A Study On Shejian Tiyang Drama

Shejian Tiyang Drama, a branch of Nuo Culture, is unique and outstanding among all kinds of Chinese Nuo Drama because of its co-performance of the actors and the puppets together on the stage. As a result it has been highly appreciated by experts home and abroad.Chinese Nuo has a distant origin and a long development, and has been wildly recorded in historical documents of all the dynasties. As part of the Nuo culture, Nuo originated in the south of China in the very remote ancient times. Later on in the ancient era of legendary Huang Di, Nuo went into Central Plains Area, and was reformed into historiographer culture. It thrived from the prehistorical period to Shang Dynasty, developed and varied from Zhou Dynasty to Song Dynasty, and then declined from Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty. Tiyang Drama was set up in Qing Dynasty, which was highly amusement-oriented. From north to south, Nuo can be classified into three types, i.e., gala parade, temple Nuo and altar Nuo. Tiyang Drama is a combination of the temple Nuo and the altar Nuo.Obviously there is some close connection between Nuo and the primitive hunting witch rite, as people can easily associate the primitive hunting mask with the artificial face and the painted face in Nuo drama. But a further study on Tiyang Drama and other Nuo drama has found that a great change has taken place in spite of the very close association of the Nuo and the primitive hunting rite. The prey chased after in Hunting witch rite was what mankind wanted to get, and the ghost dispersed in Nuo is what mankind doesn't want to get. The hunting witch rite was the product of the hunting period, and Nuo was the modification of the cultivation period. Nuo was the reflex of the will of safeguarding steady life, while the hunting witch rite was a parent body of all the factors such as sacrificial rites, music and dance, painting and sculpture, fun and athletics, language and others. These factors were separated from the parent body, and then gradually extended until a new and higher level Nuo and Drama came into being, which is later known as Nuo Drama. Therefore the statement that drama was directly originated from Nuo is improper, because Nuo is but one of the composing elements. In Shejian Tiyang Drama, the innovation of taking puppet show in Nuo was based on the large-scale communication between Nuo and drama which occured after the middle ancient times. Nuo, brought into national etiquette in Zhou Dynasty and driven off the palace in Qing Dynasty, and was finally scattered among the people. Shejian Tiyang Drama is just the very representative of the driven-off Nuo, which is bound to maintain marks left by ancient etiquette. Moreover, human being is superior to celestial being in Shejian Tiyang Drama because it was set up in a period when the original meaning of Nuo had been decaying and the tendency of amusement was going up.Shejian Tiyang Drama text is the best material for the study of the peasant literature. The immortals, performed in The thirty-two heaven plays, are but the embodiment of the officials and giants in feudal society, yet it doesn't necessarily suggest that thirty-two heaven plays be of satirical play, but on the contrary it has shown us something that is deeply rooted in the consciousness of the Chinese peasants. Traditional Chinese peasants were always looking forward to feudal nobles' life, so they have been always dressing up immortals according to nobles' image. The earth play in Tiyang Drama covers almost exclusively the story of Meng Jiangnv. Gu Jiegang, a famous folklorist, had ever collected all kinds of Meng Jiangnv in Cina but Sichuan Province. The story of Meng Jiangnv in Shejian Tiyang Dram can fill in his blank. Meng Jiangnv in Shejian Tiyang Dram is very unique in that the plot of Fan Xiliang's becoming a monk in Wan Shou temple doesn't exist in others. In addition, it isn't a tragedy but a comedy or a farce. Therefore, Meng Jiangnv in The earth play is an entrance to the comedy spirit which has also been rooted in the deep consciousness of the Chinese peasants as well as the comedy skills.