The Fieldwork And Research On Chuichui Qiang,a Folk Opera Of Bai Ethnic Group In Yunlong,Yunnan

Since 1980s,there have been some achievements in the research about Chuichui Qiang,the folk opera of Bai ethnic group.Firstly,the origin of the opera was carded from the angle of opera history.Secondly,the interrelation between the opera and religious belief,the people's daily life was investigated and analyzed from the view point of culture science.Thirdly,the style and characteristics were researched from the ontology of art.Fourthly,some countermeasures were put forward to protect and develop the opera.The work above offers significant advice.While we also see the necessity to carry out further researches.Firstly,there is a need of comprehensive art angle.The researchers' present work tends to be fragmentized in historical origin,scripts,music and masks.The art of opera has not been regarded as an integrated discipline of music,literature,dance and fine arts.Still academic circles have not interpreted the aesthetic connotation of the scripts in their researches about the literature of Chuichui Qiang.Secondly,there is a lack of an organic cultural conception.There hasn't been a consciously organic research about the interrelation between the opera and the religious belief of Bai ethnic group,the political life,ethnic identity and gender,etc.Thirdly,there is a lack of fieldwork method of cultural anthropology.During their investigations,they rarely applied the methods like in-depth interview,participant observation,subject status,object status and thick description.Then their work hardly reflected the status of Chuichui Qiang in the life of Bai ethnic group with a panoramic and deep way.The thesis points out that a method and angle of theatrical anthropology should be adopted in the research on Chuichui Qiang,the folk opera of Bai ethnic group.On the base of down-to-earth fieldwork,the interrelation between the opera and society,history,culture,politics and aesthetics can be revealed from the thick description about historical memory,modern revival,artistic display and the difficulties of inheritance.There are theoretical and practical dual meanings in researching Chuichui Qiang,the folk opera of Bai ethnic group in Yunlong with an angle of theatrical anthropology.Theoretically,it can expand the method in researching traditional,ethnic,and folk opera which can be helpful to the development of the discipline of theatrical anthropology.Practically,it can offer suggestions to inherit and protect traditional,ethnic and folk opera,to construct new harmonious countryside.On the base of the forerunners' research,the writer investigated 6 typical troupes of Chuichui Qiang in Yunlong County with fieldwork of in-depth interview and participant observation,an angle of organic cultural conception and culture holder's interior horizon.With the method of Geertz's in-depth description,the writer expressed the history,cites,purposes,meanings,formula and utility of the performance of the opera in a panoramic view.The main contents are as follows.Chapter one:the historical memory of Chuichui Qiang.It includes the historical literature,oral legends and actors' oral history.Chapter Two:the artistic performances of Chuichui Qiang.From the ontology of art,the chapter expresses the relation between sacrifice rituals,music and the opera and describes the activities to collect,allocate and compose scripts.The troupes in Yunlong have their own stage worship rituals.The actors have distinct knowledge about the differences between Chuichui Qiang and Beijing Opera,Dian Opera as well as Sichuan opera.Chuichui Qiang has its own folk category in tunes,music and instruments.The folk actors' composition and allocation of scripts are a part of the artistic performance of Chuichui Qiang.They compose,allocate and perform the plays themselves which develop the inter-reaction between interpreting scripts and the practice of performance.Chapter Three:the revival course in modern times.It probes into the relation between transformations of national historic cultures and folk artistic tradition.Chapter Four:the complex difficulties in protecting and inheriting Chuichui Qiang in Yunlong.In the analysis of the chapter,there are two sides,namely the lack of sponsors and the difficulty in cultivating inheritors and audiences.The main conclusions are as follows.Firstly,Chuichui Qiang has a strong religious attribute from the angle of historical tradition.This attribute reveals itself mainly in the worship to the god of opera,operatic performance,performance purposes,construction of stages,treading stages,and the costumes,etc.It's also revealed in the other local religious beliefs related to performance activities.Secondly,Chuichui Qiang is combined with religious worship and entertainment activities,rather than a kind of commercial opera in history and today's countryside.It has special functions and significance as a kind of non-commercial folk opera.It promotes the formation of the local people's national and ethnic identities.It also helps to develop local people's moral concepts.Thirdly,the modern revival of Chuichui Qiang is promoted by multi-forces.The external force is that national policies of literature and art have changed from opposition and suppression into advocacy and support.The internal force is the folk actors' spirit and action to consciously inherit the opera.Another force comes form the media and the academy.Fourthly,the protection and inheritance of Chuichui Qiang can be strengthened as follows:not to tramper the performance systems in a free way;to innovate on the base of respecting and following traditions;to treat traditional and modern repertoire equally;to offer comparatively sufficient sponsors and to allocate the funds reasonably to each troupe;to apply the sponsors in renewing stages,costumes,props and the actors' subsidy;to strengthen the organizational construction of the troupes;to properly deal with the relation between the troupes and the sports associations of the aged;to embark training school or classes under the administration of a county level;to invite the aged actors to give lectures;to collect,collate,and research the scripts,masks,traditional costumes and props;to advocate the troupes to hold campus activities;to popularize the laws for protecting intangible cultural heritages;to define the folk actors' duties,rights and benefits so as to carry out inheritance under the laws.