Scope and Content
This collection is the product of the "Large-scale Registration of Chinese Storytelling" conducted by Dr. Vibeke Børdahl and Fei Li between 2001 and 2003. During this project, the repertories of four masters of Chinese storytelling in Yangzhou - Dai Buzhang, Fei Zhengliang (Fei Li), Gao Zaihua, and Ren Jitang (Ren Dekun) - were filmed on video for a total of 360 hours of storytelling. The videotapes were then converted into sets of video compact discs (VCDs) and donated to research institutions in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
The four masters recorded for the project were Dai Buzhang of the Dai school of Journey to the West, Fei Zhengliang (Fei Zhengliang is the artistic name for Fei Li.) of the Wu school of Three Kingdoms, Gao Zaihua of the Kang school of Three Kingdoms, and Ren Jitang (Ren Jitang is the artistic name for Ren Dekun.) of the Wang school of Water Margin. The collection also includes a medium-length repertory, Emperor Qian Long Goes South, told by Ren Jitang. The collection is accompanied by the monograph, Four Masters of Chinese Storytelling: Full-Length Repertoires of Yangzhou Storytelling on Video, edited by Vibeke Børdahl, Fei Li, and Huang Ying. This book provides summaries of the content on each VCD, biographical information about each of the four masters, and descriptive articles about Chinese storytelling in Yangzhou in both Chinese and English.