Followed by "speaking and learning"
Say, learn, tease and sing.
Speaking, learning and singing have always been regarded as four courses by crosstalk performers. In fact, these are four different artistic means. Speaking refers to the ability of narrative expression, learning refers to the ability of imitating sounds and emotions, teasing refers to the ability of witty debate, and singing refers to the ability of vocal performance. They have become different specialties of different forms, different programs and different actors, and they have been integrated and infiltrated into the artistic characteristics of the whole cross talk. Interestingly, once these four factors are put into the long river of history, we will find that they are really closely related to the formation and development of cross talk. Therefore, it can be said that although the provable history of crosstalk is short, the traceable history of crosstalk is very long.
1. Satire tradition-teasing
Satire has a long history. There is a poem "Good at joking, not cruel" in The Book of Songs, the earliest collection of poems in China, which puts forward the principle and standard of irony. "Joke" means that the language is relaxed, and "no abuse" means that the content is not too serious. The combination of relaxed form and serious content is the aesthetic and moral standard of irony.
It is said that at least in the Western Zhou Dynasty, there were artists who took satire as their profession. They began to live in the folk, and later entered the court, and were called "Nuo You". They also have the skills of singing and dancing. "Nuo" itself means "funny and playful", and "excellent" is the general term for artists. In the pre-Qin period, Ruoyou was already very active. Sima Qian's Biography of Historical Records and Funny Stories specifically recorded the activities of some outstanding figures, such as Ruoyou, Ruofang and Guo Sheren. Although Xi tourists are not engaged in a conscious artistic activity, it has obvious entertainment nature, which can be regarded as the origin of China's amusing art.
This satirical tradition of attacking politics and caring about current affairs has been significantly developed in the drama of joining the army in the Tang Dynasty. "Joining the army" was originally an official position, but it became an artistic activity in the Sixteen Kingdoms period. Empress Zhao, because an official who joined the army embezzled the official silk, let an excellent person put on official clothes and pretend to join the army, and another excellent person teased him. This satirical form has gradually become a conscious artistic activity, which is called "joining the army". This form is generally regarded by scholars as the embryonic form of China's drama, but they only have the outline of characters, and they mainly improvise, jumping around in the plot from time to time, which is absolutely similar to the later counterpart crosstalk, so many scholars think it is the origin of crosstalk, or ancient crosstalk.
In the Song Dynasty, "joining the army" developed into "burlesque", which was closer to drama, but not drama, but a kind of "juggling"-much more complicated than "joining the army" in the Tang Dynasty, so the Song Dynasty was also called "zaju". "Humorous Opera" provided rich nutrition for the drama art of China in Yuan Dynasty. However, the tradition of comedy and satire and the way of gag have not disappeared. It injects the national characteristics of China's plays, and always enters and exits the drama plot by "slapping".
In the Ming Dynasty, there was a so-called "Guo Jin Opera", which inherited the funny legacy of joining the army in the Tang and Song Dynasties, and interspersed it with "rich colors, appealing to both refined and popular tastes" and "joking, making people feel relieved", which was absolutely like modern cross talk.
In a word, China's banter art has come down in one continuous line since its introduction, which not only gave birth to the formation of China's drama art, but also accumulated extremely valuable satirical art experience, that is, the lyrical way of combining Zhuang and harmony, the expression method of positive and negative contrast, and the method of summarizing life by seeing reality from the virtual. They provide realistic fighting traditions and handy powerful weapons for the comic content of cross talk, the close relationship between cross talk and life, and the relationship between cross talk and irony.
2. Form of expression-saying
Crosstalk actors have an artistic proverb that "speak first, make fun first". On the one hand, on the whole, "Shuo" mainly refers to the expression of language narrative, and "funny" mainly refers to the artistic content of comedy style. On the other hand, "talking" and "teasing" are inseparable. If "speaking" is not dramatic, it is not a cross talk, but a form of storytelling. If "teasing" is not expressed in the way of "talking", it can only be the gag of "comedy", not the art of cross talk.
Self-entertainment in the form of telling jokes has a long history. China's ancient fables were condensed from jokes. Jokes were popular as early as the pre-Qin period, and it was not until the Cao Wei period that Han Danchun's Laughing Forest was China's first set of jokes. However, as a trace back to the origin of art, jokes are not a conscious performance activity, and do not directly breed the expression of "speak first" in cross talk. It was not until the art of "saying" came into being that the third-person narration was adopted in the subsequent cross talk. Shooting practice (same as Target Projectile)
"Talk" is a special term for folk artists to tell stories and jokes in the Tang and Song Dynasties, which is equivalent to modern "storytelling". As an art, "talking" appeared in the Han Dynasty and was recorded in the Sui Dynasty. As a folk art, "talking" rose in the Tang Dynasty. The popular "saying" in Buddhist temples in the Tang Dynasty not only talks about singing history, but also tells folk stories. Later, on this basis, "Shuo" came into being, which is a kind of language art of "talking about the past and discussing the present, like flowing clouds" and is very attractive to the audience. By the Song Dynasty, there were more than 100 famous "talkers", and their skills were more mature and their division of labor was more detailed. There are long stories about history, novellas, Buddhist stories and war stories's The Iron Rider. What is particularly interesting is "Nonsense", which tells a comic story. At least it is a kind of "funny rap" of rap, chanting and language and literature games. The funny poetic style of "three sentences and a half", the language drama of "doing as you are told", the literary game of "talking about drugs", and the extensive use of drug names as metaphors and argots are all skills of "speaking".
"Speaking" has at least two specific influences on cross talk: one is the structure of cross talk, and the other is the characteristics of cross talk baggage. We can say that in the process of its formation, cross talk absorbed various folk skills, but it was the art of "talking" that guided and imitated these skills and made them run through adults. Without the art of "speaking", there would be no expression of cross talk today.
3. Imitation skills-learning
As a word, "Xiang Sheng" was widely used in ancient times. At first, it didn't specifically refer to a certain performance skill, but contained the meaning of "being true, competing with fire". As a performing art, it is associated with the words "Joe" and "Xue", and it is a rap art characterized by imitation. In the Song Dynasty, there were artists in Goulan and Wasi who "learned as students". They not only learned all kinds of sounds, but also included all mimicry. The word "Xiang Sheng" was sometimes mixed with "Xiang Sheng" in the Song Dynasty, and "Xiang Sheng" undoubtedly won by imitating the voice. Sure enough, the word "Xiang Sheng" appeared after the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is actually what people call "ventriloquism". If "Xiang Sheng" in Song Dynasty is still an omniscient "miscellaneous outfit", then "Xiang Sheng" in Ming and Qing Dynasties is just a kind of "ventriloquism" specialized in imitating sounds, and its technical pursuit is simpler, so it is more exquisite. The prominent signs are from light to dark, from facing the audience to "invisible blue silk", from learning the world and telling stories-making "skills" has "art" as a foil. At least in the late Qing Dynasty, the "next-door drama" declined, and artists threw away their screens and liberated themselves from the curtains. This is the so-called "cross talk of Ming Dynasty".
Crosstalk is known as "everything rejuvenates", "tomorrow spring" and "dark spring". "Spring" means "talking", and "everything returns to spring" means that both "tomorrow spring" and "dark spring" should belong to the language art based on talking. During the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, many old artists became famous for their "Ming Chun" and "Dark Chun". They began to pay attention to social life when they walked out of the curtain, but they still kept their "ventriloquism" skills. The word "crosstalk" was sometimes mixed with "Xiang Sheng", "Xiao Sheng" and "Xiang Sheng" in the late Qing Dynasty, but what has modern significance is his comedy and narrative.
Lianzhi Ying's sequel, published on 1908, called crosstalk performers "special talents in funny stories" and said: "Their performances have no long articles, but they randomly pick up one or two modes in society, or imitate their shapes or sounds and criticize their laughter. This is also called cross talk. " Comedian, everyone who opens his mouth is full of laughter. He heard his interesting words and told others a few years later. It is irresistible to hear their Shang Xiao, and his motivation is enormous.
Here, the form of "talking", the content of "teasing" and the means of "learning" have been fully possessed, which is the symbol of the maturity of cross talk.
4. Artistic means-singing
Folk art is mostly funny art, and cross talk is naturally influenced by it during its gestation, that is, it must absorb a lot of its nutrition before and after its formation.
Lotus Fall was originally a "Beggars' Song", which was popular as early as the Song Dynasty. After the end of the Qing Dynasty, the evil was multiplied, and a tree was thousand branches. Digital treasure, its rhyming form, that is, the way of improvisation, provides a weapon for the rhyming and singing of cross talk. Another branch of Lotus Fall, Nothing is Idle, naturally stimulates crosstalk by teasing and amusing. According to legend, the octagonal drum was created by the children of the Eight Banners in the late Qing Dynasty and also took root among the citizens. When singing, the actors often gag each other and even find jokes on the accompaniment. Their "talk"-the means of "laying bricks or stones" in narration and comments-will never be spared by crosstalk artists. "Double Spring"-actually a kind of "ventriloquism", also enriched the "learning" and "singing" of cross talk. When one performance after another, the front "selling photos" and the back "vocalizing" produce a funny modality through the cooperation of the front movements and the back language, which is actually a variant of "the next-door drama" and was once included in cross talk. "Funny Huang Er" is a funny means produced by imitating singing and learning to sing crooked songs when Peking Opera is popular. In addition, the "various businesses" active in the Jianghu, such as "juggling" and "practicing unique skills", how to exaggerate and mystify, how to be clever at critical moments, how to stick to the audience when asking for money and so on. It is an excellent opportunity for crosstalk performers to concentrate on understanding and stealing skills.
There are two ways to sing cross talk: one is "singing" and the other is "learning to sing". "Positive Singing" is the singing method of cross talk, and "Taiping Lyrics" is a form of apprentice songs that they often use-there are tunes that are close to rhyme, and they are often accompanied by "Taiping Lyrics" when singing. The content of "learning to sing" is all-encompassing, but it must arouse people's resonance. In order to respond, it is necessary to exaggerate, not only to look like a fax, but also to distort it slightly.
To sum up, the theories of saying, learning and teasing gradually converge and penetrate each other. After a long historical period, it finally stood out in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China and became a unique genre of national folk comedy. Cross talk art-laughter is really mature!