Cheng Xifa

Also known as Stage name Cheng Xifeng

Cheng Xifa, from Liaozhong in Liaoning, was an errenzhuan performer equally celebrated in female roles, under the stage name Cheng Xifeng, and in clown roles, where audiences called him Cheng Shazi. At fifteen he became a pupil of Yang Deshan at Hailong in Jilin and for decades toured Jilin, Liaoning and Rehe with a large repertoire including Wang Erjie Sifu, Baqiao Tiaopao and Xunyang Lou. After 1949 he worked mainly around Fushun and Shenyang, and from late 1951 advised the music department of Northeast Normal University on folk arts. In 1960 the Jilin People's Publishing House issued Sixty Years of Errenzhuan, his recollections as recorded and edited by Wang Ken, a key source on the history of the form. He died in 1965.