“Once remembered the pear blossom on a drizzly day, broke up with Lang in the Baihua Pond, reluctantly held his clothes, and shed tears on the river bridge to add spring water…” A traditional festival poem of Pinghu tune, “Once Remembered Pear Blossoms”, with elegant diction and soft melody, brought the audience into the artistic atmosphere of Shaoxing Pinghu tune, which is elegant, elegant, quiet, and gentle. On the evening of July 7, the special performance of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune, the 2022 Shaoxing Quyi Inheritance and Revitalization Series themed activity “Looking for a Friend in the Spring and Snow”, was held in the People’s Theatre of the Municipal Cultural Museum. The performance was simultaneously broadcast online, presenting a unique “audio-visual feast” for audiences who love Shaoxing’s local traditional culture and Shaoxing Pinghu Tune art inside and outside the venue.
Shaoxing Pinghu Tune, originally known as Yuejun Nanci, or Pingdiao for short, is a unique form of rap music in Shaoxing. The traditional Shaoxing Pinghu tune is in the form of sitting and singing. The repertoire includes long palindromes and short stanzas. The accompanying instruments are mainly Sanxian, erhu, dulcimer, pipa, etc. In the hundreds of years of inheritance and development, it has formed outstanding features such as elegant diction, beautiful melody, rich melody, and unique style, which have important artistic value, literary value, musical value, humanistic value, historical value, etc. In 2006, it was selected into the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects.
This exhibition is the first large-scale special performance of Shaoxing Pinghu Diao since the protection of intangible cultural heritage was carried out. Famous folk artists and newcomers of Pinghu Diao came together, which gathered the joint efforts and painstaking efforts of competent departments, project protection units and inheritors. That night, Zheng Guanfu and Wang Yuying, the national level representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune, together with Zhao Xiuzhi, the national first class actor, Shi Jinyu, the national second class actor, and Zhang Hai, the associate professor of Shaoxing University of Arts and Sciences, and the Pinghu Tune training class students who have been trained for many years, presented the traditional festival poems “Once Remembered the Pear Blossom Drizzle”, “Four Beauties Jointly Sing”, and the modern festival poems “Xixi Taoyuan”, “Farewell to Orchid Pavilion”, and “Jianhu Spring Dawn”, The flat tune song “Butterflies in Love with Flowers · Answering Li Shuyi” and other programs, including the most traditional festival poems, the best works that have won awards repeatedly in the performance of competitions at all levels, and the new school works that combine traditional singing with modern performance, show the protection achievements of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune over the years, and its adherence, exploration and innovation to the art form as “the sunny snow in the folk art”.
During the interview, Zheng Guanfu introduced the unique performance style and artistic characteristics of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune to the audience; Wang Yuying shared the story that she, as a inheritor, actively participated in the protection of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune. Since 2006, she has been teaching Pinghu Tune at Chexunru Primary School in Mashan Town, promoting Shaoxing Pinghu Tune into the campus; Wang Jiabao, a representative inheritor of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune at the municipal level and an expert on Shaoxing local folk art, believes that breakthroughs should be made in terms of creative themes, music design, stage presentation, performance programs, etc. to promote the innovative development of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune.
Since the protection of intangible cultural heritage was carried out at the beginning of this century, especially since Shaoxing Pinghu was transferred to the list of national intangible cultural heritage representative projects in 2006, Shaoxing Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, as the project protection unit, has actively promoted the protection, inheritance and dissemination of Shaoxing Pinghu Transfer, carried out project investigation and data collection, declared provincial and national intangible cultural heritage representative projects, strengthened personnel training, and promoted the popularization of teaching on campus, The creation and performance of the track. At the donation ceremony of Pinghu Tune recording materials in Shaoxing, Xu Jinhui, director of Shaoxing Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, received Pinghu Tune music scores, recordings and other materials collected by teacher Luo Ping during her lifetime from the relatives of the late opera theorist, musician, national first-class composer and full-time opera composer Luo Ping. These precious materials are a heavy responsibility, encouraging the intangible cultural heritage protection department to take the baton of history and continue to promote the cause.
“Although there is little harmony between snow and spring, there are bosom friends in high mountains and flowing water”, this special performance ended in a modern festival poem “Jianhu Spring Dawn” co authored by Zheng Guanfu and Wang Yuying, but the inheritance and development of Shaoxing Pinghu tune will not stop. Under the strong leadership of Shaoxing Municipal Party Committee and Government, and under the overall planning and promotion of the Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, the Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center will continue to closely contact the inheritors and social forces, actively promote the work of all parties, and promote the effective implementation of the continuity and living inheritance of Shaoxing Pinghu Tune, so that Shaoxing Pinghu Tune can continue to glow with charming luster in the people’s good life, and “snow in spring” can find “infinite confidences”.
In the afternoon of the same day, at the water town stage of the Municipal Cultural Museum, there was also a “Yueyun Youyang Run People’s Heart” – Shaoxing comprehensive folk art performance benefiting the people. Shaoxing Pinghu Tune, Shaoxing Ci Tune, Shaoxing Tanhuang, Shaoxing Xuanjuan, Shaoxing Lianhualuo, and Shaoxing Pinghu Tune took turns to show the unique charm of Shaoxing local folk art, presenting a wonderful cultural feast for the people.