Text/Figure Shandong Business Daily Speed Leopard News Network Reporter Zheng Zhinan Zheng Xiaotong Sent from Zaozhuang
Three feet of silk, a cloth screen, a few shadow puppets, behind the scenes of the people singing and playing, doing their best in the world, mood and sorrow, this is a common scene in shadow puppet plays. In the past years when film, television and other media had not yet appeared, shadow puppetry, as a folk entertainment activity, was active in the cities and countryside and was deeply loved by people.
Lunan shadow puppet originated from Shanting District, Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province, and is known as the three major shadow puppets in China together with Tangshan shadow puppets in Hebei and Huaxian in Shaanxi Province, and has been passed down for a hundred years. At the beginning of the new year, Chen Shouke, as the fourth generation of Lunan shadow puppetry, posted the performance schedule of the new year in front of the familiar booth, "The days are passing, the drama must continue to sing, and you listen to me..."
"Pass on men and not women"
At the beginning of the new year, Chen Shouke hung up the performance schedule for the new year in front of the shop in the ancient city of Taierzhuang in Zaozhuang City. In the past year, he has performed hundreds of shadow puppet shows in this small shop of less than 20 square meters, holding up cloth screens and picking up bamboo sticks.
"This is my 55th year with shadow puppetry." Over the years, he said, he had witnessed the rise and fall of the "ancestral" craft of shadow puppetry.
Chen Shouke's shadow puppet play originated from the Shanting District of Zaozhuang City, which is a Lunan shadow puppet represented by the Lunan Taoist sect's mountain flower shadow puppet, and its singing pays attention to "the magic tune of the cavity, the nine chambers and eighteen tones, and the seventy-two hums", which has distinct characteristics and is deeply loved by the public.
"According to the old rules, shadow puppetry is passed on to men and not to women. After all, at that time, singing opera, except for the occasional eating of rare things such as white-noodle dumplings and sugar cubes, was still a subsistence craft. Chen Shouke said that when he was a child, the female relatives of the family were not allowed to learn shadow puppetry, but as a young son, he learned shadow puppetry with his father from the age of 6.
Talking about the experience of learning art, the 61-year-old Chen Shouke sat up straight, his eyes shining, "Shadow puppetry is about basic skills. The techniques on the hand and the brain of the writing should be practiced from an early age, practicing fingering before the age of 14, and trying to take the stage before the age of 16, all of which are exquisite. ”
In his memory, in those years when there were not many entertainment projects, shadow puppetry was the "drama" that everyone loved to watch, the "drama" that loved to chase, "You can't act well, not only smashed the stage, but also swept everyone's happiness." Chen Shouke said that Lunan shadow puppetry has extremely high requirements for performers, in addition to singing and fighting by one person, but also requires the artist's voice, painting synchronization, vocal and musical synchronization, "At that time, my father said to me, when your mouth is as fast as your brain, and your hands are as fast as your mouth, you can perform a good play. ”
It was not until the seventh year of his study that Chen Shouke debuted on stage, opening with the drama hat he had heard countless times, and completed the first play in his life - Journey to the West's "Three Dozen White Bone Essences".
Drama and dance
"At that time, on the stage, I saw the audience under the stage from the cracks, saying that it was false not to be nervous, and I was dancing the pole of the shadow puppet in my hand, but I forgot the words on my mouth, and I was scolded by my father." Chen Shouke told reporters with a smile that this "debut" not only allowed him to find out his level, but also let him gain the "first" partner on the road of drama.
Generally speaking, traditional shadow puppetry is generally composed of two people, that is, one person operates the singing and one person knocks on the accompaniment. "We also call it the literary field and the dance hall, the literary field is responsible for the accompaniment and props in the back, and the dance hall is responsible for singing and fighting in the front." Chen Shouke said that he and his brothers and brothers formed a partnership, "The literary field, the dance hall, we alternate." When I encounter a play that I like and like, then I will choose a dance hall and let the teachers and brothers accompany me. ”
Chen Shouke recalled that his father had received a total of six disciples, and he was the youngest and was also well taken care of. When he was in trouble on the stage, no matter which brother was behind, he would always give him a trick.
Later, Chen Shouke met his current wife and had an exclusive partner. "I am outside the Lord, my wife is inside the Lord, so is the family, and so is the drama." He said that over the years, his wife has been in charge of the literary field, followed him to the south and north, and has traveled through more than twenty provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country.
"In the seventies and eighties, the main battlefield of shadow puppetry was in the countryside. At that time, shadow puppetry was really popular. Everywhere my wife and I went, as long as there was a performance, the surrounding area of the stage must be surrounded by water. Chen Shouke said that that kind of scene is no less than the "concert" of the stars.
In the "village performances" in the past years, there is an experience that makes Chen Shouke feel warm to this day, "One winter, we sang in a shed on a wheat field at the head of the village, and it snowed outside during the performance. The villagers were afraid that we would stop the performance, so they put on a quilt for our shed without us knowing it, it was very cold that day, but my wife and I felt warm in our hearts. It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that the shadow puppet show of the snowy night ended in the audience's inexhaustible mood.
880 shadow puppets
It is understood that shadow puppetry is generally made of cowhide, and in the later stage of development, it slowly evolved into donkey skin production. Generally speaking, the shadow puppet production process is very complicated, from the selection of skins, skin making, drawing drafts, drafts, to engraving, coloring, sweating ironing, knotting and other procedures can not tolerate a little sloppiness, Chen Shouke said, as the main props of shadow puppetry, do a good job of a shadow puppet, is the basic skill of artists.
Chen Shouke took the production of a shadow puppet character as an example and presented the complicated process of shadow puppet production to reporters. Starting from the selection of skins, "the spine skin is the best, thin and delicate, can be used to carve the face of the character, the skin of the thigh is suitable for the boots of the character, and the skin in different positions has different uses." "After selecting the skin, put the raw skin (untreated skin) into the jar and soak it in lime water for half a month, after taking it out, then use a knife to scrape off the residual flesh on the surface of the fur, and then use a nail to fix the skin on the plate and tighten it for 3 to 5 days, so that it is flat and wrinkle-free, which is considered to be a good skin." After that, on this basis, the remaining 6 steps such as drawing, passing, engraving, coloring, ironing, and knotting are carried out.
"In addition, in the shadow puppet making process, the engraving is also a very important step. In the process of engraving, more than a dozen carving knives such as linear knives and crescent knives are used to engrave thousands of knives on the shadow puppet, and the whole process is extremely complicated. Chen Shouke said that before each engraving, he was sloppy, carefully drafted, and when it came to the engraving on the skin, he was very careful, "Once the wrong knife is placed, the skin is wasted." ”
In the ancient city of Taierzhuang, Chen Shouke's hut stored thousands of various shadow puppets, large and small, leather wooden, different forms, among which the four masters and apprentices in the popular "Journey to the West" look very meticulously carved and lifelike, Chen Shouke said: "The soul of shadow puppetry is in people, but also in shadow puppetry." ”
To this day, there are still 880 old shadow puppets (160 sets in total) in Chen Shouke's home. Folklore experts who study shadow puppetry said that Chen Shouke's collection of more than 100 sets of mountain flower shadow puppets is not only huge in number, but also the best preserved so far. Chen Shouke is also known as "the most complete and oldest survivor of Chinese shadow puppetry".
Lineage and innovation
Chen Shouke, who recalled, told reporters that the shadow puppetry that was once popular began to decline in the early 1990s. At that time, Chen Shouke was also caught in a dilemma, no one watched the play, what to do with the "guy Shi"; no one watched the play, how to raise a family.
At this point, Chen Shouke embarked on the road of singing while making a small business while raising his family. "I tried it again and again to support my family, but I never put down the matter of singing shadow puppetry." Chen Shouke said that in 2004, he successively received invitations from the Jinan Thousand Buddha Mountain Temple Fair and daming lake scenic spot, "At that time, everyone thought shadow puppetry was fun again." I breathed a long sigh of relief, and it was almost ten years, and I was able to concentrate on singing again. ”
In 2007, Lunan shadow puppetry was selected into the first batch of intangible cultural heritage list in Shandong Province. Chen Shouke, who went to perform all over the country, seems to see the rebirth of shadow puppetry, "more and more people are understanding, understanding, and valuing shadow puppetry." In 2009, Chen Shouke received an invitation from his hometown, and in the ancient city of Taierzhuang, there was a performance venue dedicated to Lunan shadow puppetry.
"I agreed without thinking about it, and the money was not as much as it was when I used to travel and act. But I can also count the fallen leaves back to the roots, and I can also take the shadow puppet home. Chen Shouke said that since then, shadow puppet plays have been staged in the ancient city of Taierzhuang, almost 365 days a year long, "I and my wife take turns to shift, occasionally relatives, friends, disciples also come to the scene, saying that it is not tired is false, but whenever it comes to the time of the performance, the tourists gathered at the door and the expectant eyes, I feel that I will stand up to sing, even if there is only one person in front of the stage, I will sing." ”
In 2011, Chinese shadow puppetry was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In 2015, Chen Shouke was also awarded the honor of "Top Ten Model Inheritors of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection in Shandong Province".
In order to make the mountain flower shadow puppet go out better and let more people understand and like shadow puppetry, Chen Shouke added some corresponding Mandarin explanations on the basis of traditional dialect singing, which is convenient for more people to understand on the basis of retaining the traditional characteristics of Lunanshan flower shadow puppetry. In addition, he also innovatively integrated shandong drums, Shandong qinshu and other art forms, forming a new singing voice, injecting new vitality into the singing voice and performance form of Lunanshan flower shadow puppetry.
In the shadow puppet performance, in addition to traditional plays such as "Nezha Noisy Sea", Chen Shouke also created many new plays. Chen Shouke said: "As long as someone really wants to learn, I will teach carefully." We must carry forward the mountain flower shadow puppet, in addition to people there are changes. ”
Seeing that it was about to be the time for the evening performance, the audience at the entrance of the small shop gathered more and more, and Chen Shouke put up the curtain again, provoked the shadow puppet, and sang the play...
Editor of Shandong Business Daily And Leopard News Network Liu Qingying