Chengdu Intangible Cultural Heritage Online Exhibition
Foreword
Chengdu has stunning landscapes, long and colourful history as well as rich intangible cultural heritages. “Chengdu Intangible Cultural Heritage Online Exhibition and Lecture” organized by China Cultural Centre in Sydney and Chengdu Municipal Bureau of Culture, Broadcasting-TV and Tourism will showcase the Long Spout Pot Tea Art, Vegetable Dyeing Technique, and Sichuan-style Guqin.
Long spout pot is a distinctive part of Chinese tea set with a long history. The performance of long spout pot tea art is an important component of the Chinese tea ceremony and tea culture with a high practical and aesthetic significance. The long spout pot tea art performer uses body language to convey many cultural implications, establishing the cultural and folk context of the Chinese tea-house. With only one action, you may find an allusion, a story, a history, and a philosophy.
Vegetable Dyeing, namely plant dying, originated in the Neolithic Age. It is a beautiful natural dyeing technique in ancient China by using natural plant dyes to color textiles.There are various ways of vegetable dyeing including fresh leaf dyeing, mordant dyeing, boiling dyeing, fermentation dyeing, pounding, over-dyeing and tie-dyeing. The beauty of “vegetable dyeing” derives from and combines with nature and is a unique gift from nature to the human being.
Guqin, also known as Yao Qin, Yu Qin, and seven-stringed zither, is a traditional Chinese plucked instrument with a wide vocal range, a deep timbre and a long lasting resonance, ranking the first among the four arts, “Guqin, Chess, Calligraphy, and Painting”.With a history of more than 2000 years, Sichuan-style Guqin as one of the nine major styles of Guqin in modern China is one of the most representative, the most widespread and the most abundant schools in China. It has a distinctive local features with a powerful, dramatic and violent sound and is a vital part of Chinese Guqin arts.
Welcome to explore Chengdu’s intangible cultural heritage and experience the unique charm of the city.
Long Spout Pot Tea Art
The performance of long spout pot tea art promotes the pleasure of tea tasting. From skill to art, the performance has improved continuously. It expresses various cultural connotations with body language, creating the cultural atmosphere and folk customs of the tea house. The random actions the tea specialist has gradually developed, refined and standardized into a fixed move by imitating martial arts, opera body techniques, and dance moves. These actions are endowed with names such as such as “High Mountains and Flowing Water”, “Suqin Bearing Sword on His Back” and so on, which are beautiful, appropriate, meaningful and easy to remember. These names incorporate the ostentation of martial arts, the perspective of fine arts, and the beauty of dance. With only one action, you may find an allusion, a story, a history, and a philosophy.
The long spout pot tea art performance inherits and enriches the folk custom of the tea house, increasing its cultural atmosphere. As a friendly envoy, it crosses the blue sky and the ocean to spread the Chinese folk culture abroad and establishes a friendship with tea.
Vegetable Dyeing
Vegetable dyeing is also called plant dyeing. It adopts direct dyeing, oxidation-reduction dyeing, mordant dyeing, PH value adjustment dyeing and other dyeing methods. The best dyeing process should be determined according to the nature of the dye. Vegetable dyeing has been improved and perfected through dynasties and generations. The elegant and meaningful colors of Yun brocade, Suzhou embroidery, etc. almost all come from vegetable dyeing.
There are various ways of vegetable dyeing including fresh leaf dyeing, mordant dyeing, boiling dyeing, fermentation dyeing, pounding, over-dyeing and tie-dyeing.
The beauty of “vegetable dyeing” derives from and combines with nature and is an unique gift from nature to the human being. Wearing products of vegetable dyeing, you may find in the fragrance of nature many pleasant surprises that have been left by chance, not only the feelings of craftsmen but also the most gentle gifts of plants to people, nature and inheritance.
Sichuan-style Guqin
The Guqin, also known as Yao Qin, Yu Qin and seven-stringed zither, is a traditional Chinese plucked instrument and one of the nine major styles of Guqin in modern China.
Guqin has a wide range of tones, deep timbre and long aftertones, ranking the first among the four arts “Guqin, Chess, Calligraphy and Painting”. According to the records in ancient books, the creation of the Guqin was related to the emperors at the beginning of Chinese civilization.
Sichuan-style Guqin has a long history and distinctive local specialty. It has once bloomed in the history of the Guqin and has influenced generations of scholars and Guqin players. It is a very valuable part of Chinese Guqin art.
The Sichuan-style Guqin has made great achievements in the aspects of Guqin music, theory and making, with the characteristic techniques of “seventy-two Gun Fu”, and representative classical music such as “High Mountains”, “Waters”, “Drunken Fisherman Singing in the Evening”, “Confucius Reading Yijing”, and “Admiring the Orchids”.