Han Fulin

01 · Lineage & Regional School

He loved folk art from childhood; at sixteen he began learning nuo opera from his grandfather and his father and joined a nuo opera troupe in performing at seasonal festivals. Within the regional tradition and school record of Nuo Dance in Shouyang, Shanxi: The nuo dance is widely transmitted throughout the country, and is distributed most densely in Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi and Anhui in the Yangtze River basin, and in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Hebei in the Yellow River basin. According to legend, in the Zhou dynasty there were already the terms 'great nuo' and 'villagers' nuo'; after the Han dynasty nuo gradually became an important component of the state's orthodox system of ritual law. The Aishe nuo dance originated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River in remote antiquity; it is an extremely ancient and primitive folk dance form from the birthplace of Yellow River culture, and now survives only within the territory of Shouyang County, Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province, at the western foot of the Taihang Mountains.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

In 1963 he began to collate the dance movements of the Aishe, and subsequently learned the percussion instruments of nuo opera and the craft of making ghost-nuo masks, becoming the fourth-generation all-round master of the Aishe in Hangou Village and the convener and organizer of nuo customs activities. He has led the nuo opera troupe in street cultural parades on many occasions. In 1985 he assisted the county cultural centre in collecting and collating material on the Aishe, which was included in the Compendium of Chinese Folk Dances. As a folk artist charged with transmitting the art of the Aishe nuo dance, he has long devoted himself to performing, to collecting and collating material, and to training successors. Within the documented technical tradition of Nuo Dance in Shouyang, Shanxi: The nuo dance is a primitive dance of a sacrificial-ritual nature in traditional society, and has a long history. The nuo dance takes driving out plague and pestilence and praying for peace and safety as its principal aim, and involves a very strong degree of mass participation. In performance the dancers wear masks, shout as they drive things away, and attract a large crowd of followers and onlookers, so the scene is very lively. Among the many ethnic minorities of the southwestern region there also survive numerous nuo rituals and nuo dances of diverse form and complex function, with strong ethnic character. Shouyang was anciently known as Upper Ai, Middle Ai and Lower Ai, the last being present-day Yuxian, which is where the Aishe nuo dance gets its name. The Shouyang Aishe nuo dance uses the shamanic nuo form to enact the legend of the battle between Xuanyuan and Chiyou, expressing the nuo worship consciousness of humanity's remote hunting era and the national spirit of the descendants of Yan and Huang as industrious, brave and stubbornly struggling. The Aishe nuo dance is performed mainly on occasions such as the birthday celebration of the Yellow Emperor Xuanyuan, sacrifices and prayers for rain, and takes about 50 minutes from beginning to end. The dance troupe consists of 24 people, of whom 6 'big ghosts' wear ghost-face masks and perform, while 18 'little ghosts' stand in the form of city walls on the two sides to support them. The whole performance consists of sections such as 'martial momentum', the basic movements showing preparations before battle, 'toppling against the wall', deploying the array in confrontation, 'straight wall', the formation changing like a snake shedding its skin, 'small field', the assault on the city failing and the array being redeployed, 'clearing the pass', taking off the boots for a surprise attack and scaling the walls to seize the flag, and 'playing the table', the assault on the city succeeding and the common people lining the streets to reward the troops; it displays simple and natural characteristics. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The six episodes of the Aishe dance": The six episodes: preparation, lines facing off, snake-shedding formation, regrouping after a failed assault, the sneak attack over the wall, and the victory feast along the street. "Six great ghosts and eighteen lesser ones": The troupe of twenty-four has six masked great ghosts performing and eighteen lesser ghosts ranged in a city-wall formation; a full performance takes about fifty minutes. "Shang'ai, Zhong'ai and Xia'ai": Shouyang was anciently called Shang'ai, Zhong'ai and Xia'ai, from which the Aishe dance takes its name. "The Yellow Emperor's war with Chi You": The legend enacted through Nuo form, evoking the totemic worship of the hunting age and the shift from hunting to farming civilisation.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Male, Han ethnicity, born in July 1943, died in January 2017, a native of Shouyang County, Shanxi Province. National representative bearer of Nuo Dance (Shouyang Aishe), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In 2008 he performed for the Chinese Nuo Opera Symposium and won unanimous praise from the experts.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Han Fulin · National Representative Bearer Archive