Introduction

This book aims to study the role of temple theatre in the development of traditional Chinese drama and theatre (xiqu), with focus primarily on the two most representative and predominant forms of temple theatre, that is Nuoxi or Nuo theatre and Mulianxi or Mulian theatre, the former being the oldest living shamanic ritual and theatrical performance in China and the latter widely hailed as ‘the ancestor of one hundred forms of xiqu' (baixi zhi zu). Xiqu is an umbrella term for a great variety of forms that originated in different places and different periods. ¹ While sharing the common defining feature of ‘enacting a story with speech, action, song and dance' (Wang 2007: 33), each is distinguished from the others in dialect and musical style. The twelfth century witnessed the appearance of Southern drama (nanxi), the earliest mature form of xiqu, but earlier forms of xiqu have a much longer history going back as far as the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1045 bc) when Chinese temple theatre began to emerge in the form of shamanic ritual performance.