Chongqing- Wushan Piying Opera refers to an intangible cultural heritage item of the Yangtze River Three Gorges region, where folk artists use a light behind a screen to illuminate the silhouettes of characters made from colored leather to perform historical stories through speech and musical accompaniment.
Piying means "leather shadow" and originally derives from paper cutting traditions in the early Tang Dynasty, when it’s said the younger sister of Emperor Li Shimin pasted them on mosquito nets for decoration, which created a hazy projection against the light.
Following gradual evolution, the phenomenon of Piying opera gained popularity in the Three Gorges Area during the early Song Dynasty and was later introduced into Wushan.
This variety of performance art now has a history of thousands of years. This romantic form of expression features colorful puppets dyed in multiple bright colors, which can depict human characters, horses, furniture, boats, and props to make scenes more realistic.
Stories are based on historical Chinese legends and feature a range of human characteristics, including loyalty, betrayal, good and evil, and the emotions of joy, anger, and sadness.
As a result, Piying opera has long enjoyed an important status as folk entertainment in Wushan. In the modern-day, however, this ancient tradition has survived only thanks to the dedication of a small team of local inheritors, who often perform at the Wushan Three Gorges Museum and events in the local countryside.
Inheritors face challenges in performance and craftsmanship
Since the time Piying opera reached a pinnacle during the Tang Dynasty, the tradition spread along the Three Gorges has been passed from generation to generation in Wushan. However, this intangible cultural heritage item recognized at the Chongqing municipal level in 2009 is now in danger of being lost. “Without the dedication of inheritors over the generations and government support, this time-old tradition would have been lost.”
He Shihong first came into contact with Piying opera around the age of 12 in the Wushan countryside, where his uncle regularly performed the traditional form of entertainment and sowed the seeds for inheriting Piying opera himself.
“For the 80s generation people from the countryside like ourselves, we didn’t have such high living conditions, so it was widespread to see Piying opera in those days. When I started experiencing the art form with my uncle, I soon realized it wasn’t only fun, but was also rich in cultural essence.”
At the age of sixteen, He eventually became a disciple in Piying opera. He began the long process of learning the myriad of skills needed to perform, an aim that can take years to master. Not everybody has the determination and ability to persevere.
“It really depends on your ability to learn. There are many skills involved, such as learning to play a variety of instruments, and it’s difficult to hit some of the voice pitches needed by male performers. As a result, the aim of mastering Piying opera is very difficult in practice.”
When standing up close beside the stage, the performers have a chest of colorful leather figures and props that can be pieced together for many different visual effects and even have intricate body joints that give audiences a more lifelike impression from behind the scenes.
Now the local craftsman who made the leather figures has reached over 70 years, and the question of inheritance is not only limited to performance skills but also the ability to produce authentic materials on which the whole production depends. “We have been learning how to make the figures based in the countryside so that Piying opera won’t eventually disappear when he is no longer with us. However, there are so many steps involved. This is no simple task.’
Indeed, the intricate and colorful appearance of Piying opera figures requires a complex set of artisanal skills and processes to create, which are also in danger of being lost in addition to the performance art itself. Once the cowhides needed have been procured, the following basic steps involve soaking, removing hairs, shaving to the correct thickness, treating the leather, carving out features, painting on colors, cutting out pieces, polishing the surfaces, sewing the joints, and treating bamboo sticks.
Looking to the future inheritance of Piying opera, He already senses the practical difficulties of finding willing and available people to learn the art form. Unlike the enthusiastic twelve-year-old he was in the past, the only young performer is a team member currently in his twenties.
“The main difficulty is there are so few learners now. Young people are too busy with their studies, and workers prefer laboring in the big city instead of the countryside. There is no financial incentive to learn Piying opera, so performers have to be motivated through pure enthusiasm.”
During the pandemic, the number of performances has been reduced to a few times per month. Nevertheless, the popular reaction has been consistently positive. Outside of Chongqing Municipality, they have performed in Hubei and Shenzhen, while culture centers and museums offer them venues and invite audiences.
“Despite the economic difficulties, I also have other lines of work that help Piying opera to live on. My aim is for it to develop and gain more popularity so that traditional culture passed on by our ancestors does not end up being lost to history.”
Wushan Museum has over 28,000 exhibits bringing two million years of human culture and history to life. (iChongqing/ James Alexander)
Wushan Museum provides a stage for cultural inheritance
Wushan Museum is a 4A rated attraction that was opened in December 2012 as a branch of the Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing. The 13,300 square meters of floor space boast a fine collection of 28,185 exhibits covering the history of civilization in Wushan, beginning from the Neolithic Daxi period (4400-3300 BC) to the present day.
Top exhibits on display include primitive stone tools made by early man around two million years ago, bronze implements, clay figures, and gilded ornaments produced in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The themed galleries combine to display the glorious history of civilization in Wushan and the Yangtze River basin.
The Longgupo Exhibition features many stone artifacts and fossils that have been excavated since the Longgupo Site of Wushan County was first discovered in 1984. Geo-magnetic dating methods reveal that the human fossils date from between 2.01-2.04 million years ago, while those of 116 mammals go back between 1.8 and 2.4 million years.