Reanalysis Of The "Biao" Of Storytelling And Ballad Singing In Suzhou Dialect

"Biao"is an important performance medium in storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect, which has always being paid great attention to and has variable definitions, but there was few treatise on it.However, in recent twenty years, storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect has being researched as an example of human verbal art as performance and was a favorite with abroad researchers, such as American researchers Bai Suzhen, Mark Bender and so on. Some treatises have been published, such as Plum and Bamboo: China's Suzhou Chantefable Tradition (Mark Bender. 2003), which were honored with"Academic Stars". While domestic referential researches still remain at the level of borrowing other kinds of theories, such as theories of literature, drama, film and television, as domestic researchers don't recognize the feature of storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect, such a verbal art as performance, so they can't find the basic reason why storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect has been declining at present. As oral literature and auditory art, storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect can be researched neither by literature theory of written language completely nor by the theories of drama, film and television mechanically. Since there isn't a systematic theory on special verbal art as performance, the writer of this paper has to use some opinions of external researchers for reference, wishing to contribute to structuring a systematic theory of storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect.The gist of this paper is that the nature of"Biao"lies in transforming speaking identities. Based on defining the nature, according to different objects, we can classify"Biao"into different modes. Furthermore, we can suggest that the function of"Biao"is to integrate the artistic world of books(described by the scripts) with the artistic world created by performers with sounds, and the artistic world accepted in audience's brain.The paper is written by means of reading texts carefully and field investigation. First of all, the writer has collected and read many written materials on storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect, such as developing history, basic skills, figures and performance schools, concrete performance texts and research results. Furthermore, the related audio and video data have been sought as much as possible. Secondly, the writer has done a lot of field work, interviewed audience, and personally experienced how the audience are brought into the art world of books in the performance process by the performers. Finally, the proper argument has been screened from the data to prove the subject's view. Benefiting from the research method of western verbal art as performance, and borrowing the keypoints o"fframe"and"keying"from Richard Bauman's theory of verbal art as performance, the paper has given a reasonable explanation for the declining conditions of storytelling and ballad singing in Suzhou dialect by revealing the action-reaction relationship between performers and audience neglected in the research on the art form.