Pingtan moves online

Performers are livestreaming shows to find new audiences amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Chen Nan reports.

The day before he performed on March 8, Gao Bowen was nervous, which was unusual for the veteran pingtan artist.

The 50-year-old is the director of Shanghai Pingtan Troupe and has performed the ancient Chinese art form of singing and storytelling since he was 17.

Instead of performing in front of a small crowd in teahouses or smaller theater venues, this time Gao gave his debut livestreaming show on Douyin, a popular short-video app known as TikTok outside China.

"This is the first livestreamed show of Shanghai Pingtan Troupe. If you have watched pingtan performances before, please type number one. If not, type number two," Gao said in front of a microphone and a camera during the show, sitting alongside another pingtan artist, Lu Jinhua.

While reading messages sent by people watching the live show, Gao introduced pingtan pieces, responded to audience questions and interacted with Lu.

"It was more challenging than I had thought. Usually we sit onstage, perform the pieces we've known very well and audiences respond with their applause. But while livestreaming this show, I didn't know where to look at and I had to adjust the tempo of my performance at different times," says Gao.

The COVID-19 pandemic had led to the shutting of public places such as theaters and teahouses, where Gao and other artists of the Shanghai troupe used to regularly perform.

The troupe, which was founded in 1951 as the first national pingtan troupe, has canceled or postponed all its performances in the past three months.

More shows that were to be held in Italy and the United States in June have also been canceled, given the global situation as a result of the coronavirus.

"We tried to find possible ways to perform for the audience. So we decided to give online performances, which is a totally new territory for the art form," Gao says.

Pingtan originated in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu province, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). It usually involves just two performers: one male and one female, who play the traditional musical instruments, sanxian and pipa, while singing ballads and telling stories in the Suzhou dialect at teahouses or small theaters.

Besides old classics, new pingtan works include modern takes on old stories and adaptations based on social events or topics.

Unlike Peking Opera, another major art form with a 200-year history that has high-pitched singing and martial arts, pingtan performers usually sing in soft voices.

Pingtan has a following in the southern areas of the Yangtze River, including Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Nanjing.

"If you ride a boat along the waterways of Suzhou, you will hear the sound of pingtan from teahouses on the riverbanks. There are hundreds of venues in the city where pingtan shows are staged daily," Gao says.

The art form has added to the lifestyle of the elderly who enjoy it while sipping tea and eating snacks, he says. "The atmosphere is very relaxed and slow."

Real-time challenges

"When we hold the virtual shows, the tempo is faster. We have to talk more to the audience than perform, unlike in real shows. The language has to be easy to understand and fun, too. For example, the first online show was on March 8, International Women's Day, and we chose a theme about classic female characters in pingtan," Gao says.

Lu, 35, the other pingtan artist, premiered her new piece titled Hair, which she dedicated to female medical workers who fought on the front lines against COVID-19 in Hubei province, China's worst-hit area.

"They got their hair cut to make it more convenient to work at the hospitals. This touched me. I also have very long hair and I know it's difficult to part with," Lu says. "I wanted to pay my respect to them."

The first livestreamed performance was received well, especially by the younger audience. Some told Gao that they had never watched pingtan shows before and they found the art form interesting and wanted to watch shows in theaters after venues reopen. Some others shared the online performance with their parents or grandparents, who are loyal fans of pingtan.

Within a week of the first livestreamed show, the number of online fans of the Shanghai troupe had increased by about 1,000. Now, the troupe has nearly 4,000 followers on Douyin.

On March 15, the troupe livestreamed its second show and on March 30, a third online show was staged with a theme of characters from the 18th-century novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, written by Cao Xueqin.