Xiangsheng, also known as crosstalk or comic dialogue, is a traditional performing art in Chinese comedy, and one of the most popular elements in Chinese culture. It is typically performed as a dialogue between two performers, or rarely as a monologue by a solo performer, or even less frequently, as a group act by multiple performers. The Xiangsheng language, rich in puns and allusions, is delivered in a rapid, bantering style, typically in the Beijing dialect. The acts would sometimes include singing, Chinese rapping, and musical instruments.
The sanxian is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several sizes for different purposes and in the early 20th century a four-stringed version, the jiaxian sanxian (加弦三弦), was developed. The northern sanxian is generally larger, at about 122 cm (48 in) in length, while southern versions of the instrument are usually about 95 cm (37 in) in length.
The term guban refers collectively to a small drum and paiban (clapper), which are played simultaneously, by a single player, in traditional Chinese music.
Zhou Tong, the archery teacher of Song Dynasty General Yue Fei, has appeared in black-and-white films, wuxia novels, and folktales. He mainly appears in material dealing with Yue Fei, but also in media about his other students and his own biography and comic book.
Pingshu or pinghua refers to the traditional Han Chinese performing art of storytelling with no musical accompaniment. It is better known as pingshu in northern China and pinghua in southern China.
The paiban is a clapper made from several flat pieces of hardwood or bamboo, which is used in many different forms of Chinese music. There are many different types of paiban, and the instrument is also referred to as bǎn (板), tánbǎn, mùbǎn, or shūbǎn (书板). Typical materials used for the paiban include zitan, hongmu, or hualimu, or bamboo, with the slats tied together loosely on one end with cord. It is held vertically by one hand and clapped together, producing a sharp clacking sound.
Kuaibanshu is a form of oral storytelling performance that is popular in northern China. It is a type of shuochang, somewhat similar to Vietnamese vè or rapping.
The bangu, often simply gu, is a Chinese frame drum that, when struck by one or two small bamboo sticks, creates a sharp dry sound essential to the aesthetics of Chinese opera. Striking the drum in different places produces different sounds. It is also used in many Chinese chamber music ensembles. The percussion section is very important in Chinese Opera, with battle or 'martial' scenes, which are called wu-chang. The bangu player is the director or conductor of the orchestra. He works with the other members of the percussion section to create the right mood for the audience and actors on stage.
Liu Zhengcheng is a contemporary Chinese calligrapher based in Beijing, China particularly noted for his use of the cursive script. He is president of the International Association of Calligraphers and chief editor of the "Chinese Calligraphy" journal. He was formerly deputy secretary of the Chinese Calligraphers Association. He is currently editing the 100 volume Chinese Calligraphy Encyclopedia of which 67 volumes have so far been completed. His general introduction to calligraphy published in 2008 is used as a textbook for students of the subject across China and won the Contemporary Chinese Calligraphy Contribution Award in 2007. In 2004 he was made a Professor at Peking University's Institute of Calligraphy
The Jiangsu Performing Arts Group, or JPAG, is a theater company established in 2001 and based in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. It is one of the largest performing arts groups in China and has won eighteen Plum Blossom Prizes and twenty-one Wen Hua Awards. It has also been named "National Key Enterprise for Cultural Export" six times. The group participates in the Chinese Cultural System Reformation.
Pingtan, also known as Suzhou pingtan, is a regional variety of quyi and a musical/oral performance art form popular in southern Jiangsu, northern Zhejiang, and Shanghai. It originated in the city of Suzhou. It is a combination of the Chinese narrative musical traditions pinghua and tanci. It dates back to Song dynasty and is influenced by Wuyue culture.
Baiju or Nanjing baiju, also called baiqu, is a traditional type of Chinese singing-storytelling and a form of quyi, formed in the rural Luhe District in the city of Nanjing during the Yuan dynasty more than 600 years ago. Though belittled by the upper class, baiju was very popular among the lower classes. It is also the only kind of old local opera in Nanjing, known as a native art which includes singing and telling in the Nanjing dialect, and is particularly rich in rhyme. Baiju is often performed in the form of a solo monologue or a dialogue, like xiangsheng. When acted, it needs from two to five performers. It is very easy to understand, with strong local characteristics, but unfortunately, due to the decline of both performers and audiences, the prospects for baiju are not optimistic. The origin of its name is performers not receiving any pay for their show.
Shan Chuanzhong, better known by stage name Shan Tianfang, was a Chinese pingshu performer. He was a member of the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage inheritors, a member of Chinese Ballad Singers Association and a member of China Society for Literature Popular Research. His language in pingshu performances was relatively plain, and he specialized in presenting the images, colors and emotions with sound impressions. Since the mid-1990s, his storytelling video shows have been broadcast on TV stations like CCTV.
In Chinese culture, Guci are the prosimetric lyrics of dagu, one musical entertainment form in the shuochang or "speak and sing" genre. The performers narrate a story based on the lyrics, usually accompanied by singing, while beating a drum. Other accompanying musical instruments are sanxian, sihu, pipa and yangqin. The art form was very popular during the Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, and therefore extant guci are very important in studying Chinese fiction from those period.
A huaben is a Chinese short- or medium-length story or novella written mostly in vernacular language, sometimes including simple classical language. In contrast to the full-length Chinese novel, it is generally not divided into chapters and recounts a limited number of characters or events. The earliest huaben are reported in the 12th century during the Song dynasty, but the genre did not flourish until the late Ming dynasty, and after the mid-17th century did not produce works of originality. In the development of Chinese fiction, the huaben are heirs of the bianwen and chuanqi of the Tang dynasty, and are the predecessors of the stories and full-length novels of the Ming.
Tanci is a narrative form of song in China that alternates between verse and prose. The literal name "plucking rhymes" refers to the singing of verse portions to a pipa. A tanci is usually seven words long. On some occasions the length is ten words. Some scholars refer to tanci as "plucking rhymes," "southern singing narrative," "story-sining," "strum lyrics". The local forms of Tanci encompasses Suzhou Tanci, Yangzhou Tanci, Siming Nanci, Shaoxing Pinghudiao etc.
Yang Zishan is a Chinese actress. She is known for her breakout role in Zhao Wei's film So Young, which won her Outstanding New Actress at the Huabiao Awards. In 2015, she won the Best Actress award at the China Movie Channel Media Awards for her performance in 20 Once Again. She starred in Walking Past the Future, the only Chinese film to be nominated for the Un Certain Regard at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, and the science fiction thriller Battle of Memories in 2017.
Xiju, also known as Wuxi opera, is a genre of opera which originated in the southern region of the Yangtze River Delta in China. It evolved from "Tanhuang" (滩簧), a folk opera art in the region of Wuxi and Changzhou of Jiangsu province. As one of the main local operas in Jiangsu Province, Wuxi opera has been reputed as "a piece of plum flower in Taihu Lake", a title given to the three major operas in East China, alongside Yue opera and Huangmei opera.
Pinghua refers to two Sinitic languages from Guangxi and Hunan, China.
Wang Yaoqing was a Chinese actor and singer noted for playing the role of a virtuous adult woman, or qingyi, the most important role in Peking opera. He was from Qingjiangpu District, Huai'an in eastern Jiangsu Province.
