Folk art in my hometown 1. Bench Opera When I was a child, when enjoying the cool air in summer, it was most common for the village to invite folk artists to sing bench opera. The so-called bench opera is that there are only two people in a team, sitting on a long board. One of them plays the erhu and occasionally cooperates with one or two voices; the protagonist is only one person, and he talks and sings at the same time. It's almost a one-man show. I remember when I was a child, every year the village invited a bench opera troupe. After the villagers had eaten and washed themselves, they gathered on the threshing floor carrying chairs and stools to enjoy the cool air and listen to the opera. It costs only one to two yuan to sing a night, and the village collectively pays for it. Although the cost is not expensive, this bench theater troupe is not easy to hire. You have to book it very early because there are not many people singing in the opera there. Besides, you have to make an appointment with a good one and someone who has a new opera. That is A very difficult thing to do. The artist who came to sing the most impressive impression seemed to be named Fang. He was in his forties, not tall, but had a good voice, some culture, and many new operas. He mainly sings a small opera unique to his hometown - Lu Opera. The earliest opera I came into contact with was this type of opera sung by this artist. Although after I went to school, due to academic stress, I only read books about sages and sages and never listened to this bench play again, I still hum a few lines of the tune to this day. At that time, rural cultural life was very monotonous, and this was probably the most favorite art among the villagers. Through such a bench, the villagers learned about Qin Xianglian's suffering, Chen Shimei's ungratefulness, and knew that there was a rogue Bao Gong in his hometown, who killed the ungrateful man and gave a sigh of relief to the women. The villagers also knew from the play the story of the civet cat exchanging for the prince, the story of the fifteen strings, and the stories of Xue Rengui's father and son's conquest in the east, Xue Dingshan's conquest in the west, and so on. At that time, I was only about seven or eight years old, still somewhere between remembering things and not remembering things. They all followed the adults to enjoy the cool weather. Artist Fang's rap was quite pleasing to the ear, so the play caught my ear and he listened to it. After listening to the whole play, he actually felt a little reluctant to hope that the play would continue. At that time, there was no television in rural areas, and only a few households had radios. Broadcasting still doesn’t “reach every village”. This is the most interesting activity besides turning off the lights and giving birth. It is not surprising that the drama of the previous day became the topic of conversation among the villagers when they went to work the next day. Therefore, after the play, the villagers would say less about Zhang Sanchang and the Li family. Everyone would be talking about the play the day before, and they would all talk about the plot of the play. The women would call the man Chen Shimei. Some men will also make fun of a woman, calling her poor Qin Xianglian, etc. This kind of little play lasted for many years. Before I left my hometown, this kind of play was no longer a bench show. During every year and festival, a troupe would officially perform on the stage. Later, I heard that after the popularization of television, this kind of small opera has basically disappeared, and most of the opera singers have become old, and there are no successors. In recent years, I heard from my parents that in order to enrich the cultural life of the people, the local government also organizes some troupes to perform several plays in rural areas every year. Sometimes they have to sing several plays in a row for ten and a half days. The old father is a person who likes to have fun, and he can always be happy for a while. 2. Talking about Dagu books When talking about Dagu books, it is usually during the slack time of farming, and artists usually make appointments to come to people’s homes to tell stories. I never remember that there was such a thing as a storyteller in the city. It's called a big drum. In fact, the drum is about one foot in diameter and about ten centimeters thick. It's made of cowhide. The wooden part is in an outer arc shape. It's painted in bright red. There are three delicate iron rings on the drum's curved waist. It is also equipped with a drum hammer that is about one foot long and looks like a long pipe. The drum is placed on three bamboo stands. These three bamboo poles are fastened from the middle. A hole is drilled in the upper end of each of the three bamboo poles and strung together with a hemp rope. The enclosed area is just right for the drum. That drum. Of course, the drum still needs to be tied to the top of the three bamboo poles at three iron rings. There is also an indispensable tool for artists, which is the Allegro made of three pieces of wood. The artist sets up the drum, and when it officially begins, instead of directly telling the story, he usually plays the drum for a few minutes, one day to warm up, and the other day to tell the nearby folks that the story is about to begin. This drumming is not plain, it has a sense of rhythm, and the artist's gestures are also very particular, just like the drummer who plays jazz drums today plays with a hammer, there are also some fancy little skills. Usually there is talking and singing. When telling a story, he talks about a paragraph and plays the drums several times. When it reaches the climax, the artist will say a sentence and play the drums once. He talks fast and plays the drums fast. Those who listen to the book will also hang their necks and prick up their ears to listen. At this time, Allegro is almost unnecessary. When singing, most people play Allegro, and they also use different parts of the drum to accompany it. An experienced artist knows when to speak and when to sing, so that the listener will not feel tired. At that time, I don’t remember what they were talking about. Generally, there were more martial arts stories. It seems that the artist learned some horse roars, weapons clashing sounds, etc. in the book. From this, it can be inferred that most storytellers are Talk about martial arts. I am not a person who likes to read martial arts novels. In my mind, the dramas related to martial arts are probably "Xue Rengui's Conquest of the East", "Waganzhai", "Feng Shen Bang", "General of the Yang Family", "The Legend of Yue Fei", etc. Several movies, maybe this is the memory left at that time. 3. Watching the Tie-tai opera. I remember that when I was young, every year before and after the Chinese New Year, when there was no work in farming, some villages or some well-off families would invite grass troupes from the countryside to sing "Tie-tai opera" when they were holding weddings. . This kind of small troupe does not have many people, usually only a few or a dozen people.

The plays chosen are also traditional plays that have been passed down from ancestors. The plays are not long. There is one play every one or two hours, sometimes one play in the morning and one play in the afternoon. Usually it is performed for several days in a row. The actors all dress up in costume. A red face is a loyal minister and a white nose is a treacherous minister. This common sense was really grasped at that time. My hometown is a small mountain village in southern Anhui. There is no stage, and there are not many large flat areas. The largest flat area is the team's grain drying field, where performances are performed every year. Because the threshing floor is on the top of a hill and there is no higher ground around it, most of the stages are temporarily built. Sometimes a few large timbers are used to set up a frame, and then they are paved with wooden boards, and a roof is put on top. , use raincloths or something to build a changing room in the back, and that’s it. But more often than not, more than ten Eight Immortals tables are collected in the village and put together, and covered with raincloths or the like, to form a natural tabletop, saving worry and effort. Before the performance, while the actors were still in makeup, the villagers came early. Some of them had something to do and couldn't come, so they moved a stool to occupy a seat and came back when the show started. Some have one person carrying a square wide bench, and some have a family of three carrying a long bench. Those who arrive in front can sit. Those who come late and cannot get to the front, and cannot see the stage, stand on the bench and watch. Often there are children sitting on the floor in the front row, those sitting in the middle, those standing behind, and some at the end simply standing on stools. I don't know how the play was performed specifically, because I was still young at that time, and I was still a kid who could only watch the fun and didn't understand the rules. 4. Make New Year's rice dumplings: Take a three-foot-long bamboo pole with a diameter of about one inch, break a knot at each end, and stuff the strings of copper coins into it, one at each end, with seven copper coins in each string. The copper coins can have some space for movement in the bamboo joints. When the bamboo pole is waved, there will be a pleasant impact sound between the copper coins and the inner wall of the bamboo pole. There is also a red tassel tied at both ends, and the bamboo pole is either painted red or wrapped in red ribbon. This is the New Year's Eve. There are different opinions on making New Year's rice cakes. Generally speaking, there are two forms. One is that the artist holds the middle of the bamboo pole and beats various parts of his body rhythmically to produce a musical sound similar to percussion. After beating for a while, the artist began to sing some blessings. In my impression, the opening line at the beginning is: "Little Xiao Hey, Nian Xiao Hey. Three feet, three feet long..." There is also a way of playing, that is, the artist holds one or both ends of the Nian Xiao and beats it on the ground, jumping while playing. . The others are no different from the first. This type of entertainment is mainly for everyone to enjoy during festivals. Later, in my memory, there were also some people who were begging for famine, and they also used this as an art to win the favor of their masters and beg for food. I have never seen anything that is truly an entertainment activity. 5. Revolving Lanterns There are many types of horse lanterns in our hometown. They are usually made of bamboo slenders tied into the horse's head and body, covered with cloth; the "horse neck" is about 1 meter long and made of silk with cotton inside; the front and back of the bamboo horse are lit to make "horse lanterns" . During the performance, the bamboo horse is tied to the waist of the lantern player, and the horse's neck is pinned to the waist. One hand holds the horse's head and the other hand holds a knife and gun. The bamboo horse wears an embroidered horse lantern costume that is similar to a costume, but the longer rear train is used to cover the tail of the bamboo horse. There are 17 or 19 lantern performers, and they usually focus on arraying and performing martial arts. The characters played are the heroes in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Yang Family Generals", especially "Guan Gong". During the exorcism, Guan Gong entered the villagers' homes and brandished the Qinglong knife to carry out "sweeping the hall". The lamplighters were not allowed to speak during the performance. The horse formations they performed included "Eight Lanterns", "Double Sneak", "Lobster Playing in the Water", and "Five Petals of Plum Blossoms"; the dance forms included "Four Horses Kissing", " "Eight horses kiss", "Sixteen horses kiss", "Oolong", etc. During the performance, with the cooperation of gongs and drums, the lantern players on the field were flying and whipping, dust was rising, swords and guns were clashing, and pennants were flying. Although it is just a folk opera in rural areas, it is really beautiful and spectacular. The most exciting performances are Zhao Zilong's "Single Horse", which fully demonstrates his spear and stick skills and martial arts skills, and "Five Horses and Pocao", which has a large number of people and a storyline. During the lantern show, there are also eight children around 10 years old who dance with each other, called "Eight Family Clouds". After the opening gongs and drums, they held "clouds" to build momentum for heavenly soldiers and generals, and formed the glyphs "population safety", "world peace" and other characters in the formation, creating unique artistic conceptions. In addition to the "horse lantern" activity used to drive away epidemic ghosts, the Houluo Village area of ??Kuihu also relatively completely retains the traditional sacrificial rituals such as "raising lanterns", "raising lanterns", and "round lanterns" before holding the "horse lantern" activity. "Xing Lantern Festival" is a ceremony in which young people beat gongs and drums, go to the Tutu Temple to kill chickens and set up a memorial tablet for "King Ma Ming". After the village elders set up a "horse lantern festival", they invite the horse lantern master to start coaching the horse lantern routines. . "Fa Xi" means that before the official "horse lantern" activity is held, Taoist priests are asked to set up an altar to send a message, chant sutras, invite gods, and summon generals; read out the "Chai Wen", step on the gang, and read out the instructions of all the household heads and horse lantern players in the village. The sparse writing of names, killing chickens to reward gods. And the gods are attached to the lantern performers, so that the lantern team has the power to fight against evil spirits and exorcise epidemics. "Round lantern" means closing the altar, chanting sutras, performing rituals, and performing rituals to reward the gods. After the ceremony, the Taoist priests led the horse lantern team members to hold the sacred tablets outside the village and burn them as a sign of sending the gods to heaven. After the horse lantern team members returned to the village, the whole village held wine and set off fireworks to celebrate the victory in fighting the epidemic. "Ma Lantern" is a Nuo sacrificial activity performed by people in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to drive away plague ghosts during the Lantern Festival. Its origin can be traced back to the "Hen Sacrifice" recorded in the "Book of Songs", that is, the "Shishi Sacrifice" where people pray for victory before leaving the army.

The origin of the "horse lantern" activity, according to the lantern master who taught the horse lantern: During the Taiping War in the Qing Dynasty, injured soldiers lived in seclusion in the countryside and encountered a "plague" epidemic, so they taught the "horse lantern" activity to the local people to drive away the god of plague. .