China News Service, Baise, July 24th (Yang Zhixiong, Wen Junfeng, Huang Dongmei) "Into the beautiful Zhuang Township, Zhuang opera is all the way. The Zhuang family has loved to sing opera since ancient times, put down the rake and appeared on the stage..." The lyrics sing the Zhuang people's love for Zhuang people. love of drama.

  In Tianlin County, Baise City, Guangxi, known as the "Hometown of Zhuang Opera in China", 65-year-old Huang Zhiyuan is still active on the stage of Zhuang Opera.

Dressed in a red brocade robe, shaking a white folding fan, and reciting a piece of Zhuang language, this is his role as "Liu Yuanwai".

  In front of him, Huang Zhiyuan is personally instructing the actors of Tianlin County Hongxin Theatre Troupe to perform the Zhuang drama "The Knot and Good Fate".

The troupe led by Huang Zhiyuan in 2020, the actors are all migrant workers from various towns and villages in Tianlin County. They work in various places in the county during the day, and at night they put on costumes and learn to sing Zhuang opera with Huang Zhiyuan.

  Zhuang Opera, also known as "Zhuang Opera", is developed on the basis of Zhuang folk literature, singing and dancing, and rap skills, and is popular in Guangxi, Yunnan and other Zhuang inhabited areas.

In 2006, Zhuang Opera was selected into the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

The picture shows Huang Zhiyuan performing.

Photo by Huang Dongmei

  Due to the differences in regional environment, dialects, performance styles, singing and accompaniment instruments, Zhuang opera has branches such as North Road Zhuang Opera, South Road Zhuang Opera, Zhuang Shigong Opera in Guangxi, Funing Zhuang Opera in Yunnan, and Guangnan Zhuang Opera.

  What is the special charm of Zhuang drama?

Huang Zhiyuan said: "Zhuang opera is in the language of our own nationality. The performance and singing of Daobai are all in Zhuang dialect. The plays we perform and the content we sing are closely related to the lives of our masses. The content of Zhuang Opera repertoire reflects our real life and is close to life. In addition, the biggest feature of Zhuang Opera is that most of the lines in the script use folk songs, proverbs, slang, and the language of the people. The crowd sounds like listening to folk songs. ."

  Huang Zhiyuan began to learn Zhuang opera at the age of 5, and he was able to sing well on stage at the age of 8.

After graduating from high school in 1980, Huang Zhiyuan was selected to work at the Bagui Township Cultural Station, and since then he has forged an indissoluble bond with the art of Zhuang Opera.

At that time, there were more than 90 amateur Zhuang troupes in Tianlin County, including 30 in Bagui Township alone.

In order to guide the troupe well, he took the ninth-generation artist Huang Fangsheng of North Road Zhuang Opera as his teacher, and learned the singing, movements, steps, fans and other skills in various professions such as Sheng, Dan, Wu, and Chou.

Since then, he has participated in various training courses held in Nanning, Baise and other places for many times, and his skills have been fully developed, and he has become a well-known Zhuang Opera instructor in western Guangxi.

  "For Zhuang opera to develop, it must keep pace with the times and reform and innovate." Huang Zhiyuan first started with the script to standardize the troupe's performance skills.

The scripts he wrote and adapted were rigorous and standardized.

He has also made major reforms in the performing arts, and the singing has developed from a single to a diversified, and created and quoted more than 20 pieces of music, which enriched the music of Zhuang opera.

  Today, Huang Zhiyuan has been studying in Zhuang Opera for 42 years. He can write, sing, dance, direct, act, make up and play the erhu.

For more than 40 years, Huang Zhiyuan has organized and developed 28 amateur theater troupes in Tianlin County, and organized and restored 18 amateur theater troupes.

  There are 81 traditional plays created and edited by Huang Zhiyuan, 65 adapted plays and 6 transplanted plays.

He also created 8 modern small Zhuang dramas, 25 sketches, 88 allegro, 42 performances, and more than 300 folk songs. The 156 Zhuang drama scripts he created have been classified and published in 9 episodes.

Many of Huang Zhiyuan's works have won awards in various national, autonomous and municipal performances.

  In 2009, Huang Zhiyuan was identified as the representative inheritor of the second batch of intangible cultural heritage Zhuang operas in Guangxi.

Although he retired in 2017, he will not retire from the arts. With his dedication and love, he still insists on creative guidance, conscientiousness and silent dedication.

He said that the major event in his life is to inherit the North Road Zhuang Opera.

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