The History And Change Of Pingtan School----the Narrative Of 'School Mechanism' In Shanghai

Pingtan is one kind of Quyi which is popular in the Wu local language area of Yangtse River Delta Region."Ping" means telling story, and "Tan" means telling story while playing strings. In order to distinct from Pingtan of other region, it is named "Suzhou Pingtan" after its original place Suzhou city. From the mid of Qing dynasty,"Ping" and "Tan" have been popular in the same area of Suzhou, and performed in same shu-chang. After1950s, they two were combined as "Pingtan".In this dissertation, author studies the Schools of Pingtan, which was named after their initiators in the society of Pingtan. School comes into being when a type of Quyi or Xiqu becomes mature. Studying the history and change of Schools is an efficient way to discover the development of Quyi and Xiqu. Using the tool of School Mechanisms, author studies the history and changes of Pingtan Schools, by comparing two golden periods of Pingtan Schools,1920s\1930s and1950s with current development of Schools diachronically, and comparing different composing factors. The author has two conclusions here. The first one, the entire mechanism is missing nowadays, and then there is no environment for new Schools to generate and develop. The second one is that the change of existing Schools in nowadays society makes them transfer to stage and artistic performance from folk culture, and induce the regional difference between Shanghai and Suzhou.The issue studied in this dissertation is in the extensive scope of "Tradition in Nowadays". The author pays attention to "the existing problem of Chinese tradition culture in urbanization", and emphasis on "the environment of Chinese traditional Quyi". There have been no new Pingtan Schools coming forth for a long time, and old Schools have changed a lot. What the author discovers here is the underline reason and developing direction of this culture environment. The author tries best to discuss the history, change and underlying culture significance of Pingtan Schools in Shanghai City, holding "marco-prospect" and "ecology" in research concept, putting music culture phenomena in dynamic historical context and ecosystem, and using a narrative way combining historical and realistic narration.