Anshun Di Opera Masks

Anshun Di Opera Masks

　　Di opera is widely performed in the Anshun area. After the Spring Festival and before the Lantern Festival, farmers can be seen performing this generationally inherited form of theater on open-air flat grounds. Known as "playing the New Year’s show," it is self-scripted and self-acted. During the millet flowering season, they stage "jumping the rice flower deity" performances to pray for a bountiful harvest and to express farmers' wishes for driving away illness and inviting good fortune. Di opera comes in many varieties, mainly including folk plays, court plays, military plays, and temple plays—four distinct types. The plotlines of Anshun Di opera primarily derive from historical events. They often perform only heroic figures from tales of battle such as *Romance of the Three Kingdoms*, *The Romance of Sui and Tang*, *Generals of the Yang Family*, and *The Investiture of the Gods*, but never romantic dramas or plays centered on family drama or rebellion, which has made it a beloved folk theater among the Han, Miao, and Buyi peoples. The opera was invited to perform at the 59th Arts Festival in France in 1986 and received high praise from audiences. Di opera masks, also known as "di opera faces," are an exaggerated makeup technique used to represent character identities. In main performances, 24 masks represent 24 deities, each with its own name, collectively called the "24 Theatrical Deities." Actors wear the masks atop their foreheads so audiences can easily observe the distinct personalities of various characters. The di opera faces are carved from poplar and lilac wood. They are not only the essence and essential props of di opera performances, but also rare works of art within the realm of painted wood carvings. Guizhou’s di opera faces originated in the Ming Dynasty. Legend has it that the very first mask was brought to China from Nanjing by a commander surnamed Tang, who served under Zhu Yuanzhang during a military campaign. It inherited the [masked performance] style from the Tang Dynasty, and later evolved gradually into an artistic way to depict human characters as well as animal figures such as horses, pigs, and dogs. Guizhou’s di opera faces are vivid, bright, and strongly characterized. They are carved based on the clues provided by di opera facial makeup patterns and the image requirements of the characters in the plays. For example, the commander-in-chief's mask is usually influenced by temple statue aesthetics—its forehead is required to be full, the eyeballs prominent, the carvings bold, and the lines exaggerated. Meanwhile, masks for junior or female generals are delicate, handsome, and lively, with finer and more refined carving techniques. Di opera faces are largely similar to those of Peking opera facial makeup; however, since the masks replace the actors’ actual faces, they feature more comprehensive decoration. Elements like female generals' earrings and helmets, or male generals' beards and headpieces, are all integrated with the mask. Their color schemes follow principles of contrast, harmony between warm and cool tones, and vary according to character—masks for righteous characters are typically dominated by red, yellow, and flesh tones, while those for villains use blue, green, and black. Guizhou di opera faces are a rare form of wood-carved sculpture art in China and have the potential to be developed into tourism products and handicrafts. In 1986, when Guizhou di opera was performed in France and Spain, the accompanying di opera faces were displayed and warmly welcomed by French audiences. (Anshun)