Baotongtai; four kinds of magical drama, namely "nail bed", "fox margin", "borrowing umbrella" and "Wuyue Tu"; and one kind of family life drama. That is "Three Questions".

Inheritance of Skills

The founder of Pingyao Shage Opera was Xu Liting, a paper-binding artist familiar with opera, known as "Xu Lao San". In 1906, Xu Liting (Xu Lao San), a famous artist in the paper-binding shop of Liuhe Zhai in Pingyao City, produced 36 cabinet Shage Opera performers, which were specially used for the display of social fires during Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, or for the display of folk funerals in front of the spirits. 。 Later, the inheritors were Ji Yunli, Lei Xianyuan and others. However, the lack of inheritors of Shage opera and the lack of knowledge of traditional opera by young artists make this inheritance face difficulties.