Everyone used to know when Pei Guansheng’s opera troupe came to town. In the late 1970s and early 80s, his 50 performers would tour across northwestern China’s Gansu and Shaanxi provinces, sometimes performing up to three shows a day to rapt audiences who sat on stools from dawn to dusk.

Back then, opera was “the most widespread form of entertainment,” says Pei, whose troupe, which he managed until 1984, specialized in a form of opera called Qinqiang. “Everyone could hum a little bit from famous works.”

But today, Qinqiang, like other forms of traditional opera in China, is fighting for its life. “What the smartphone is doing now to television, is the same as what television did to opera,” says Pei. While the government has labeled traditional opera as “cultural heritage” and funneled funding into training new artists and supporting troupes, much of the money has gone toward Peking opera, called “China’s national opera” by the State Council, the country’s cabinet. That has left hundreds of lesser-known regional and local varieties struggling to find audiences and new performers.