TAN WEIWEI, a pop singer, gave a surprising performance recently on China Star on Dragon TV. In her performance, she intertwined modern rock and roll with classic Huayin old tune music.

    For Tan’s latest song “Show Me Your Colors,” she brought in five old artists from Shaanxi Province to perform and sing with her.

    The performance has drawn massive attention from across the country and brought this old Chinese intangible cultural heritage into the limelight.

    Huayin old tune is a rhythmic vocal opera genre derived from local shadow puppet plays in Huayin City, Shaanxi Province. Unlike traditional Chinese art that is gentle and simple, the old tune is characterized by its bold and strong style. The music is solemn and stirring and the tune is free and unconstrained. Hardwood clappers are used in the show as accompaniment to liven up the performance. It is said that the old tune has a history of over 2,000 years, but it is only popular in the adjoining counties at the foot of Huashan Mountain.

    “This was a successful promotion of Chinese intangible cultural heritage. Although it is still not enough from the protection aspect, it did bring up a new concept of promoting these old Chinese art forms to modern listeners,” said Xu Yiyi, a member of the Expert Committee of National Intangible Cultural Heritage.

    Many experts also agreed with Xu and highly praised Tan’s latest endeavor. “Integrating traditional art into modern pop culture is an effective way to promote intangible cultural heritage. One way to protect these heritages is to upgrade them, not change them,” said Wang Chengtai, chairperson of the Shenzhen Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Association. “We can learn from many entertainment programs how to showcase traditional art and create more new and up-to-date images to old artists and art forms, blending them into pop culture and everyday life.”

    The success of Tan’s music also draws attention to intangible cultural heritage protectors here in Shenzhen. Over the past few years, Shenzhen has also been exploring innovative methods to promote traditional arts in the city.

    “Shenzhen has five intangible cultural heritage programs in the traditional music category: Guanlan Hakka folk song, Dapeng folk song, Longgang folk song, Shiyan Hakka folk song and Yantian folk song,” said Hou Lingya, head of the Shenzhen Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center. “The folk songs in each area have very different styles and characteristics. At the moment, we have made some great achievements in promoting Longgang folk song and Shiyan folk song.”

    For example, Longgang and Bao’an districts have initiated many innovative ideas in promoting their folk cultures. “In 2012, Shiyan held a competition for Hakka folk songs. At this competition, there were two groups: original folk songs and creative folk songs. The final golden award-winning song was a creative folk song in modern style. It used modern drums to interpret the old folk song,” Hou said.

    “If Shenzhen wants to make more achievements in folk songs, it has to bring more modern art forms and performers into traditional folk songs,” Hou said.

    To protect intangible cultural heritage, we must record and upgrade the essence of the traditional art, which will attract more young people to the older art forms, Wang said. (Wang Yuanyuan)