ABSTRACT
After the national Liberation of 1949, every county government throughout China set up an arts-work troupe (wengongtuan), which soon metamorphosed into an opera troupe (jutuan). Some county authorities further set up a narrative-singing artists’ propaganda team (shuoshu yiren xuanchuandui), which – in theory – not only performed but also collected items, revising them, composing new pieces, and training new performers, under the leadership of the county Hall of Culture (Wenhuaguan).1 These narrative-singing teams were less permanent (and much less costly) than the opera troupes; they held training sessions (peixunban) for around a month or even a few days, and then divided into smaller teams to go off on tour round the villages. The tensions within such teams would make an interesting topic, but again, it is hard to assess their activities.
