Performers › Stage Performers

Li Bo

Singer and opera performer who created the sister in the yangge play Brother and Sister Clear the Wasteland with Wang Dahua in 1943, later playing Mother Huang in The White-Haired Girl.

Also known as Born Ren Xiuying

Li Bo, born Ren Xiuying in Quyang, Hebei, in 1918, was a singer and opera performer. At the 1943 Spring Festival in Yan'an she and Wang Dahua, a teacher at the Lu Xun Academy of Arts, premiered the new yangge play Brother and Sister Clear the Wasteland, she singing and dancing the sister; the piece caused a sensation and became the model new yangge play, shaping later yangge dance and new opera. She went on to play Mother Huang in The White-Haired Girl and served as head of the opera team of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, a member of the Central Experimental Opera Theatre and head of the opera troupe of the national opera and dance-drama theatre. She died in 1996.

Life and times

  1. 1918 CEBornRepublican EraModern Era
  2. 1996 CEDied

Works

  1. Stage · Plays1
    1. Brother and Sister Clear the WastelandFirst performed at the 1943 Spring FestivalFirst staged in Yan'an at the 1943 Spring Festival, and called the first of the new yangge plays