Ancient stage construction skills (the fourth batch of national level) Ancient stage construction skills are an important traditional skill in Leping folk vernacular architecture. In the traditional skills of ancient stage construction, saw workers, carpenters, carpenters, carvers (mainly wood carving, but also brick carving and stone carving), masons, lacquer workers, painters, etc. work together to complete the production of a stage. The stage adopts the style of classical archway, with carving, gold and color, and adopts a mixed structure of through-beam and raised beam, supplemented by purlin and through-beam, making the stage "exquisitely complex in architecture and luxurious and gorgeous in decoration". The stage is composed of three parts: the wide base at the bottom, the wall column structure in the middle and the towering roof at the top, forming the facade image of the hall; the main parts and components of the stage are oil beams, lion beams, eight-character beams, moon beams, brackets, sparrows, lion supports, hanging columns, hanging bowls, hanging baskets, screens and lattice window lattices. During the construction of the ancient stage, the sculpture is the most critical and has its own unique characteristics: first, the sculptures are complete in variety, including relief, flat carving, intaglio and hollow carving, with very little secondary polishing, clear and powerful knife marks, and a friendly texture; second, the relief is prominent, especially the relief of the oil beam and the lion beam, which is 2-3 inches deep, so that people can look far away and look up, with a strong sense of three-dimensionality and lifelike; third, the sculptures are rich in content, mainly with drama characters, supplemented by flowers, birds and scenery. So far, there are more than 400 ancient stages in Leping since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and more than 1,000 performances of Gan opera and other dramas are still accepted every year, demonstrating the inheritance of Leping's ancient stage construction skills. Leping, located in the northeast of Jiangxi Province, is located in the golden triangle area of Nanchang, Jiujiang and Jingdezhen. It is known as the "hometown of Gan opera" and is one of the birthplaces of Gan opera. Since ancient times, the people have been prosperous and the literary style has flourished, especially in the southeast of Leping. The major surnames have been fighting constantly, and the wind of comparison has never stopped. With the continuous development of opera and the continuous rise of comparison, ancient opera stages have emerged all over the city and countryside. They have been prosperous since the Ming Dynasty. Leping is also known as the "Chinese Ancient Opera Stage Museum". (Wu Binghuang, Research on Leping Ancient Opera Stage, Master's Thesis of Jiangxi Normal University in 2009) As early as 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, there was already the dawn of civilization of human stone tools in Leping, and more than 20 pre-Qin cultural sites have been discovered throughout the territory. After the Qin Dynasty, the development of Leping's farming economy has always been at the forefront of the times. In the first year of Guanghe in the Eastern Han Dynasty (178 AD), the county was established. Because the county seat was adjacent to Le'an River in the south and Ping Village in the north, it was named Leping. Since the Yuan Dynasty, Leping has been popular with zaju. Zhao Shanqing, a Yuan Dynasty zaju artist based in Jiangxi, was from Zhaojiawan Village, Leping. His eight zaju, such as "Drunk Writing Mantingfang" and "Lishan Dade Dance", were praised by the world as "Lantian Beautiful Jade" and "The Best Can Chase Zhang Xiaoshan and Ma Zhiyuan". With opera repertoires, there will be performance stages. After the Ming Dynasty, some places in Jiangnan where the clan system was relatively developed, "united clans to establish temples" and built stages in the temples to worship ancestors, entertain gods, and educate clansmen. As a result, a permanent stage built with bricks, wood, and stone came into being in Leping with the rise of ancestral halls and temples. First of all, Leping has abundant wood products necessary for building stages, especially camphor wood resources, which are "the best in other cities". This kind of broad-leaved tree is hard, has a good surface gloss after planing, beautiful texture, and wear resistance, and is mainly used for small woodwork. This good natural environment also provides favorable conditions for the emergence and development of Leping's ancient stage construction skills. Secondly, because the people love drama, building a stage to perform drama has become their way of entertainment passed down from generation to generation and entertaining themselves. In Leping rural areas, there is such a slang: "If you don't watch a play for three days, your stomach will be bloated. If you don't watch a play for ten days, you don't have the energy to work. If you don't watch a play for a month, you will be angry when you see anyone." It can be seen that the villagers' spiritual pursuits and the heavy addiction to drama are heavy. It is precisely because of so many drama fans that more than 400 drama stages are constantly filled with music and singing, and the sound of gongs and drums makes Leping's rural customs and dramas more and more new over time. Third, the custom of climbing Huazong and fighting with weapons promoted the development of Leping's ancient drama stage. Leping's rural areas have always maintained the clan patriarchal blood tradition for thousands of years, living together in clans and living in the same village with the same surname. This tradition has been continuously emphasized and consolidated through clan genealogies and ancestral halls, and the emergence of drama stages is also an externalization of this tradition. Leping people value and rely on clan blood ties. The glory of the clan, from the small addition of a child to the big promotion, can only be fully displayed to the outside world through the drama stage. It is unimaginable without a solemn and majestic stage to hold a grand ceremony. Therefore, the rise of Leping's ancient drama stage is backed by Leping's powerful clan power, and it continues to develop through mutual comparison between clans. The earliest known recorded Leping ancient drama stage was seen in the Ming Dynasty, which originated from the development and influence of Yiyang Opera. The earliest existing stage in Leping is the Zhaomutang stage in Yongshan Village during the Chongzhen period of the late Ming Dynasty. This is a ancestral hall stage. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, many stages were built in ancestral halls, which may be related to the ruling system at the time. During the Jiajing period, after the imperial edict "allowing all people to unite and build temples" was issued, some clans that lived together built ancestral temples one after another. As part of "making the temple more solemn", the stage took the opportunity to move into the temple and became an important place for the people of a clan or a village to worship gods or celebrate festivals. At this time, the overall height of the stage must not exceed the main hall of the ancestral hall, and even the colors and words can only be enjoyed in the main hall of the ancestral hall, not the stage, because at this time "the combination of opera and ritual education also makes the relationship between opera and temple worship closer, so it is more difficult for opera to obtain independent development space, and the status of the stage attached to the temple is also more difficult to change to a certain extent." Therefore, the builders of Leping took samples from the archways of the stage, selected materials for beams and columns, and did their best in carving techniques, pursuing the grandeur and exquisite workmanship of the stage. During the Jiaqing and Daoguang periods of the Qing Dynasty, the construction of the Leping stage began to undergo fission: the stage began to be separated from the ancestral hall, and its spatial pattern was that the stage and the gate of the ancestral hall faced each other, with an open viewing area in the middle. In this way, the stage was no longer attached to the ancestral hall, but was independent of the ancestral hall and became the main building of the stage. The result of the fission was that in addition to a part of the stage that still adhered to tradition and built in the ancestral hall, a group of double-sided stages with the body attached and the soul separated, and the body separated and the soul separated, appeared. The body attached and the soul separated stage broke the previous regulations of the ancient Chinese stage architecture that sat south and faced north and faced the main hall, and realized the transitional transformation from entertaining gods to entertaining people, making the rural stage a real public entertainment venue, which was of great significance. The Wannian Stage, which is like a stage separated from the body and soul, has neither temples nor ancestral halls opposite the stage. It is the forerunner of modern stages. During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, despite the social unrest, Leping stages continued to be built. However, at this time, many Leping stages were built, but few were innovative.