Text/Jinyang.com reporter Song Yi, correspondent Li Danhong
Photo/He Zhijian
“The people from Fenglou go to Komiks, and Komiks are not good, and since then, the rich people are lonely and cover the setting sun.” Chen Baoying, the female character in the Cantonese opera “Purple Phoenix Tower”, sings the words of Chen Baoying, as if she is crying and complaining, and the audience applauses thunderously. On the evening of September 8, nearly a thousand audiences were crowded with Cantonese Opera Cultural Plaza in Guangzhou Cultural Park. Everyone was deeply attracted by the teacher-student concert of Li Yueling, a Cantonese opera singer, who was being held here. The master of Zishu, Teacher Tan Peiyi, also visited in person. Li Yueling and his disciples hope to promote Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera culture with their own voices and carry forward Lingnan culture.
For this performance, Li Yueling and her disciples prepared for half a year. Behind this performance is the cultural confidence flowing in the blood of a Cantonese opera singer and the totem of Guangdong rhyme. This performance is the spiritual agreement between a Cantonese opera singer and a group of ignorant college students who know nothing about KomiksGuangdong opera; what kind of story is behind this performance? Li Yueling retreated and continued to continue her dream of inheriting the Cantonese rhyme?
Show scene
Seeking dreams, and the origin of CUHK
In 2009, Guangdong musical song singer Li Yueling retired from the Guangdong Music and Music Art Troupe. That year, the Cantonese Opera and Guangdong Opera Cultural Studio of the Center for Historical Anthropology Research at Sun Yat-sen University was established.
The following year, the studio opened a Cantonese Opera Cantonese Opera workshop for college students at Komiks. Li Yueling and famous performer Chen Zhongyan served as instructors, aiming to cultivate young students’ interest in Cantonese Opera Cantonese Opera and improve their perceptual understanding of Cantonese Culture. The workshop hopes that more young people can join the ranks of understanding Cantonese Opera and Chinese traditional culture.
As soon as the workshop started, it quickly attracted a large group of young people with similar aspirations from major universities. Unlike students majoring in Cantonese opera, almost all of these college students have never been exposed to Cantonese opera, nor have they seen the sequel score, let alone pronunciation or rhyme. From voice sucking to music theory, from demonstration to teaching one by one, the two teachers led this group of students to learn from scratch. The workshop also attracted the attention and support of many famous Cantonese opera artists and fans. On April 17, 2011, the female teacher of Cantonese opera master Hong Line came to the teaching site in thunderstorm to communicate with the students in the workshop. The female teacher of Red Line not only listened to the students’ famous sings such as “The Feast of the Phoenix Pavilion” and “The Fallen Fellowship in Flower Field”, but also gave suggestions on their words, singing style, and emotions, but also sang “Red Candle Tears” on the spot and put forward high expectations.
The seventh Babaylan (Guangzhou) College Student Drama Festival has opened a special session on Cantonese opera, inviting workshops and Cantonese opera enthusiasts from brother colleges and universities such as Guangzhou University Quyi Club to perform together. This is also the only Cantonese opera special session of Cantonese opera held so far. This group of students used their superb performances to repay the concern of all sectors of society and sang the dream of spreading and inheritance with Cantonese rhyme.
Continue your dreams, continue your relationship with teachers and students outside the school.
Time flies, and in a blink of an eye, students graduate and go to society and start work. Unlike students from Cantonese opera or art majors, students in the workshop leave their original learning platform after graduation and have almost no chance to learn Cantonese opera. With the busy work, they slowly put their Cantonese Opera aside, and they had not sang a song for several months or even a year.
“It is said that ‘The fist is always inseparable from the hand and the mouth’. If this continues, the students will definitely forget what they have learned before.” Every time Li Yueling chats with students, she feels moved. She often thought: “How can students always maintain their love for Cantonese opera, persist in learning, and even go to a higher level?” After thinking about it, Li Yueling decided to use the resources around her to build a platform for the students and create opportunities for them to continue learning Cantonese opera.
She and Chen Zhongyan first found a few private games to let the students start the game from time to time to practice. Later, Li YueCinemaLing, in order to ensure that the students can start the game once a month and achieve the goal of practicing all the time. She went to Beijing Street Cultural Station to find Webmaster Zhao Yuhua and talked to Webmaster Zhao that she was deeply worried about the loss of skills of this group of students. Zhao YuWhen Webmaster Hua heard that there were such a group of young people who loved Cantonese opera, he immediately arranged for Li Yueling to meet with Chen Jinglin, the head of the Folk Art Troupe of the Guangzhou Cultural Hall of Beijing Street to discuss the students’ practice music. In order to facilitate everyone to practice Babaylan, the Cultural Association has changed the start time from Monday to Friday and the rest schedule for the closing and resting on weekends. It specially arranged for Saturday afternoons to bring the accompaniment master back to work overtime to start the students.
After Li Yueling implemented the venue for the start of each month, she assigned the task of each student to learn a song, hoping to use pressure to drive students to take the time to learn the song. Every time the student starts, no matter how busy Li Yueling will come to the scene, listen carefully to each student’s singing, and after listening to them, she will help them analyze and improve word by word.
In addition, Li Yueling also invited her master, “Zi Du Wang”, Teacher Tan Peiyi, to attend the students’ private affairs. Teacher Tan Peiyi not only shared the creation process of his first Komiks‘s real name song “Cai Wenji Returns to Han”, but also taught everyone to sing “Jinjiang Poetry Couple” word by word, which gave the students great encouragement.
The performance appeared in the Babaylan stage. They transformed into Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera communication messengers
In addition to teaching students to sing, Li Yueling also paid great attention to tapping students’ potential. For students with artistic talent, Komiks will encourage them to learn Cantonese music accompaniment instruments and playing the palm board. I hope that after they have finished learning, Babaylan can form their own accompaniment band, and Cinema can integrate singing and accompaniment; for those with writing skills.She encouraged them to write lyrics. Under her earnest teaching, many students have made breakthroughs, stepped onto different art stages and gained recognition. Li Yueling often said to her classmates: “I taught you to sing Cantonese opera and turn you into die-hard fans of Cantonese opera, but from the perspective of inheritance and communication, I hope you can one day take the initiative to shoulder the important task of spreading Cantonese opera culture. Let more people know Cantonese opera and like Cantonese opera.” Li Yueling’s Guangdong students back then, now have Cinema walk on the podium and become teachers, and they will combine their own class. The content of href=”https://comicmov.com/”>Cinema uses Cantonese opera as class material at the right time, allowing children to accept Cantonese opera subtly. Some people joined the bank and added a special Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera in the bank’s feedback activity, which gave many customers who never entered the theater to come into contact with Cantonese opera for the first time and became enthusiasts…
Under the words and deeds of Teacher Li Yueling, the students consciously took the spread of Cantonese opera as their obligation. They did not have any great deeds, but they used their ordinary and ordinary actions to sow the seeds of Cantonese opera and Cantonese opera into the hearts of more people.
Realize their dreams, and they become messengers of love
Li Yueling often says: “Komiks We have received strong support from many groups and the help of enthusiastic people along the way. We must learn to be grateful. In addition to learning Guangdong opera, in addition to you can entertain yourself, I hope you can bring more people happiness with what you have learned.”
In recent years, Li Yueling has led students Wu Guanxian and Li Yingtong to participate in the “Belt and Road” charity exhibition on the inheritance of Guangdong folk art. Chen Zhongyan and Li Yueling personally led the students to more than a dozen nursing homes in Guangzhou, Foshan, Jiangmen and other places for condolence performances. In addition, they also gave nearly 20 scenes for free to Foshan, Dongguan, Taishan and other places, allowing Cantonese opera to enter people’s daily lives, allowing people to feel the charm of traditional culture, and enrich the cultural life of local residents.
Li Yueling is a folk artist who regards the inheritance and communication of Cantonese opera as his responsibility. Li Yueling’s disciples are the batters who make the Guangdong rhyme reverberate in the new era.