Investigation And Research On The Zhuang Shigong Opera

The Zhuang Shigong Opera is a ritual drama,one branch of Nuo Xi,which is the general designation for all the primitive ritual performances.This paper takes the Guangxi Zhuang Shigong Opera as the study object,and makes a preliminary discussion on the natural and human environment,the origin and forming process,the special field of performance and so on.This paper describes the exhibition process of the Zhuang Shigong Opera based on four ritual cases.On this basis,this paper analyzes the functions and characteristics of the constituent elements of the Zhuang Shigong Opera,and then generalizes the artistic characteristics of it.Finally,it discusses the inheritance and transformation of the Zhuang Shigong Opera in the contemporary social and cultural context.This dissertation consists of “Introduction”,seven“Chapters”,“Conclusion,”and “Appendices.”In the part of “Introduction”,the author tries to give a basic description to the following: object,background,contents and methodology of the research,the key problems to be solved,and the innovation of the thesis.An in-depth analysis of the existing academic achievements is also accomplished in this part.The formation and inheritance of the Zhuang ShiGong Opera are inseparable from the nourishment of the special natural and the human environment in Guangxi.The hostile natural environment of the traditional society in Guangxi is the premise of the creation of Zhuang Folk beliefs.The various life rituals and festive customs of Zhuang nationality have made a vast space-time for the exhibition and performance of Zhuang ShiGong Opera;the profound folk oral tradition of Guangxi has provided artistic nourishment for the opera.The cultural source of Zhuang ShiGong Opera is the ancient culture of witchcraft and exorcism.The formation of ShiGong Opera has gone through three stages: sprouting stage,developing stage and mature stage.The sprouting stage is the initial stage of the ShiGong Opera: dancers entertain the gods with dancing and singing,which is full of mystery.During the period of development stage,the narrative content of Zhuang ShiGong Opera was further enriched,with preliminaryrole-playing involved.In the stage of maturity,the division of the characters has appeared,and fixed performance procedures have formed,and relatively rich singing styles also appear in this stage.The Zhuang ShiGong Opera has its special field of performance.The performance field of the ShiGong Opera is a kind of "cultural space-time",which has two dimensions: time and space.The exhibition opportunities of ShiGong Opera focus on the national festivals,the birth of the gods,the ritual of life,and so on.Its exhibition space is scattered at temple ancestral halls,villages and village houses,square terraces,ridge and mountain areas,pond and brook sides,cemeteries and graves,and so on.The stage of performance is between the vast heaven and earth.The ascertainment of the performance field of Zhuang ShiGong Opera is related to its essential attribute of entertaining the gods,which shows the sacred characteristics of the ShiGong Opera.The exhibition of the Zhuang ShiGong Opera is interspersed in all kinds of rituals,such as the flower-receiving and bridge-building ceremony,the funeral ceremony,the praying ceremony and the birth of temples and gods sacrificial ceremony and so on.Ritualism is the essential feature of Zhuang ShiGong Opera.Zhuang ShiGong Opera is a comprehensive art,which has synthesized script,music,dance,art and other elements as one.All the artistic elements of Zhuang ShiGong Opera are needed to serve the narrative of rituals.Because the ritual narration is related to the realization of the people's life demands,the folk pays much more attention to the ritual narration than to the artistic aesthetics.The Zhuang ShiGong Opera belongs to ritual drama,national drama and folk drama.The process of acting is connected with the narrative of rituals,and it is a theatrical performance in the process of rituals.The Zhuang Folk belief is the social basis of its origin and inheritance.It mainly uses its own national language,and the repertoire is often based on the mythologies,legends and folk life of Zhuang nationality.The artistic expression forms absorb a large number of elements of national culture.Actors have multiple identities,so ShiGong Opera has very few characters and a single clue.The boundaries between the audience and the actors are sometimes blurred,and the performance is mainly characterized immature and clumsy.After the formation of Zhuang ShiGong Opera,it was continuously absorbed,used for reference and transplanted by other nationalities in Guangxi in the course of its spread,so as to form a ShiGong Opera with its own national characteristics.The inheritance momentum of Zhuang ShiGong Opera is good,but due to the influence of social transformation and the impact of modernization,there are also some uncertainties in its prospect,and the transformations of Shigong Opera appear in some places.Zhuang ShiGong Opera is an important part of the traditional culture of Zhuang nationality.It is deeply rooted in the fertile soil of folk belief and is still being staged frequently in various parts of Zhuang nationality residential area.At present,the international community attaches great importance to the research and protection of traditional culture and advocates the protection of cultural diversity.As a "living fossil" of drama,the Zhuang ShiGong Opera is a vivid manifestation of the diversity of national culture in China.As to the research method,this paper is based on field investigation,all the views and conclusions are based on the work of field investigation.Two field approaches are used: one is to implement observation;the other is to conduct in-depth interviews,and combined with “after-field-investigation literature reading" at the same time to make the literature "live";in the discussion of the Zhuang ShiGong Opera,by comparing it with general drama,Han national drama and local dramas,the characteristics of Zhuang ShiGong Opera are summarized.The part of the conclusion is a summary of the full text.First,it briefly summarizes the contents of each chapter,and then gives an answer to several key questions of this paper: The instrument part of the ShiGong Opera is not a drama,but sheer ritual.The Zhuang ShiGong Opera is still a form of drama in the stage of "initial completion",and it has not developed into a mature drama.The Zhuang ShiGong Opera is rooted in folk belief and will not develop into a pure drama if separated from rituals.It is an important part of national traditional culture.In the author's opinion,The opera,which is separated from the ceremony and has been transformed,no longer belongs to the traditional Zhuang ShiGong Opera category.As long as the foundation of folk belief is still in place,the ritual and drama tradition of Zhuang ShiGong Opera will be preserved for a long time.