Nanchang Tea-Picking Opera

Nanchang tea-picking opera grew out of the Lantern Festival lamp dances of Nanchang and Xinjian counties in the late Ming and early Qing, developing from folk "flower lamps" and the "twelve-month tea-picking tune," popularly called "lamp play" or "three-role troupe," an influential branch of the Jiangxi tea-picking tradition centred on Nanchang county. It was listed as a Jiangxi provincial ICH representative work in 2008 and entered the second Jiangxi provincial ICH list.

Its performances are lively and witty, rich in everyday life, sung mainly in tea-picking tune families, telling stories of ordinary townsfolk and family life with warm, humorous dialect speech, built on the young scholar, young female and clown roles, with simple props but vivid stage conventions.

Nanchang tea-picking opera carries the rural culture and dialect art of the Poyang region, an important sample for studying how Jiangxi's local operatic vocal styles formed and evolved, and remains widely loved by local people.