What does an overview of traditional theater and opera culture in the Central Plains tell us?

In recent years, the protection and inheritance of traditional cultural heritage has achieved certain results, but the situation is not optimistic, especially theater and opera troupes as well as folk artists face many difficulties. This year, the first month of the 13th lunar calendar, came to participate in the Henan Baofeng Ma Street book club hundreds of various artists, basically folk artists, the average age of more than 50 years old, and some are disabled. Many people in their teens began to learn the arts, although they have their own stunts, young and red-hot, but now they live in poverty, mood is not high, the prospects for the inheritance of the arts worry: no one said the book, no one listens to the play, life is a blur, the vicissitudes of the world, the great waves of sand, self-sustaining and self-extinguishing. Folk opera artists as a group, a number of years later, may have to disappear on earth. Some people say: with a history of more than 700 years of Ma Jie Shu Hui, it will not be a few years, it may become a temple fair.

Three years ago, Ma Jie village farmer Zhang Mantang set up the Ma Jie Shu Hui Research Association, the so-called research will be to come to the artists to provide a place to eat and drink accommodation. This year, more than a hundred folk artists in his home, night mat sleep in a tube house, outside the snow, cold weather, they crowded each other to keep warm to pull the quack, intimate. Some people over seventy years old, but also braved the wind and snow from hundreds of miles away to come, wearing thin clothing, snowflakes, beat up the drums, playing a simple board, singing happily. It's all about the fun, an old artist said happily.

The group of folk artists should be emphasized. In spreading traditional culture, folk artists are often more influential than government arts groups. Their props are simple, three people in a group, five people in a group, there is also a single rider, going from village to village, streets, alleys and lanes, marketplaces, stations and piers, everywhere is the venue for their performances. Drums a knock, strings a pull, a simple board a hit, unconventional singing up. Time can be long or short, the venue can be large or small, very flexible, forming a unique form of countryside culture. Thousands of years, folk artists are so life and performance. The ancients said: book-telling and singing are persuasive. People from the mouth of these artists, to understand the strange stories, ancient wild history, etiquette and filial piety, secular religion, people in the world, from generation to generation passed down, uninterrupted.

The performances of the folk artists are mostly traditional songs with outdated content and no lack of chaff. Furthermore, the performance of a single form, the instrument has not changed for many years, the lack of modern music, singing local language serious, countryside language more, young people do not like, the audience is decreasing. In addition, folk artists, there is no proper organization to rely on, local arts and crafts associations, the lack of management functions, can not play a good role in guiding all kinds of sects, although there are masters of the masters, posting precepts, apprentices and grandchildren, but also time to get together when scattered, difficult to constrain, we are fighting for their own, and then say that the old artists do not have a high level of culture, there is no amount of creativity, and it is difficult to absorb the new ideas of new cultures, the performance of the contents of more than one thing, masters and apprentices to pass on the art of the old section of the oral tradition. Teach each other the old section, an old section often sing decades the same, with words and phrases are too traditional and old-fashioned, not to serve the purpose of the real world. Folk artists, local governments should pay attention to, should be given a certain amount of attention. Artistically help them, organizing literary and artistic creations, arranging programs reflecting real life, carry out a wide range of cultural and artistic exchanges, absorbing the nutrients of other forms of art, speed up the rhythm, rich in their own singing; care for them in life, so that they have a livelihood security for them to create an environment for them to learn, improve their own artistic taste, guide them to take the road of healthy rapping and spreading the excellent traditional culture, for modern society. Traditional culture is lifeless if it does not serve the real society well.

In recent years, the government-founded opera, opera troupes are also facing many of their own difficulties, most of the troupes have been implemented enterprise management, in the market competition for survival, although the local financial subsidies to provide a certain amount, but due to the performance of the market recession, the efficiency is not good, the performers have low incomes, the team is unstable, the serious brain drain. Shangqiu City Yu Opera Troupe 2, Sipingtiao Troupe, Suzhou City Falling Troupe, Sizhou Opera Troupe and Bangzi Troupe and Xuzhou City Bangzi Troupe, etc., as a national intangible cultural heritage project of the troupe, the cast and staff of the salary of only about 2,000 yuan. Over the years, governments around the world have been arranging for them to "send plays to the countryside" every year, with some financial subsidies, otherwise they would have been in even greater difficulty. The actors and workers have more grievances, they think that such income is not as high as the salary of a part-time job as a waiter, so it is difficult to support their families, and the pressure to survive by performing is enormous. Some actors, about fifty years old, it is the golden age of singing with apprentices, because of policy reasons, it is a great pity to leave the team early, can hold on to face the pressure of life, the Su Zhou Li Zu Zi troupe of national level actors, director Li Lianmin monthly salary of 2800 yuan. He told reporters sadly, acting a lifetime of theater, even children can not afford to go to school, not out of love for the arts, not today. Many folk artists are living without a place to go, Xiaoxian old artist Zhou Minghan husband and wife are eighty years old, rely on open fields and farms to make a living, and even the low income insurance. Cultural departments at all levels to identify and map, some of the folk artists with practical difficulties, the organization of social forces, to carry out cultural poverty alleviation.

Some opera troupes, conditions are very simple. Shangqiu City, four flat tune troupe, more than 20 people only a more than ten square meters of office and two very simple rehearsal space, the actors do not even have a place to rest, curtains, costumes, musical instruments and other equipment aging, can not guarantee the quality of performance. Zhecheng County Rap Troupe is the only county-level rap troupe in the eastern part of Henan Province, which undertakes a lot of countryside performances arranged by the county government every year, and there is no office or rehearsal space, so the troupe's signboard can only be hung next to the door of the troupe's head, Zhu Yungue's house, and the rehearsal space is in a living room of her house. Suzhou City Sizhou Opera Troupe and Bangzhou Opera Troupe do not have their own office and rehearsal space, relying on temporary rental space for rehearsals; although the Troupe has its own venue, but the rehearsal hall is less than 200 square meters of perennial dilapidation of the dangerous room, the actors are always in a dangerous room to learn the play rehearsal, very uneasy. Many backbone actors and actresses leave the stage too early, resulting in a break in talent, most parents are not willing to send their children to the troupe to learn the theater, resulting in a sharp shortage of performers, there is no one to follow in their footsteps. Shangqiu City Sipingtong Troupe, the original establishment of more than 70 people, the number of performers is only more than 20 people, the line is incomplete, an actor a play to play several roles, editing, directing, beauty, no main staff, the quality of the performance can not be guaranteed. The inheritance of folk music is even more worrying. Folk rap has no successor, Yongcheng City, "big cymbal" play is a provincial-level non-heritage projects, big cymbals is a rare type of song, the fifth-generation inheritor Wang Yuxi all day long for the inheritor to worry about relying on their own income, the commitment to food and shelter, a month of 1,000 yuan to the subsidy, or not to recruit apprenticeships. Wang Yuxi said painfully: big cymbal theater no sixth generation.

There is a shortage of professionals engaged in the protection of non-heritage opera projects, non-heritage protection work is difficult to go deeper, less than specialized, refined protection. From all over the situation, the protection work varies greatly, some places although there is a rough record of protection, there is no system to do to ensure the survival of the status quo endangered national and provincial non-heritage projects, we must urgently establish and improve the endangered projects and high-risk inheritors of the archives, improve the database of non-heritages, and then do not begin to grasp, a number of years later, the information is difficult to organize. Now the protection of non-heritage projects is not enough degree of specialization, the lack of specialized managers, some places although there are institutions, most of the units attached to the cultural center, managers lack of professional knowledge, non-heritage protection is difficult to in-depth, not up to the specialization, refinement of the protection of the level of protection can not meet the new situation of non-heritage protection work needs.

The traditional culture of the Central Plains is the core component of Chinese civilization, intangible cultural heritage as a carrier of traditional culture, the protection of good, inheritance of good to carry forward the traditional Chinese culture, enrich the spiritual and cultural life of the people has an extremely important significance. The government should increase the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage projects, strengthen the research work on traditional culture, innovative ideas, so that China's outstanding traditional culture has been inherited and developed.

Reforming and improving the mechanism for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage is an urgent task. Local governments should actively establish new institutions and mechanisms to protect the intangible cultural heritage projects into the scope of the basic public **** cultural services, mapping, categorization and guidance, not only to increase the protection of project funds, but also to appropriately raise the income of performers, so that the left behind at ease, the later to live on, so as to make the protection of the intangible cultural heritage projects and the inheritance of the successor. Governments at all levels should raise the importance of the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, increase investment, where the protection of the project into the folk performance groups and artists, should be given a certain amount of financial support, so that they have a guaranteed livelihood, inheritance have confidence. The construction of infrastructure such as "one group, one house" should be accelerated to create a better working environment for the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage programs. At present, the state every year to come up with a large amount of funds for the protection of non-heritage projects, many non-heritage projects to protect and inheritance of the management, only to report the project to be more active in the funding, the use of funds to negligent management or sloppy management, protection of the funds did not really play a role in an effective way, and even the emergence of the situation of falsehoods and frauds. The government should increase the training of personnel working on non-heritage, establish a management team with professional knowledge and responsibility, and strengthen the supervision and management of the use of funds for the protection of non-heritage. Increase training support, improve the cultivation of opera talents and guarantee mechanism, to change the plight of no one to follow. Industry insiders suggest that the sound implementation of the combination of school education and arts organizations talent training system. Xuzhou City Performing Arts Group director Han Mei said that the non-heritage opera project should start with the children, "opera into the school" activities should be put into practice, so that children from a young age by the traditional culture, cultivate their interest, and find good talent focus on training. Lu, director of the Suzhou Opera Troupe, suggested that the policy of tuition-free secondary vocational education for opera performance majors should be put into practice so that students can have a secure learning environment. He said that over the years, want to engage in opera performance children less and less, selection of seedlings from the original "thousand miles to pick one" to today's "door to door teaching theater", the relevant institutions in the opening of opera and other traditional performing arts, should all be included in the scope of tuition-free! The public **** financial institutions to be subsidized. Intangible cultural heritage protection and inheritance to take the road of innovation.

The national intangible cultural heritage troupes can not just stay in the traditional repertoire of performances, we must make full use of the intangible cultural heritage project funds, pay attention to the current situation, close to life, more plays, good plays, vigorously carry forward the main theme, publicize the truth, goodness and beauty; at the same time, increase the intangible cultural heritage of the form of performance innovation, absorbing elements of the modern society, to show the form of a closer to the audience to consolidate old At the same time, increase the innovation of the performance form of intangible cultural heritage, absorb modern social elements, present in a form closer to the audience, consolidate the old audience, cultivate the new audience, make full use of radio and television and the Internet new media, increase the traditional intangible cultural heritage project publicity and promotion, so as to make the intangible cultural heritage in the protection of inheritance, in the inheritance of development.

The opera culture of the Central Plains is an ocean, not only colorful content, but also a variety of forms, a large number of practitioners, the repertoire of tens of thousands, we should strengthen the investigation and research, and carefully sort out the existence of the form of each type of drama and the prospects for the development of the re-revision of a variety of traditional scripts, give fresh content to adapt to the reality of the development of the needs of the community.