Poetry and essays related to tea-picking opera in southern Gansu

According to legend, tea-picking opera sprouted very early. In the past, most veteran artists said that tea-picking opera existed in the Tang Dynasty. According to legend, Master Tian, ??the ancestor worshiped in the tea-picking troupe, was a court musician during the reign of Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty. His original surname was Lei, and his name was Lei Guanghua. He fell in love with a singing girl and violated the palace ban, so they escaped from the palace and lived in Jiulong Mountain, Anyuan. He made a living by growing tea. After farming, he kept his hobbies in mind and taught the farmers to sing tea songs and play with tea lanterns, creating the play "Tea Picking on Jiulong Mountain". This is the origin of tea picking drama in southern Jiangxi. Of course, the tea-picking opera could not have been invented by just one person. It is generally believed that tea-picking opera became popular among the people in the middle of the Ming Dynasty. This point is reflected in the poems and writings of literati in the Ming Dynasty. For example, Tang Xianzu, the master of drama in the Ming Dynasty, sang in one of his extemporaneous poems "The spring breeze sings about picking tea in a remote dock". It can be seen that at that time, "tea picking" singing was already performed in remote villages. He also has a farewell poem, which can better explain the development of "tea picking" at that time:

"Looking to the west of Fenlou, my eyes are filled with tears, and I am afraid of seeing the boats moving on the river and setting the clouds; making tea in April in the middle of Hunan Drinking and remembering the heather in front of the court."

The title of the poem "Seeing the Tea Pickers Farewell" can be seen from the scene of the poem saying farewell to the "tea pickers" who are not engaged in tea picking. Working people refer to professional artists who are engaged in singing "tea picking". This artist may have considerable attainments in the singing art of "picking tea", and it is possible for him to receive the affectionate attention of contemporary celebrities such as Tang Xianzu. It can be seen that tea picking had a profound foundation among the people at that time. Otherwise, it would be impossible to have such professional artists. In addition to the poems quoted above, there is a scene in the play "Encouraging Farmers" in Tang Xianzu's "The Peony Pavilion" where tea-picking songs and dances are performed:

...

[Menzi Report: Another pair of women can sing well.

[Lao Dan and Chou were picking tea in baskets, singing:

[Song of Filial Piety]: Taking advantage of the Grain Rain, picking new tea, a flag with half a spear and golden teeth.

(Bai): Yeah, what official is here?

(Singing): The bachelor looks at him in the snow, the scholar misses him when he is sleepy, and the bamboo smoke creates new tiles.

(Foreigner): The song is good. I told him that he is not a bachelor from the Post Office or a scholar from Yangxian. He is the uncle of my house who persuades farmers to see you women picking mulberry and picking tea. They are better than cauliflower. There are poems. As evidence: "Because there are few tea stars in the sky, the herb essence blooms first underground, and the boring girl is greedy for fighting grass, and the scenery is not as good as fighting for tea." Arrange flowers.

[Introduction to Jing and Chou Arranging Flowers and Drinking Wine] Sing:

The officials are drunk and the clouds are flowing, laughing in front of the wind and arranging flowers, picking tea is not a bad thing.

......

This play is written about Du Bao, the governor of Nan'an Prefecture, who went out of the city for a spring outing and came to Qingle Township, a suburb of Nan'an (today's Dayu County) to encourage farmers. The elders led the villagers to the reception pavilion to greet him. This kind of "persuading farmers" ceremony was a routine ritual for local officials in past dynasties to express their concern for farmers; it was also a means for officials to understand people's sentiments and collect folk customs. The elders of Qingle Township prepared songs and dances that reflected local customs and performed them for the prefect. The song and dance quoted above is performed by a pair of tea-picking women. Tang Xianzu was born in the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. Before he wrote "The Peony Pavilion", he passed through Nan'an twice, stayed there, wrote poems and had a good understanding of the local customs. The story of "The Peony Pavilion" is set in Nan'an Prefecture. When choosing songs and dances that reflect local folk customs, they must be popular among the people to express the local characteristics of the plot. It can be seen that the tea-picking song and dance chosen by Tangxuan had already been popular among the local people at that time. It has songs and dances, subjects and subjects, as well as characters and stories. It has the elements of opera that use songs and dances to tell stories. This is enough to prove that in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the tea-picking opera in southern Jiangxi became popular among the people. The most prosperous development of tea-picking opera in southern Jiangxi was during the Kangxi and Qianlong years of the Qing Dynasty. Chen Wenrui (a native of the Qianlong period) of the Qing Dynasty wrote a song "Nan'an Bamboo Branch Ci", which reflected the grand occasion of tea-picking folk performances at that time:

Ballad In front of the camp, Qiu plays the role of a romantic young man. He performs triangle dramas all day long, and sings tea-picking songs until the day of tea tasting.

Yingqian, in today's Shangyou County, was a small mountain town in Nan'an Prefecture at that time.

A triangle class can start from tea picking in such a small town, perform for a long time, and end with tea testing. This is also difficult to achieve in today's professional theater groups. It shows that the tea picking triangle class at that time , has a considerable foundation, so it has such great appeal. Otherwise, it would be impossible to maintain a performance in one place for such a long time.

As for the enthusiasm of the masses watching tea picking at that time, there is a very detailed description in the "Nan'an Yin" in the Xinfeng County Chronicle:

"The tea picking song, the village children pretended Yao'e is looking for Yao in the countryside of Zhouli, looking back and smiling. The dandies are vying for prizes, and the poor Tie Shiyan is crying. Tea is also addictive. I spent my hard work and was happy, and when I returned home with nothing, I learned the song "Nan'an Yin". It was written by a teacher named Xie Zhaozhen in the county. of. The teaching is an academic officer, and his views represent the views of the ruling class of feudal society on tea-picking opera. Although it is full of derogatory meanings, on the other hand, it just shows that the masses were fascinated by tea-picking opera at that time, especially those who lived at the bottom of society. Coal workers (coal is produced from Tieshikou) are even more obsessed with "tea picking". Even if they spend all their hard-earned money, they still return home with a happy mood of "Can I learn to say 'Amei'?" go. The tea-picking opera in southern Jiangxi was respected by the society during the "Ziyuban" era of self-entertainment in the Ming Dynasty. Because most of the lantern plays performed at that time, such as "Tea Picking at Jiulong Mountain", were about celebrating peace, such as the lanterns in the play with the words "Peace in the World", they were appreciated by feudal rulers. In the era of the Triangle Troupe performing miscellaneous plays, most of the content of the plays was based on the love between men and women, and the views and methods of expressing love were often contrary to feudal ethics and morals. Such as "Reverse Love" and "Ai Tong Nian". Some also used comedy to satirize, expose and criticize the real life of society from the negative side, such as "The Great Persuasion", "Manmei Hexi", etc. This was not tolerated by the feudal rulers and considered it to be instructive. Obscene teachings and stealing are offensive to morals. Since Qianlong, successive dynasties have banned performances many times. For example, in the "Ningdu Zhili Prefecture Chronicle·Customs" in the fourth year of Daoguang's reign:

"Chacaicai is also known as the Triangle Class. It has a demonic and obscene sound and introduces evil, which is the most harmful to the local area. ... Recently, there have been unexpectedly Those who are allowed to move should be detained and severely punished to stop this trend." Similar records can be found in the county annals of various counties in southern Jiangxi. The ban was not only written on official notices, but also engraved on stone tablets and erected in rural market towns. For example, before 1949, this kind of prohibition sign was erected next to the Xiaojiang Zhenjun Temple in Xinfeng, prohibiting tea picking, cigarettes, gambling, whoring, and theft.

After the tea-picking opera in southern Jiangxi was banned, it suffered bad luck. It was no longer allowed to enter villages and ancestral halls. It had to set up an open-air performance at the corner of the Weiwei temple to survive in the wind and rain.

At its peak, the tea-picking opera in southern Jiangxi developed to more than thirty troupes, and then gradually declined. On the eve of liberation, there were only five or six troupes left in southern Jiangxi, hiding in the corners of the mountains, secretly The earth plays and stops, and it is really dying, with only one breath left. Apart from the music, what best expresses the characteristics of the tea-picking opera in southern Jiangxi is its performance, which pays equal attention to singing, dancing and opera. Its performance characteristics can be summarized as "three wonders and three unique features". The three wonders are: the traditional tea-picking opera expresses the love and labor of the lower class working people, and there is no court dance or dance of talented people and beauties, which is a wonder; a large number of performance figures imitate the movements of animals, and are named after the movements of animals, which is The second wonder is that song and dance dramas go hand in hand with each other, so that some people think it is a local song and dance drama. This is the third wonder.

The three unique skills are: dwarf steps, single sleeves, and fan flowers.

The basic steps of the dwarf step include the short step, the high step, the short cross step, the waddling step, the startling step, the sliding step, and the shoveling step. The dwarf step is divided into short pile, medium pile and high pile. This is a unique dwarf step in the world of opera. Single sleeve, this is another unique feature. In general, the water sleeves in dramas are in pairs and elegant, but in the tea-picking dance in southern Ganxi, there is only one left sleeve. But it has created numerous dance terms.

Such as grab sleeves, lap sleeves, back sleeves, sunshade sleeves, fan sleeves, armpit sleeves, phoenix tail sleeves, needle sleeves, flower basket sleeves, throw up, throw down, wrap around the waist, wrap around the knees, side roll and fly...

Beauty is a kind of symmetry. A single sleeve seems to be a neglect of the laws of beauty, but no, the fan flower on the stage with the other hand is symmetrical with it. The fan dance, with its unique dwarf steps, looks extremely unique and interesting.

There are many movements for fanning flowers, and they are of various types, including throwing fans, folding fans, shelter fans, sun-shielding fans, distant viewing fans, flower-smelling fans, face-shielding fans, etc., which are very expressive. It is particularly strong. Among them, there are artistic tips about fan flowers left by old artists, such as:

Five-finger flowers have their heads facing up, and four-finger flowers have their heads facing forward. With three fingers, the flowers hit the four sides, and with two fingers, the flowers wave on the chest. Tilt, press, grasp and shake against the belly.

The characteristics of the three wonders and three unique features are the product of the Hakka people in southern Jiangxi living in the severe ecological environment in the mountains and forests for a long time.

For example, the Hakka people live in the mountains. When they go out to climb mountains, they bend down and bend their knees. The tall people also become "dwarfs". The clever Hakka people made the short step a unique basic dance step in the world. The mountains are filled with clouds and mist, and the mountains are filled with mist tea. Girls carry tea baskets, sing tea songs, and dance while picking tea. Boys carry tea leaves on their shoulders and step on low, medium, and high piles made of dwarf steps. Dancing single sleeves and fan flowers create a unique Gannan Hakka tea-picking dance.

Another example is the numerous performance figures named after animals. This is because Hakka people are accustomed to hanging out with birds and beasts on the long mountain roads. The endless joy of life in the animal world actually makes the whimsical Hakka people People have obtained inexhaustible inspiration for artistic creation. Imitate the movements of animals and simply name them with their movements, such as: monkey washing face, wolf looking for food, lion opening its mouth, thrush jumping, turtle crawling on the sand, dragon head and phoenix tail, dragonfly playing in the water, dog tail wagging, lazy cat There are more than 300 names for scratching an itch, a fox passing by, a butterfly gathering nectar, a rooster pecking rice, a monkey frightened, a frog (frog) missing something, a crow basking its wings, a cat exploring the night, etc.

The movements of animals expressing their consciousness of life were captured by the Hakka people. It is not difficult to imagine that without mountains, there would be no birds and beasts. Without the observation and refinement of life, how would these numerous stage performance figures come about? create? There are two types of clowns: one is "acting ugly and pretending to be ugly", which is called "ugliness"; the other is "acting ugly and pretending to be ugly", which is called "anti-ugliness".

Zheng Chou: mainly young and middle-aged men among the working people. They have the character traits of being hard-working and simple, cheerful and generous, optimistic, funny, resourceful and brave. When singing, the actor wears "a handful of hats" on his head, a "three-flowered dress", a "white skirt" around his waist, and "bloom pants" underneath. He dances with a "fan flower" with his right hand and shakes a "long sleeve" with his left hand. Singing and dancing, lively and relaxed. The performance is mainly based on "dwarf steps" and "fan flowers". It combines high and short steps with a lively rhythm and is quite distinctive.

Anti-ugly: They are mostly smokers, gamblers, gangsters, swingers, etc., who often expose each other or mock themselves with some vivid, subtle, witty and humorous language and actions. His performances often imitate some animal images such as: "monkey washing face", "monkey peeing", "dragonfly splashing water", "lazy cat scratching an itch", "rooster pecking rice", "thrush jumping on the frame", "dog wagging its tail" "Turtle crawling on the sand" and so on. Whitening the nose with facial makeup, footwork and fanning are very similar to the "righteousness and ugliness" performance.

Xiaodan: Mainly hard-working, simple and smart rural girls and young women. The performance is vigorous, graceful, simple and generous. Its "fan flowers" are more abundant than the clown's. It can fan flowers with one hand or with both hands. The body movements include: dressing up and picking curtains, picking tea by hand, umbrella flowers, opening and closing doors, etc. Its basic steps include eight-character steps, stilting steps, tiptoe steps, grinding steps, walking steps, broken steps, etc. It can be described as a variety of postures.