Market- The key to their success is also their undoing.
Disregard for folk art does not unilaterally come from youth’s ignorance of the tradition. The rapid life pace and the diversified entertainment in modern society accelerate the diversion and transfer of people's interests and hobbies. Compared with traditional opera, pop music is more charming; television programs, different from the acrobatics on street, provide young people with more choices and entertainment; contrasting with local folk art, people seem to be more interested in playing cards and mahjong. Folk art is deserted coupled with the gradual disappearance of folk artists, all these have put the folk art in predicament.
Xiangsheng (crosstalk), Errenzhuan (northeast folk song and dance duet), etc. are popular all over the country because of the development of television and the spread of Spring Festival Gala. Burlesque, acrobatics and so on attract more attention in domestic market due to their great reputation earned outside China. With the successful experience, the original folk arts for self entertainment at home are considering the problem of marketization. If the market operation for folk art can be successful, it will become the savior of these "dying arts". It may not only protect the traditional art, but also attract young people.
The "Peony Pavilion" in young people's version exhibits a successful model in the market operation. It enters the market in the midst of controversy, but ends with great popularity, and it is even hard to buy one ticket in some place. The audience for single performance reaches more than 7,000 only in the Sichuan University. Today, the new "Peony Pavilion" has been played 109 times attracting 180,000 audiences, 70% of which are young people. Hundreds of thousands of videotapes have also been sold out. Bai Xianyong and Cai Shaohua, the president of Suzhou Kunju Theater in Jiangsu Province, by means of the new "Peony Pavilion", magically save a theater with market operation and boom the popularity of Kunqu Opera. The show really plays a significant part in passing on and promoting Kunqu Opera.
However, the market is not omnipotent. Under the impact of the market, a number of folk arts begin to deviate from the true essence and appear to succumb to the market. Then artworks become coarse products from pipeline. Folk songs are accompanied by hysterical drunk sound, Suona loses dignity to solicit customers, paper cut becomes decorative advertisement for restaurants, and Yangko becomes bridesmaids in festivities. Stone carving in great variety becomes unvarying and lifelike folk handicrafts lose luster and vitality. Folk art market operation makes businessmen first to do clearance sale of artwork as commodities, and then peddle commodities as artwork. The folk art is losing original artistry little by little. Folk art has been divorced from life and lost tradition. The folk art in market without freedom can only climb on the bandwagon and reproduce on a large scale to make a living. Reproduction may lead to short term economic benefits but strangle the vitality of artistic creation and the folk art is doomed to destruction.
For folk art rooted among people, we value protection and stress more on extension
Soviet writer Gorky once said: "a folk artist's death is equivalent to the destruction of a small museum." The accelerated loss of cultural heritage in modern society triggers the concerns of many governments and nongovernmental organizations. It is worth learning from the South Korean government on the protection of folk art. South Korea has an intangible cultural property department for the specialized management on intangible cultural properties, such as traditional Korean story-telling and singing, mask dance, wrestling, boxing, Korean paper art, food for imperial palace, magic, ritual, traditional medicine and so on. Each kind of intangible cultural property and the folk artists mastering the unique skills are under numbered management, and folk artists adopt the way to take apprenticeship to preserve cultural heritage.
Now in China, some governments and social organizations have also launched a series of rescue programs for folk culture and art. There are more and more galleries for folk art collection in China, and there are more than 100 museums currently in Shanghai including a lot of galleries for traditional folk art such as ceramics, embroidery and root carving. In Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, the government has specially set up different "folk art ecological protected zones" and 558 folk arts have been timely rescued, protected and promoted.
Email to Friends
Print
Save