Canjunxi

Initially a comedy duet, canjunxi became more complex and by the late Tang dynasty featured a combination of music, dance, and storytelling.

[1] Wang Guowei (1877–1927) believed it to be a primitive precursor of Chinese opera, while other scholars consider it to be more similar to certain forms of quyi, such as xiangsheng.

The adjutant (Chinese: 參軍; pinyin: cānjūn) Zhou Yan (周延) once embezzled several hundred bolts of official silk as the magistrate of Guantao and ended up in prison.

When asked what his title was, Zhou would flutter his clothes and reply "I was the magistrate of Guantao once, but have been reduced to your ranks after embezzling these!"

[3] By the late Tang dynasty, there was evidence that female performers had emerged, and that a new style might have been formed by incorporating features of gewuxi (歌舞戲, "a sort of narrative ballet in which the dancers sometimes spoke simple dialog"[4]) into canjunxi.