The Zezhou Ancient Stage Investigation And Research

Shanxi Province is known as the "drama of the township". Theancient stage, as an important historical exploration of Chineseancient opera, has a unique research value. The opera stage playsan important role in the geographical society of Shanxi Province. Mr.Liao Ben’s "Song stage remains–a study on Chinese ancienttheatre" and "cultural studies of cultural relics and folk song andYuan drama" both discuss the temple theatre production,distribution, morphology and the related folk in detail. Apart fromLiao’s researches, other scholars explaines the environmentalfactors of temple stage production and other arts association fromdifferent sides, for example, Shanxi Normal University OperaInstitute’s "a Study on the Historial Remains of Chinese Theare inSong and Yuan Dynasty", Feng Junjie’s " Historical Review of ShanxiOpera Inscriptions” and “drama and Archaeology" and CheWenming’s "Discovering of the historial remains of Chinese Theatreand Art Research " and so on.Zezhou County has a long history and posseses many historicsites."Shangdang area, all show" is a popular doggerel among thefolk. The doggerel saw the opera prosperity of Zezhou. In most ofthe villages, the temple fairs are held every year and the opera is performed for thanking the Gods. The author investigated a total of126stages from nine villages and towns of Zezhou County whichare linked together,The stage with the style of Song Jin and Yuan Dynasty is few.Through investigating, the author only found two temples: DaiTemple in Zezhou and Yu Huang temple at Ping Shang Cun (severelydamaged and only containing the platform). The stage is a paviliontype with nearly a square plane and solid foundation. Its roof iscross Xieshan Ding with Zaojing structure.Most of temples in the present study were built in Ming and QingDynasty. They belong to Shanmen stages with small scale andsimple structure. Many temples of them located in the southopposite to the main halls. Their stuctures are similar to that of civilarchitecture with two floors and three bolcks connected each other.Some of them are with hanging peak, the decoration of which areconsistent withthat of main halls. As a big spot of the stagedecoration, the main ridges of the owl kiss of temples are differentfrom each other in terms of gorgerous degree in different regions. Inancient ages, Changhe (including the towns of Da Dong Gou, ChuanDi and Zhou Cun) was booming. The stages there have Dougong.Other regions in Ze Zhou County had no this kind of stage. Dougongis decorated in various kinds of shapes. Ang is designed in theshapes of dragon and flowers. Queti is also designed into the shapeof dragon, auspicious clouds and flowers.The southeastern region of Shanxi is abundant in stone andwood. The decoration of the stage designed with stone and woodcarvings can be seen everywhere. Some of the stages are severely damaged. So the majority of the stages is repaired and still wellpreserved, which is with preservation of the research value. Thevast majority of the stages in the present study belong to courtyardtheatre for the religious temple theatre. Only one hall stage (LiAncestral Hall at Xi Gao) is located in the house for personalleisure"Shanxi Province third national survey of cultural relicsreport" pointed out that:"there are many difficulties and problemsin the survey because time is tight; this task is heavy; the ablity ofthe primary staff is weak; the arrival rateand coverage ofinvestigation are not enough and so on. The present study attemptsto make verification of known cultural relics which are not fullyregisted. By this way, we hope to improve self-cognitive ability ofcultural types and make an academic breakthrough in terms ofresearch ability. As a positive response to the national policy for theprotection of cultural relics, the thesis does the research on thecurrent protection situation of Zezhou ancient stage and regionalcharacteristics. Regarding the stage as the carrier, the presentstudy combines the literature, cultural relics, folk together to makemake objective record of the current situation of the ancient stagesin Zezhou County, evolution and drama. We hope to makecontributions to the later study by organizing systematically thefirst hand data.