Study On The Tongzi Opera Of Nantong City

Nantong Boy Play is a precious relic of the ancient Wu Nuo culture in the river,sea and land of Nantong Area.It carries the understanding and memory of Nantong ancestors to the traditional Chinese culture.This paper,taking Nantong Boy Play as its research object,while combing comprehensively the development history,the inheritance and evolution,the performance process,the content of the performance space and such like of Nantong Boy Play---a key state-level non-material cultural heritage---focuses on probing into its origin and many of its turning points as well as such turning points bringing to it the positive and negative effects of its development.As a matter of fact,Nantong Boy Play with Wu Nuo culture gene is worth of parsing,for such a play within Wu Culture and Nuo Culture cannot be divided;to be specific,Nantong Boy Play,in the process of its formation,has itself brought the wrath of the Wu Nuo Culture gene.Then in the long process of its development,it absorbs religious elements as well as the traditional opera art style;it also takes the fusion of the local history,culture and custom,and ultimately becomes a distinctive form of local opera.This dissertation focuses on how Nantong Boy Play separated from the religious “boy”sacrifice ceremony and moved to the stage as an independent drama form,and thereafter discusses how Nantong Boy Play developed into a local general drama and its success or failure in the process of evolution.Nantong Boy Play,in short,is deeply rooted among local ordinary people.Its performance is carried out according to the actual needs of relevant villagers or such kind,and the performance customs have gradually formed according to actual needs.Different performances,to be specific,aim to meet the different wishes of the villagers or such kind.Therefore,it can safely be said that the performance demand customs have different functions.In fact,in the long performance process of Nantong Boy Play,the demands of villagers constantly changed.Nantong is deeply influenced by Buddhism and Taoism.To survive better,the boy players naturally needed to integrate the popular contents of the two religions as mentioned on the above to meet the demands of villagers for religious belief.Therefore,this paper also discusses relevant performance requiring customs,performance taboo culture and the religious influence of Buddhism and Taoism in Nantong,and explores the intrinsic value and relevant significance of Nantong boy Play performance as to relevant social needs.This dissertation,while deeply exploring the origin of Nantong Boy Play,focuses on the involved girl players,and discussing,based on such,the skills,social identity and social evaluation of involved performers of Nantong Boy Play.This paper especially defines the concept and scale of so-called “earthly” and “holy” in the sacrificial performance of Nantong Boy play,discusses the connotation behind used music,musical Instruments and their cultural meaning.Besides,this paper also props of such a play’s special effects and witchcraft survival value,seeking for the cultural connotation hidden behind various performance forms of such a play.As an ancient phenomenon of Wu Nuo culture in Nantong,Nantong Boy Play has experienced a process of evolution from ancient wizard players to boy players in the long years of its development.To be specific,such a local play formed with the arrival of Nantong ancestors and has made a distinct mark of the time and place in the whole history of Nantong’s development.We need,needless to say,to carefully interpret and study it from the perspectives of local history,folklore,society and culture,etc.In short,the repertoires of Nantong Boy Play formed after years of accumulation and reference of other kinds of drama contents,and their singing content also gradually formed by integrating various literary history,astronomy and geography,religion and folk customs,and folk conditions in the process of performing by “boys” from street to street or countryside performance.This dissertation,through relevant repertoire and rap content discussion,hopes to deepen the understanding and cognition of Nantong boy Play.This paper mainly discusses the introduction of the play,the origin of the ability of so-called “thirteen semi-witchcraft books”,its Nantong local characteristics,its narrative characteristics and aesthetic significance such as its origin of the rap content and its text interpretation: god songs,wine songs,lotus flowers falling and so on.To study Nantong Boy Play,it is necessary to carry out an investigation around the living status of its performers,the performance of the existing troupes,the living conditions of relevant players,the national and local protection policies and their specific implementation,and find out the countermeasures and ways for the inheritance and protection of Nantong Boy Play on the basis of the field investigation.