The spectrum of door gods in Hubei shadow play

The "Door God Spectrum" in Jianghan Plain, which is about 72 cm high, represents the mainstream of shadow play in Hubei. Jianghan Plain belongs to the hinterland of Jingchu, with rich Chu culture. The ancient hard carving techniques such as bronze wares and bamboo wares, and the soft carving techniques such as leather carving and paper-cutting in Mianyang have prepared a good prerequisite for the birth of shadow play.

Shadow play popular in Jianghan Plain was first introduced from the north, and its shadow play was slightly longer than that in the north. It is about two feet and two inches (seventy to eighty centimeters) high, four inches higher than the shadow play in Sichuan and Shaanxi, and two inches higher than the shadow play in eastern Hubei. Most songs come from literary creations, novels, literary poetry collections and Han folk stories in various dynasties. Scripts are generally short, and performers develop plots to portray characters and improvise lyrics according to stories. Language art, plain dialect, mixed with common sayings, proverbs, two-part allegorical sayings, dialects and dialects, etc. Humorous, full of local flavor and folk flavor, making the audience feel very cordial.

The folk song goes like this: "Look at cowhide (refers to shadow play), boil your eyelids (doze off), go home in the dark and hit the drum skin (wall), and your wife will raise her eyebrows (criticize) and suffocate her spleen (suffer indignities)." It shows the charm of Mianyang shadow play.

Yunmeng once had 26 shadow plays. Lu Chunyuan, an old artist from a family of shadow play, can engrave and sing historical stories of Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Famous artists such as Tang Yutang and Guo Dabiao of Qianjiang established Tonge and Guo Ge of shadow play in Jianghan Plain respectively, which made these two schools of shadow play have many descendants and disciples in Jianghan Plain.

Hankou Shadow Play combines Huangpi Xixiang Shadow Play, Xiaogan Dongxiang Shadow Play and Mianyang Yugu Shadow Play in one furnace. Artist Zhou Zhongquan's ancestral home is in Mianyang, and his master Liu Xiubao is a direct descendant of the Yugur shadow play in Mianyang. Zhou Zhongquan has been doing shadow play for more than 50 years, and he has produced more than 800 shadow plays. There is no fixed book when performing, so I sing casually with a rhyme book.

In Xiaogan, there is also a folk song, "One comment on two drums and three movies outsmarts Xiang Yu's 3,000 soldiers". It tells the story that when Chu and Han were contending, Liu Bang listened to the advice of Sean, a counselor, and used the methods of telling stories, drumming and singing shadow play to disperse the 3,000 soldiers of Xiang Yu and win. Although there are exaggerated elements in the spread of folk literature, the influence of shadow play in this respect can also be seen. According to "mian yang County Records", in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, people in mian yang did things and offered sacrifices to gods, and there was a custom of singing shadow play. During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, the fishermen and drummer Pi Pi of Miannan Embroidered Dike were exiled for ten years, with no food and clothing, begging along the street. Imitating foreign shadow play with cloth shoe shells and performing shadow play with the accompaniment of Mianyang fishing drum cavity initially formed the local characteristics of Mianyang shadow play. Later it became more and more popular. During the Tongzhi period of Qing Dynasty, a shadow play guild was established, and then it developed to Yingcheng area. The artists of Mianyang Yugu Shadow Play unanimously recognized the Pi brothers as the ancestors of Mianyang Shadow Play, and at the same time, like the folk troupe, they respected Wang's drama god and erected a monument to worship him.

Mianyang fishing drum shadow play has experienced the evolution of shoe shell, paper shell, cowhide and donkey skin. Formally, Miyang's shadow play is about two feet, which is more realistic. Chu-Han Controversy, Three Kingdoms, Water Margin, The Journey to the West, etc. 100.

Before liberation, shadow play was the main entertainment for people to celebrate the New Year, celebrate the harvest, thank the gods and worship temples. On the fifteenth day of the first month, the Lantern Festival performed "Return to Kiln Ceremony"; February 2 is the birthday of the Land Bodhisattva, performing Land Society; March 3 is the Cold Food Festival, and "Burning Mianshan" is broadcast; On April 8 th, the performance of "hoop array" was performed; "Miluo River" was performed at the Dragon Boat Festival in May; On June 6th, yangsi will conduct a military exercise "Where is the Sea" and perform "Queqiaodu" on July 7th. August 15, "Tang You Yue Gong" performance. It not only entertains god but also people, and shadow play adds a festive atmosphere. Singing and fishing drum singing are folk songs in Jianghan Plain, which have been absorbed and evolved by artists in past dynasties and become the two major vocals of shadow play in Jianghan Plain.

"Singing" originated from the folk song "Ji Ming Ge" of Chu State in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Later, Ji Mingge combined with shadow play and evolved into Ji Ming tune. Shadow play artists in Jianghan Plain constantly revised the singing methods of "flowers on the tip of the tongue", "fragrance in the mouth", "color on the face" and "light on the eyes", and then merged with Song of Grass, which became the main singing style of Jianghan Shadow Play. The cock crow in Singing is euphemistic, mellow and passionate. Anyone who learns to sing must learn "cock crow" first, with the cock crow as the initial sound and the trailing sound as the drawl, jumping as high as 17 degrees. It originated from Chu State's Embattled Song in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and is a living "fossil" in China's traditional music. It is a unique mode of Jianghan shadow play, which is divided into six modes: male, female, ugly, variegated, God bless the people and eight tones.

The "fishing drum cavity" is named after the singing instrument "fishing drum tube". From the end of the Qing Dynasty (about 1900), the fishing drum cavity and shadow play in Mianyang were completely integrated into one, becoming a unique fishing drum cavity shadow play, and even replaced the singing shadow play in some areas. The fish drum shadow play takes Mianyang fish drum tune as the main tone, and then integrates Mianyang opera, Han opera, Chu opera and other vocals. It has the characteristics of cheerful and lively rhythm, high-pitched tune and bold. According to the notes (outlines) of Dai's Oral Book, it usually rhymes and is easy to understand. Sometimes words like "good water" or "substitute for white" are added impromptu, such as "After singing for a while, there is no cup of tea. Although the tea of the owner is expensive, it can be stewed in a jar".

The singing of Mianyang fishing drum in shadow play can be divided into five categories: Pingqiang, Sadness, Fishbone (or Phoenix), Pipa and Miscellaneous. Singers use true and false voices, with large scale jump, wide range, beautiful timbre and high tone, which is euphemistic and vivid and very touching.

Among them, the sadness of men and women in shadow play is similar to the sadness of women crying and flower drum play in Jianghan Plain, which makes people cry. Especially in shadow play, the "shaking the burden" (called "button" by artists) in the last sentence of every lyric is a chorus (called "throwing the tune"). With "hey, cough, ah, yo" and other words to supplement the meaning and will, expand the musical structure, and fluctuate in a chorus of more than ten syllables or dozens of syllables.

The shadow play of Yugu was later combined with the opera cavity of Mianyang Huagu, which has the characteristics of cheerful rhythm, liveliness, lively tune and boldness. It was equipped with fishing drums and simple wooden boards, and later artists added gongs and drums and orchestral music. Especially the timbre and rhythm of these two musical instruments, the simple board and the fishing drum tube, can better set off the atmosphere.

Mianyang shadow play is mainly composed of fishing drums and vocals, accompanied by percussion and sung in chorus. There was no orchestral accompaniment in the early fishing drum shadow play, only the fishing drum tube and the cloud board beat the board, and drums, cymbals, big gongs, small gongs and ma gongs played, interspersed and sang songs on the stage. At first, the shadow play class consisted of three or four people, two of whom were singing while holding a shadow play, one was playing a fishing drum and a cloud board, and the other was clapping (gongs and drums, etc.). Later, national instrumental music (erhu, jinghu, dulcimer, suona, flute, etc. ) introducing accompaniment and increasing female artists to sing female lyrics, and increasing the number of shadow play classes to five to eight classes, further enhancing the artistic effect of shadow play singing; Coupled with clothing, lighting, landscape, sound reinforcement equipment, shadow play is extremely artistic. Most of them come from literary creations, novels, literary poetry collections and folk stories of various dynasties. Scripts are generally short, and performers develop plots to portray characters and improvise lyrics according to stories. Language art, to put it bluntly, is a dialect, mixed with proverbs, proverbs, two-part allegorical sayings, dialects and so on. It is humorous, full of local flavor and folk flavor, which makes the audience feel very cordial.

Mianyang fishing drum shadow play, the original singing form is "stand-up cross talk". There are two kinds of lyrics of stand-up crosstalk. One is the traditional fixed lyrics, such as Eight Immortals and Two Busy, which artists call "plain words"; One is "good water", that is, improvisation, singing whatever you see, flexible and changeable, focusing on catering to the psychology of the host and creating fun. The main vocals are Pingqiang, Wailing Lingqiang, Daoism, Fishtail, Pipa, Guanyin and Miscellaneous Flowers. There are three kinds of lyrics: "three, three, four" horizontal sentence, "two, two, three" seven sentences and "five, five, seven, five" long and short sentences. There are two kinds of lyrics: one rhyme to the end and one rhyme to each paragraph. The rhymes used are "light, light, board, repair, song, hemp, foreign, Yu, pro, kindness, action, grams, four, elegance and joy".

The lyrics "Fifteen Rhymes" of Mianyang Yugu Shadow Play are the same as the rhymes "Thirteen Strings" in poetry. Artists must be familiar with the rhyme when singing the shadow play of fishing drum, especially when writing and singing "Good Water Words", they must be eloquent and rhyme properly.

In the late Qing Dynasty, shadow puppetry artists cooperated with fishing drum artists to accompany shadow puppetry with fishing drum. In Guangxu period, Mianyang fishermen and drum artists gradually gave up the singing form of "stand-up crosstalk" and turned to accompany the development of lamp shadow, forming the confluence of lamp shadow and fishing drum. After confluence, the fishing drum developed from Xiantao to Tianmen, Honghu and Qianjiang. The performance of a backup singer has developed to "five heads", namely drums, cymbals, big gongs, small gongs and ma gongs. Singing changed from solo to chorus, and Qupai also added [Male Ping], [Female Ping], [Ugly Ping] and [Han Ping].

As for the repertoire, all novels and legends with interesting stories can be arranged and sung orally by the artist Haoshui. Therefore, there are countless songs about fishing drums. Jianghan Plain is one of the birthplaces of China culture, bordering Hanshui River in the north and Yangtze River in the south. Shadow play has found a breeding and prosperous soil here. Although its origin can't be verified, as early as the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, there was a habit of singing shadow play on holidays, which formed a unique style and carving characteristics over time.

Shadow play is made of leather. Cowhide and donkey skin are better for firmness and transparency. One of the keys of shadow play is image-building, especially the carving and whitewashing of characters. Inspired by folk paper-cutting, shadow puppeteers first use animal leather such as cattle, pigs and sheep as modeling materials to carve shadow puppets.

When coloring, five kinds of fixed transparent pigments such as red, yellow, cyan, green and black are mainly used. It is precisely because of these special materials that the shadows of figures and props in shadow play projected on the screen under the backlight are magnificent and crystal clear, with unique aesthetic feeling. According to the custom of China traditional opera, the characters in shadow play can be divided into five categories: raw, Dan, clean, ugly and ugly. More specifically, each character consists of eleven parts: head, upper body, lower body, two legs, two upper arms, two lower arms and two hands. The performer makes the characters do various actions by controlling a main pole in front of the collar and two game poles at the ends of both hands.

Mianyang shadow play is the most distinctive, widespread and influential shadow play in Hubei. The main characteristics of Mianyang shadow play, like drama, belong to rigid facial modeling. Visually, it is a positive-oriented modeling orientation. Compared with drama, it is more virtual and inclusive. It can be said that the three-foot twist can be the same day or the local place, which is both a fantasy and a square, and is not limited by space. There are many people in Mianyang shadow play, and the business classification is different.

A cart of shadow puppets generally needs 15-20 men with pink faces, including handsome guys, emperors, fishtail pink faces, and pink faces with hair tied. There are 10- 15 female pink-faced leaders, including Hua Dan, Zheng Dan, female handsome, rockhopper and Taoist priest. Painted face leader 15-20, with red face, black face, miscellaneous face and female face. Senior leaders are 4 men and 4 women, men and women, Taoist priests and Taoist priests. There are 6-8 white-faced leaders, old and young traitors and traitors; There are 10- 15 ugly white face leaders, including the old, the middle, the young, the female and the standing hall. 20-30 persons in charge of various disciplines. A total of more than 120 avatars (portraits) are needed to cope with various styles of play. The most striking of these shadows is the special head shape, such as Bao Gong, whose forehead is carved with patterns representing the sun and the moon of Yin and Yang, which symbolizes Bao Gong's good judgment on the injustice of hell on earth. Red, white and black are painted on the forehead with patterns, which makes the image of Bao Zheng both powerful and beautiful. Lei Zhenzi (the God General in the Romance of the Gods) has the following portraits: the monkey face of Lei Gong and the mouth of Zhang Ying, with fierce faces and extraordinary spirit, make people know at a glance that he is a God General with extremely high martial arts; The head of the Dragon King is a living dragon head: green dragon beard, long nose, and red dragon hair partially covers the ears of the cattail leaf fan. Even the two whiskers on the dragon's nose are half-rolled and half-stretched, and an intuitive image of the dragon king is vivid; Another example is the head of Yang Ren in the list of gods, with his hands in his eyes, which looks strange, novel and interesting.

The clown shape of Mianyang shadow play is ugly and interesting. In addition, shadow supporters keep shaking their shadows and saying funny things in their mouths. The combination of sound and shadow makes people feel very happy. There is also a shadow of a figure called procuratorate in the shadow play, but it is the most interesting design. This little character with no surname and no name is indispensable in the whole shadow play. He plays the role of connecting plots, gagging and acting as a variety of roles. The shadow is only half as high as other shadows, and its head is nailed directly to the body. His head is small, his stomach is big and his legs are short and thin. He has a water chestnut beard and a bolt eye. Speaking of his pride, his head can turn once. As soon as he appeared, he made everyone laugh. The gnome-like figures in this life, although reduced in form, are an artistic exaggeration. The backrest flag in drama accounts for about one-third of the height of human body, while the backrest flag in shadow play is only one-tenth of the height of shadow. The hand in shadow play is the part with a large range of movements. For convenience, the proportion of hands has also been reduced several times. Shadow play actors have much bigger heads, but generally speaking, they are not top-heavy. Instead, it feels realistic and focused, which is another highlight of the modeling of Miyang Shadow Play.