Wang Qiren

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Wang Qiren, Male, Han, from Wanrong, Shanxi, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Drum Dance (Ⅲ-42). The tradition is documented in Wanrong, Shanxi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Drum Dance in Wanrong, Shanxi: The Wanrong flower drum is a traditional folk dance popular in the area around Nanjing Village, Wanrong County. The long-standing Wanrong flower drum has a strong local character and important cultural value, and its influence has been far-reaching. The earliest record of the Wanrong flower drum is found in the Nanjing Village Foundation Stone stele erected in the eighth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty (1669). The text of the stele lists the flower drum among the folk shehuo performances and records the division of labour: teams of seven, eight or nine people, with women holding hand gongs and men wearing waist drums. From this it can be seen that by the late seventeenth century at the latest, the flower drum around Nanjing Village was already a shehuo programme with a fixed number of performers, fixed roles and a complete set of tune patterns.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Han ethnicity, born in April 1941, a native of Wanrong County, Shanxi Province. Fond of flower-drum art since childhood, from the age of seven he learned the Wanrong flower drum from village elders such as Wang Zengsheng, Wang Bingyin and Wang Xinze, and he later received guidance from such renowned teachers as Di Gang of the Central Song and Dance Ensemble and Qiu Shufang of the Shanxi Song and Dance Ensemble. Innovating on the basis of tradition, he reformed the art of the Wanrong flower drum, developing it from a single drum into the simultaneous use of head drum, arm drum, waist drum, knee drum and foot drum, and integrating folk dance, operatic expression and martial-arts movement, which greatly enhanced the visual appeal of the performance. He has also been engaged by institutions of higher education to coach students of the arts. Within the documented technical tradition of Drum Dance in Wanrong, Shanxi: According to the Nanjing Village Foundation Stone stele of the eighth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty (1669): "The flower drum is a folk shehuo, made up of seven, eight or nine people; female performers hold hand gongs, with a phoenix head and snake body; male performers wear waist drums, with a snake body and dragon body; the tune patterns flow smoothly. The Wanrong flower drum has three performance forms. The first is the low drum, worn at the waist. The second is the high drum, carried at the chest. The third is the multiple-drum form, in which drums are fastened to the dancer's head, chest, shoulders and between the legs, so that in the fullest case a single dancer may wear more than ten drums. There are many flower drum dance set pieces: Yidian You, Fengjiaoxue, Ganchaodou, Goushiyao and Fenghuang Sandiantou, together with such demanding movements as the two-beat, the tight three-beat, the four-beat, the five-beat, walking the round circle, the dragon swishing its tail, reaching to the waist, reaching to the leg, circling the knees, as well as "the lion rolling the embroidered ball", "Qin Qiong carrying a sword on his back" and "the phoenix spreading both wings". The three drum types of the flower drum correspond to different levels of technique. The low drum is tied to the waist and stresses stamping the ground and turning the body. The high drum hangs at the chest, allowing both hands to fly up and down. The multiple-drum form ties drums separately to the head, chest, shoulders and between the legs, and a single dancer can wear more than ten of them, striking different drumheads through simultaneous movements of different parts of the body. The set pieces also include such items as Yidian You, Fengjiaoxue, Ganchaodou, Goushiyao and Fenghuang Sandiantou, as well as the two-beat, the tight three-beat, the four-beat, the five-beat, walking the round circle, the dragon swishing its tail, reaching to the waist, reaching to the leg and circling the knees. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Low, high and multiple drums": Three forms: the drum at the waist, the drum at the chest, and many drums strapped to head, chest, shoulders and between the legs, up to a dozen on one person. "High-difficulty tricks": Its high-difficulty feats, paired with routines such as the dragon's tail sweep and swinging round the waist, knees and legs. "The Xingcun stele": Erected in 1669, the stele records the flower drum as a village pastime of seven to nine performers, women with hand gongs and men with waist drums. "Named drum routines": Named routines of the Wanrong flower drum, part of the sequence of tunes and drum patterns around Nanjing village.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Drum Dance (Wanrong Flower Drum), a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. For many years he has consistently devoted himself to transmitting the tradition; he has accepted two formal disciples, and each year he lectures on and demonstrates flower-drum art in schools, dance training classes and village cultural centers, having trained more than a hundred local artistic cadres.

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. Wang Qiren · National Representative Bearer Archive