A Report on the 2014 CHIME Workshop “Storysinging and Storytelling in China”

A REPORT ON THE 2014 CHIME WORKSHOP “STORYSINGING AND STORYTELLING IN CHINA” RÜDIGER BREUER Ruhr-Universität Bochum From Thursday, October 16, to Sunday, October 19, 2014, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio in Venice, Italy, was the venue for an international workshop on “Storysinging and Storytelling in China.” It was hosted by CHIME, the European Foundation for Chinese Music Research. Founded early in 1990 and based in Leiden, The Netherlands, CHIME has grown into an independent nonprofit platform for international scholars and students of Chinese ethnomusicology, sinology, and anthropology as well as for journalists, musicians, and teachers. The Venice workshop was jointly coordinated by Frank Kouwenhoven (CHIME) and Dr. Vibeke Børdahl (Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen), and was co-organized and sponsored by the “Istituto Interculturale di Studi Musicali Comparati ” of the Fondazione Cini, the University of Roma La Sapienza (Dr. Giovanni Giuriati), the Department of Asian and North African Studies of the Università Ca’Foscari Venezia (Dr. Nicoletta Pesaro), and the local Confucius Institute. For the occasion, CHIME brought together more than two dozen scholars and performers for an informal meeting. All activities, including a number of special performances by invited storytellers and storysingers, took place inside the former monastery complex of Fondazione Cini, with the exception of a free concert with storytelling and storysinging performances at the University’s Auditorium Santa Margherita on Saturday evening. Papers were in English, performances in Chinese, and discussions in English and Chinese. The workshop was also designed to celebrate the lifelong achievements of the prominent scholar and pioneer sinologist in the study of Chinese oral and performing literature, Dr. Věna Hrdličková, from the Czech Republic, who unfortunately was not able to attend the event because of ill health. The organizers also commemorated the inspiring research of Dr. Antoinet Schimmelpennick (1962–2012), co-founder of CHIME, on Chinese folk songs. The presentations addressed a great variety of Chinese performative practices. I list them below under six headings. Ming and Qing storytelling and storysinging: Papers under this topic included “Wu Weiye and his ‘Long-poem on Two Masters from Chu’ (Chu liang sheng xing” 楚兩 生行)” (Rüdiger Breuer, Ruhr-Universität Bochum; the two “masters” are Liu Jingting 柳敬亭 and Su Kunsheng 蘇崑生), “Going Abroad in Verse: Hakka and Minnanese Narrative Ballads on Migration and Emigration (guofange 過番歌) of the Late-Imperial and Early-Republican Periods” (Wilt Idema, Harvard University), “Recital of The Precious Scroll of Incense Mountain in the Greater Suzhou Area” CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 34. 2 (December 2015): 166–168© The Permanent Conference on Chinese Oral and Performing Literature, Inc. 2015 DOI 10.1080/01937774.2015.1096557 (Sun Xiaosu 孫曉蘇, Harvard University), “Narrative Aspects of Baojuan” (Tan Hwee-San 陳慧珊, School of Oriental and African Studies, London), and “Chen Shizeng 陳師曾 and his Album of Peking Characters” (Lucie Olivová, Palacký University , Olomouc). Prosimetric genres: Papers under this topic included “To Be a Skald or Not to Be” (Abbi Patrix, La Maison du Conte, Chevilly-Larue; the paper was about premodern poet-musicians from Europe and Africa and the application of their techniques to contemporary storytelling), “Prosimetrum in Japan: A Cross-cultural Perspective” (Alison Tokita, Tokyo Institute of Technology/Kyoto City University of Arts), “Writers of Chinese Rural Narrative Art: How Laoting dagu 樂亭大鼓 Texts are Written” (Iguchi Junko 井口淳子, Osaka College of Music), and “Transmission of Suzhou Pingtan via Broadcasting” (Shi Yinyun 施吟云, University of Durham). Prose storytelling and genres of humor: Papers under this topic included “Modern Storytelling and Telling the Story of Modernity: Discursive Creations of the Modern in Tibetan Khashags (Comic Dialogues)” (Timothy Thurston, Ohio State University, Columbus) and “Xiangsheng Narrative” (Marja Kaikkonen, Stockholm University). Prose storytelling: Papers under this topic included “Recording and Documenting Yangzhou Storytelling” (Wang Huarong 汪花榮, Nanjing University), “A Storytellers ’ Script in the Yangzhou Tradition of Western Han” (Vibeke Børdahl, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen), and “Xi Han and the Oral Tradition of ‘History Telling’” (Ge Liangyan 葛良彥, University of Notre Dame, Indiana). Chinese theater: The one paper under this topic was “The Genuine in Southern Theater: From the Nine Mountain Society to Xu Wei’s (1521‒93) Notes on Southern Drama” (Regina Llamas, Stanford University). Folksong and balladry: Papers...