After more than 200 years, why has the "Bamboo Horse Club" become a memory symbol of canal culture?

Source: Jinyun News

For thousands of years, people on both sides of the canal have passed on these intangible cultures by word of mouth, becoming intangible cultural heritage items and forming a unique memory symbol of canal culture.

With a history of more than 200 years, the "Sigezhuang Bamboo Horse Club" is one of the intangible cultural heritages along the North Canal of Tianjin. There are not many actors in the Bamboo Horse Club, only 9 people, they wear the heads and costumes of Peking Opera, 8 people step on the bamboo horse, 1 person holds up the Huangluo umbrella, with the conductor of the inheritor, the change of the drum beat, as if riding a real horse, or galloping, or slow, performing a story of "Zhaojun out of the plug".

Whenever the winter day of farming, Sigezhuang Village is quiet and comfortable, walking in the village, reminiscing about the past, behind the original bamboo horse will be handed down, is the inheritor carefully selected from generation to generation, a story about protection and a loyal stick.

Inheritors selected from generation to generation

Sigezhuang is located in Damengzhuang Township, Wuqing District, Tianjin, which is a village close to the North Canal, where almost every household can tell two sentences about the history of the Bamboo Horse Club.

"Bamboo horse" is actually an ancient children's toy, mostly made of bamboo poles, and children clamp it under the crotch as a horse to ride. Later, the bamboo horse absorbed some traditional opera, quyi performing arts singing, music, costumes, etc., and developed into a kind of Han folk dance, which became a common performance program in folk literary and artistic activities or festivals, known as the "Bamboo Horse Club".

"More than 200 years ago, there was a Shandong person, passing through Sigezhuang and passing it to the villagers of Sigezhuang Village, this Shandong person is versatile, and he also knows more about music, and he taught 23 songs of various singing passages at that time." Cheng Lidong is the current inheritor of the Bamboo Horse Club.

"Sigezhuang Bamboo Horse Club" is based on "Zhaojun out of the plug", through the combination of singing and running bamboo horses, perform a folk flower party, the main actors have 9 people, including Wang Zhaojun of the phoenix crown and Xia Wei, the court painter Mao Yanshou wearing a black gauze hat, the male and female head horses who open the way for the team, two Tatar soldiers and two palace maids, and a maid who plays a yellow Luo umbrella for the mother.

Cheng Lidong still remembers that the first time he sparked a spark with the Bamboo Horse Club was when he was 16 years old, watching the actors of the Bamboo Horse Club in the village practice, and Cheng Lidong often ran behind at that time, "In the 80s of the last century, my uncle inherited the Bamboo Horse Club from the villagers of the same village and played the role of Mao Yanshou. He saw that I liked it very much, and he began to teach me by hand. ”

Around 2006, Cheng Lidong took over Mao Yanshou's horsewhip from his uncle and became the inheritor of a new generation.

At that time, the bamboo horse, the horse's head and the horse's belly were made of bamboo, and then the bamboo was glued with kraft paper, and then the outside was painted and oiled, the colors were different, the image was vivid, and the horse's head and the horse's belly were connected with bamboo, the wind could not be broken, and the rain could not be broken.

"Because we don't have a two-man martial arts, we are also called 'Wenhui'." During the performance, the head and legs of the bamboo horse straddle the front and back of the actor's waist respectively, and then wear the costume and head of the character, making the appearance vivid, like riding a horse.

There are 8 gates of the "Sigezhuang Bamboo Horse Club", and the actors and gongs and drums should change different formations and drum beats according to the command of Mao Yanshou's right-hand bell and left-hand horsewhip played by Cheng Lidong in the middle of the team.

"It takes more than 20 minutes to perform this time, and we usually go out to perform, and we have to perform several times, sometimes all day, although it is a literary drama, but it is also very tiring." Cheng Lidong said that seeing that he was over 50 years old, three or four years ago, he began to look for and train the next generation of inheritors, and found Lu Jie, a young man in the same village who loves the Bamboo Horse Club, "When it comes to whether the Bamboo Horse Club can be passed on for a long time, it took me a lot of thought to select the inheritor." ”

A story about conservation

From the villagers of the same village, to Cheng Lidong's uncle, to Cheng Lidong, and then to Lu Jie, who may become the future inheritor, it can be seen that the Bamboo Horse Club is not a family inheritance.

President Ren Zhixiang said that although there are only nine actors on stage at a time, there are more than 100 people in the village, and every household has people who can perform the Bamboo Horse Club. It can be said that the Bamboo Horse Club has been handed down because of the power of the whole village.

In the 80s of the last century, the Bamboo Horse Club encountered a trough, and there were fewer and fewer people in the village. From making bamboo horses to buying clothes and headwear, everything costs money, but at that time, who could afford to buy these things?

"In 1984, more than 500 villagers in our village, every household volunteered to contribute money, collected more than 1,000 yuan, and let the Bamboo Horse Club buy objects. Ren Zhixiang recalled.

66-year-old Tian Xiuhua has played Wang Zhaojun since 1986, and this performance has been more than ten years. Tian Xiuhua recalled that at that time, the old people were very strict with the young people who studied the Bamboo Horse Club, and it was particularly hard to practice the Bamboo Horse.

"For example, you have to be small broken steps, so that you can run and walk with a bamboo horse, so that you can be like riding a horse. If you walk normally, the horse's buttocks will be upside down, which is very serious, and it looks like the person and the horse are not coordinated. Tian Xiuhua said that in order to practice small broken steps, the old people in the village asked to put sunflower stalks or wheat stalks between their legs, and no matter whether they walked fast or slowly, they were not allowed to land.

The hardest part is not practicing footwork, but dressing up the head and face of the show. Although the bamboo horse club performance is a Peking Opera dress, although it is not as fine as the makeup of Peking Opera, but in order to make people look at the spirit, wear various headdresses, you also need to use a cloth to wrap your head tighter, wrap your head, make many young actors dizzy, and even vomit, "At that time, everyone didn't want to do it, practicing walking, Baotou, it was very hard, sometimes after a day of performance, the feet were blistered, but they all persevered." ”

Although it was hard, Tian Xiuhua couldn't forget the scene of the performance. In the nineties of the last century, because of everyone's enthusiasm, the bamboo horse club performance, often from more than 10 o'clock in the morning, until the night, each performance is crowded, some people are squeezed into the field, some people climb the wall to see, and some hold torches to chase and watch at night.

A loyal caretaker for 37 years

Listening to Tian Xiuhua's narration, Ren Zhixiang fell into memories with a smile.

In 1985, Ren Zhixiang was just 34 years old, and he just thought it was fun, so he often went to the Bamboo Horse Club to help him.

"I didn't want to take it over at the time, but I really couldn't help it, the old people were very persistent." In the end, Ren Zhixiang took over the management. At that moment, the old people told him, "Don't lose this little thing in Sigezhuang." This sentence was deeply engraved in Ren Zhixiang's heart.

In 2000, the village party branch was elected, and Ren Zhixiang, who had served the masses for many years, was elected as the acting secretary of the village party branch. In 2008, when he held a meeting in the township, he heard that he could declare the intangible cultural heritage of Tianjin, and he was moved, although some villagers did not think so, but Ren Zhixiang said, "Our bamboo horse club has a history of more than 200 years, and we should try it." ”

After handing over all the materials, Ren Zhixiang began to wait eagerly. In October 2009, the "Sigezhuang Bamboo Horse Club" successfully applied for the intangible cultural heritage of Tianjin.

Now, with the support and help of governments at all levels, the Bamboo Horse Club has its own activity room, where the actors on stage can rehearse, the new actors can practice there, the bamboo horses, headdresses, and costumes can be kept in the shop window, and the sound and gongs and drums also have their own rooms......

(Jinyun News reporter Bao Yan)