Sealed without end, the heart is attached to the apprentice. In the green home community of Jinhui Town, Fengxian District, which is under anti-epidemic control, Cao Qunlai, the founder of the multi-head face-changing art, was busy making props for twelve apprentices to prepare for the upcoming Fengxian District Non-Heritage Face-Changing Technique to be performed on campus in June.
Pictured: Cao Qunlai (second from the right) leads the whole family to make face-changing props for the apprentices Interview subject courtesy of the photo (the same below)
Cao Qunlai is not a descendant of Sichuan opera, but his ancestors are famous artists who performed in Beijing Tianqiao. Before settling in Fengxian, he and his wife Zhao Yonghua performed the original program "Hot Wheel" on the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 1991 and won the first prize of the Spring Festival Gala. After settling in Fengxian, their self-created multi-head face-changing art was amazing as soon as it came out, and in the process of continuous transcendence and continuous innovation, the number of simultaneous face changes at one time was increased from six to eight and ten - reaching seventeen when the difficulty was the greatest!
Pictured: Multi-headed face-changing art part of the props
In the world's astonishment, Cao Qunlai's multi-head face-changing art was featured on CCTV's "I want to go to the Spring Festival Gala" program in 2011, and was invited to perform at home and abroad for many times. Among them, in the Asian Carnival cultural exchange performance invited to participate in 2019, Cao Qunlai's eight-headed face-changing art performed by Cao Qunlai won many honors such as choreography, director and performance.
Under the care and support of the cultural management department of Fengxian District, the multi-headed face change has been included in the Fengxian District District Intangible Cultural Heritage Project in recent years, and has successively passed on and trained disciples including Lan Kunming, the inheritor of Chengdu Chuan Theatre, throughout the mainland Beijing, Tianjin, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Guangxi, Guizhou, Gansu, Henan, Taiwan and other places, as well as Denmark, Russia and other countries, with a total of more than 10,000 performances.
Pictured: Before this round of epidemic control, Cao Qunlai (first from the left) introduced the art of multi-head face changing to students
One of the workshops of this multi-headed face-changing art is located on the third floor of the Jinzhong Neighborhood Committee in Jinhui Town. According to the plan, in June this year, it will enter the campus and community of Fengxian District to further inherit. The performances included twelve newly acquired disciples of Cao Qunlai's daughter Cao Baojing, and his grandson Cao Ruilin, who was only six years old but had just begun to show his head.
Performances are inseparable from props. The epidemic suddenly came as scheduled, and the sealing control was not out of the community, Cao Qunlai, his wife Zhao Yonghua and his daughter Cao Baojing, just thinking about how to make all the props of the twelve disciples earlier. As a result, the home became their temporary studio, and the garage became their operation room. Using the "inventory" at home, the family divides labor and cooperates, and there is almost no rest. Blowing face molds, drawing faces, sewing costumes, making face-changing skeletons... So far, the twelve face-changing skeletons have been basically done, the twelve face models have been basically blown, and the twelve "Ling Flags" have all been done.
Pictured: Cao Qun came to seal a face-changing prop made during his stay at home
"It is difficult for a woman to cook without rice." Cao Qun said that he did not expect to encounter the epidemic in advance, it would be sealed for so long, the fabric at home was slightly insufficient, and the performance props of twelve people were only bad at present. He believes that with the improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation, there is hope for the purchase of fabrics, the performance costumes can still be done on time, and the performances can be carried out on time. Cao Qunlai revealed that when the time is ripe, he is ready to further declare the multi-headed face-changing art for the Shanghai Municipal Intangible Cultural Heritage Project.
Xinmin Evening News reporter Luo Shuiyuan