Yao Feng, born in 1947, died on April 24, 2021, from Baqiao, Shaanxi. First-class director, famous Qin cavity table, director artist. At the age of 11, he entered Xi'an Sanyi Society to study art, and studied under Du Yongquan, Li Zhenghua, Wang Xinhua, Xie Weipei, etc., and the main workers were Xu Sheng and Hongsheng. In 1987, he went to the Shanghai Theater Academy for further study in the directing department. He has successively served as the director of the Art Research Office, the director of the Art Committee, the director of the Choreographer Office, and the manager of the performance troupe, and has served as the director of the Spring Festival Gala in Xi'an for several years.
As a well-known Qin-style performance artist, Mr. Yao Feng has been engaged in the art for more than 60 years, and has successively portrayed Song Shijie in "Four Jinshi", Huang Boxian in "Life and Death", Yang Jiye in "Golden Beach", Jiang Wei in "Collecting Jiang Wei", Yang Yanjing in "Breaking the Heavenly Gate", Yang Jikang in "Yang Bajie Stealing the Knife", Wu Yuan in "Demolishing the Book", Han Qi in "The Case of Quanmei", and Guan Yu in "Out of the Five Levels", "Picking Robes" and "Ancient City Meeting". In particular, the two artistic images of "Guan Yu" and "Han Qi" created on the stage of Qin Cavity have been praised by experts and audiences. He has won the first prize of the second pomegranate flower competition in Xi'an and the first prize of the "Sun Cup" competition in the five provinces and regions of Northwest China. Mr. Yao Feng is also an outstanding opera director artist, in addition to rehearsing and directing a large number of traditional plays, the original repertoire directed by him mainly includes "Love", "The Legend of the Figurines", "Alley Premier", "Fang Yunniang", "White Deer Plain", "Xianyang Bridge", "Sui Palace Secret Thorn", etc., and has won the Baoji New Repertoire Director Award, the First China Qinqiang Art Festival Outstanding Director Award, and the 6th Shaanxi Provincial Arts Festival Outstanding Director Award.
The 2nd Pomegranate Flower Competition
Guan Gong Opera plays a pivotal role in Yao Feng's artistic process. Before the liberation, old artists such as Wang Bingzhong of the Yi Folk Society and Yan Guobin of the Sanyi Society often performed Guan Gong operas, but later because of the difficulty, few people cared about them. And Yao Feng changed to a director in the later stage because of his voice, and he acted in a lot of plays that were good at his skills, and Guan Gong's drama was an important part of it. In 1981, Du Yongquan arranged "Ancient City Meeting" for him. At the second pomegranate flower competition in Xi'an, Yao Feng participated in the competition with another "Pick Robe". The Guan Gong he portrayed broke the previous Qin dialect performance of Guan Gong's eyes closed and the statue modeling mode of focusing on stillness, and invited Guan Yu down from the altar to "act according to people", with movement and stillness, focusing on movement, and achieved good artistic results, and won the first prize of the competition in one fell swoop.
Editor/Liu Jun