Kunqu In North China: Past And Present

This dissertation focuses on Kunqu of how to develop and spread in North China from Ming dynasty to present, what changes to happen and what's the reason of changing. Kunqu originated from kunshan aria, which was very popular in Suzhou at mid-Ming. This aria was also called 'Kunqu', which was a mixture of south aria and north aria.With the Ming's capital's moving from Nanjing to Peking, the political and cultural significance went to north China. Kunqu also went into Peking, spreading by performance in palace, theatre and at home. The economic blooming in Peking also contributed to the flowering of Kunqu. From end of Ming to Mid-Qing, Kunqu in north China experienced a flourishing days marked by editing of palace plays, increasing of home drama troupe(or lompany) and professional drama troupe, and giving birth of famous classic works, such as Changsheng Dian(Long-live Palace), and Taohua Shan(PeachFlowerFan), while there existed imbalance of developing and spreading of Kunqu in north China. At end of Ming, Kunqu was very popular in Beijing, also in Tianjin, Hebei, and Shanxi, while there weren't literary record of performance of Kunqu in the other areas in history until Qing dynasty. There were frequent performance of Kunqu in Beijing, Tianjin and Shanxi, also in Liaoning, inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, also in Xinjiang. Therefore these performances contributed to the extending of Kunqu. But at end of Qing and beginning of Minguo(Republic of China), Kunqu existed mainly by zhezi play(excerpts), and performance in king palace and rural areas in Hebei. Drama troupes of Kunqu were nearly to disappear before liberation.New China's government gave reform and alteration to folk drama in 1950s and in 1960s in order to adapt them to ideology. The main policies towards folk drama marked by Three Reform(reform of play, reform of player and reform of institution) in 1950s, and Three Coexisting(modern play, traditional play, and new editing play). The political effect on Kunqu at these two ages was characterized by Shiwu guan(Fifteen guan) of 1950s, which gave birth to Kunqu again, and Li Huiniang(Miss Lee) of 1960s, which brought a doom to The North Kunqu and Theatre after giving ephemeral glory to her. Li Huiniang was one of the fuse of causing ten years' 'Wen ger'(Cultural Revolution). The ten years' Cultural Revolution put forward the politicalization of art to the extreme point under the direction of the 'extreme Left'policies, and clamped down all theatres and coupes of Kunqu. Since 1979, Kunqu was given rebirth by government.