臺南歌舞藝陣故事類型之探討

There is a vast amount of farmlands in the southern Taiwan where many farmers live on. During springs and autumns, people are busy transplanting rice shoots. In the early times, while they were transplanting, farmers would sing songs spontaneously for reducing fatigue, increasing productivity, and providing physical and mental relaxation. The songs could make farmers delighted at work with a purpose to express and transmit their feelings. Despite the fact that now the manual work has been replaced by machines in the South and the song-singing activities are not commonly found, the songs which have been produced by the labors are already incorporated with local folk dances and arts. With storylines and contents, performances are conducted in the form of Dai-yan-ti (impersonation as a representative of someone), which becomes a performing art of Xiqu and could be seen as a part of Yizhen during the religious festivals. Nowadays, in Tainan there are still many farmers participating in the practice and performance of singing and dancing Yizhen at their free time for releasing their stress from work, making life delightful or joining the activity of Yixiang (incense-questing). Singing and dancing Yizhen originated as a folk art, absorbed all performing nutrients from various arts in the religious festivals, and eventually has developed well into a fine art. Singing and dancing Yizhen thus has become one of the representative Wenzhen performing arts. Now the existing repertoire of singing and dancing Yizhen troupes in Tainan is various. In this paper, four categories of the repertoire will be discussed: first, the performances feature the rural life with seasonal folk songs, like Niuli Song (The Song of Ploughing). Second, the performances feature folk tales in the funny and humorous style, like Ding-qiao-zi, Zou-zei, Da-tie-ge (The Song of Forging Iron), Tao-hua-guo-du (Peach Blossom Takes the Ferry), and so on. Third, the performances feature local music with the subjects taken from Nanguan opera, such as the performances relevant to Chen-san and Wu-nian, including ＂Kan-deng-shi-wu,＂ ＂Zao-qi-ri-shang,＂ ＂Gu-fan-san-geng,＂ ＂Sann-âng-sio-tshuā-tsáu,＂ ＂Dang-tian-xia-shi,＂ and so on. Fourth, the performances feature the historical subjects taken from Nanxi, such as the ones relevant to Liu Zhi-yuan, the Legend of White Hare, including ＂Zi-yi-qu,＂ ＂Ji-de-dang-chu,＂ and so on. The above-mentioned subjects are with various and different features. They are all performed by many Che-gu Yizhen acting troupes, widely known and familiar with the public, although the subject matters, contents and styles of the plots vary greatly from one to another. This research has been conducted through collecting data via field investigation, analyzing and discussing the repertoire or story contents of the singing and dancing Yizhen. Hopefully, with the systematic comparison and contrast of the performing contents of Yizhen and academic analysis, this research could be a further reference for researchers in the related fields.