Creation In Performance

Shanbei story-telling is a distinctive type of the Chinese narrative art characteristic of Shanbei region of China, the majority of whose performers are blind artists. During the artistic movement of Yan’an in Shaanxi Province, where some basic aspects of the later Communist cultural policy were formulated, great importance was placed on this kind of narrative art by the authority. And the representative artist then was Han Qixiang. In recent years, more and more artists with normal sight get involved in the performance of such narrative art, which led to the decline of the activity of the blind ones. In terms of the construction of its music, the most remarkable characteristic of Shanbei story-telling is its improvisatory quality. An artist with strong ability of improvisation can take a small piece of story and expand it, by improvising, to a performance that lasts as long as dozens of hours. Artists with such competence are primarily those blind ones. This dissertation, focused on this problem, explores the construction of Shanbei story-telling.The first chapter, introduction, provides an outline of the historical development and current situation of Shanbei story-telling. In the presentation of the history of the art, the author mainly discusses its origin, which is in want of adequate written evidence. The author also re-examines and evaluates the part the story-telling played during the movement of Yan’an, as well as its development and representative artist, Han Qixiang.The second chapter is concerned with the basic unit of the construction of Shanbei story-telling, that is, the tunes. The first half of this chapter, based on the analysis of the various factors in the formation of the tunes, expounds the formal features of the typical tunes. And the second half of the chapter discusses the ways that the typical tunes develop into other kinds of tunes.The third chapter primarily deals with the formula of Shanbei story-telling, including the formula of the text and that of the music. There are both differences and connection between the two. The interaction between the formulas of different levels makes improvisation possible.The fourth chapter focuses on the styles of diverse schools and artists. Having described the characteristics of schools marked by their performing modes and examined the training and style of several representative artists, the author suggests that the style of a school derives from the continuation of the tradition, while the personal style comes from the strict discipline of the artist himself.The fifth chapter discusses the relationship between the music and the function of Shanbei story-telling. The existence of this kind of narrative art always depends on rituals. There are usually three major occasions, family, society and temple fair. By description and analysis of these occasions, the author attempts to show the different kinds of music the story-telling uses in different situations and further demonstrates the inner connection between the music and its ritual functions.The conclusion integrated the main body of the dissertation, i.e. from the second to the fifth chapter, into an analytic method called "quadruple formula of construction".