User:Crisco 1492/Li Minghui
Li Minghui | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
.jpg) Li, 1926 | |||||||||
| Born | 1909 | ||||||||
| Died | 2003 | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 黎明暉 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 黎明晖 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Li Minghui (simplified Chinese: 黎明晖; traditional Chinese: 黎明暉; pinyin: Lí Mínghuī, 1909-2003) was a Chinese actress.
Biography
[edit]Li was born in 1909. Her father, Jinhui, was a noted composer and professor at Beijing University. Having organized his own touring troupe, he trained Minghui in singing and dancing from a young age.[1] By her teenage years, Li had gained popularity for her song and dance performances. She gained popular acclaim of her fairy maiden dances, appeared in stage dramas, and released numerous gramophone records,[2] including several meant for children.[3] She also appeared in some nine silent films,[2] beginning with The Little Factory Boss in 1925.[4] In April 1926, she appeared on the cover of The Young Companion's third issue.[5]
Through 1927, Li gained increased popularity with audiences, which her father used to popularize his school for musically inclined youth.[4] She recorded the song "Drizzle" (毛毛雨), penned by her father, with Pathé Records in 1928. Fusing traditional and Western elements, the song was recorded as though from the perspective of a young woman. Its nasal falsetto was widely emulated in subsequent works of shidaiqu; a new version, which extensively featured western instruments such as the trombone and saxophone, was released in 1934.[6] Through 1928 and 1929 Li travelled Southeast Asia with her father's China Song-and-Dance Troupe, which later became the Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe.[2] Although the tour was popular, it was not a financial success.[7]
The troupe had returned to China by 1931, being hired by Luo Mingyou of the United Photoplay Service in April. The company had acquired the rights to Zhang Henshui's Two Stars in the Milky Way, and Li – despite her screen experience – recommended Violet Wong for the lead role.[8] Meanwhile, Li took a coaching role, serving as the trainer for Bright Moon – newly renamed the UPS Follies.[9] The follies appeared in several short films for UPS, with Li taking a starring role, but these were never released.[3]
Li was interviewed by CCTV in November 2003 as part of a series exploring the past century of popular music in China.[10] She died later that year 2003.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Harris 2012, p. 196.
- ^ a b c Harris 2012, p. 197.
- ^ a b Jones 2001, p. 171.
- ^ a b Jones 2001, p. 90.
- ^ Pickowicz, Shen & Zhang 2013, p. 3.
- ^ Cheng 2023, p. 40.
- ^ Jones 2001, p. 93.
- ^ Harris 2012, pp. 197–199.
- ^ Harris 2012, pp. 199–200.
- ^ CCTV 2005, p. 1.
Works cited
[edit]- Cheng, Ya-Hui (2023). The Evolution of Chinese Popular Music: Modernization and Globalization, 1927 to the Present. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-86672-8.
- Harris, Kristine (2012). "Two Stars on the Silver Screen: The Metafilm as Chinese Modern". In Henriot, Christian; Yeh, Wen-hsin (eds.). History in Images: Pictures and Public Space in Modern China. China Research Monograph. Vol. 66. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies. pp. 191–244. ISBN 978-155729-155-4.
- Jones, Andrew F. (2001). Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-8043-6.
- 一百年的歌声 [One Hundred Years of Songs] (in Chinese). CCTV. 19 May 2005. Archived from the original on 5 January 2025. Retrieved 5 January 2025.
- Pickowicz, Paul; Shen, Kuiyi; Zhang, Yingjin (2013). "Introduction". Liangyou, Kaleidoscopic Modernity and the Shanghai Global Metropolis, 1926–1945. Leiden: Brill. pp. 1–17. ISBN 978-90-04-26338-3.