Daojicairang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Daojicairang, Male, Tibetan, from Xunhuasalazuzizhi, Qinghai, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Tibetan Chi Drum Dance (Ⅲ-92). The tradition is documented in Xunhuasalazuzizhi, Qinghai. Within the regional tradition and school record of Tibetan Chi Drum Dance in Xunhuasalazuzizhi, Qinghai: Tibetan Chi drum dance is transmitted in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Daowei, Galeng, Wendu and other places in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. The dance troupe is made up of men from the village, and the “lahong” is the lead dancer. None of the thirteen sets of movements that have come down to us admits free improvisation; the basic formations include walking clockwise in a circle, a square formation, Chi swishing its tail, diagonal lines crossing, a circular spiral of alternating positions and a horizontal row, and each section changes to one formation. The formation of Chi drum dance is connected with the rain-praying and calamity-averting customs of the Tibetan villages around Xunhua: every year in the sixth lunar month the men of the village form a team, led by the “lahong”, who complete the whole ceremony in the order of inviting the deities, honouring the deities, subduing demons and seeing the deities off. The dancers wear five-peak auspicious hats on their heads and golden lozenge-shaped shawls over their shoulders, hold the drum in the left hand and the whip in the right, and dance while beating the drum, with no other instrumental accompaniment.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Tibetan, born in April 1962 in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. From childhood he was immersed in the village's Chi drum dance performances, and his forebears were all Chi drum dance artists. At the age of sixteen he began learning and taking part in Chi drum dance performances, and at nineteen he became the “Lahong” (lead dancer) of the Chi drum dance troupe. He has mastered the multi-section (suite) structure of the Chi drum dance, whose form is relatively complete and rigorous, and under his direction the troupe's movements are uniform and precise. He has practiced the art for nearly twenty years and has taken part in more than two hundred medium- and large-scale performances. During his years as “Lahong” he trained more than one hundred folk performers, seven of whom have gone on to serve as “Lahong” themselves. Within the documented technical tradition of Tibetan Chi Drum Dance in Xunhuasalazuzizhi, Qinghai: Tibetan Chi drum dance is a large-scale folk ritual sacrificial dance transmitted in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. It is held every year in the sixth lunar month, with the purpose of praying to the deities, averting calamity and expelling evil, and bringing the villagers peace, long life, plentiful harvests and good grain. “Chi” is one of the nine sons of the dragon in legend; it has a large mouth and can swallow the sea. Performing Chi drum dance is a form of sacrificing to the water dragon; thirteen sets of movements have come down to us. In a performance of Tibetan Chi drum dance, a troupe is formed of several men; the dancers wear five-peak auspicious hats on their heads and golden lozenge-shaped shawls over their shoulders, hold the drum in the left hand and the whip in the right, and dance while beating the drum, with no other instrumental accompaniment. The dance postures of Chi drum dance have sharply defined angles and are full of masculine vigour; the movement of bending the leg forward, hooking the foot and striking the drum, together with the bending, extending and trembling of the knees, forms a distinctive rhythm, displaying the coarse, robust and passionate dancing culture of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The whole dance is in multiple sections; its structure is rigorous and complete, its movements are uniform and perfectly aligned, and it admits no free improvisation. The basic movements include such elements as “stepping forward, bending the leg and jumping while striking the drum”, while the basic formations include walking clockwise in a circle, a square formation, Chi swishing its tail, diagonal lines crossing, a circular spiral of alternating positions, a horizontal row and so on; each section changes to one formation. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Thirteen sets of movement": Thirteen sets survive, the dance being a strict multi-part sequence of uniform movement that admits no improvisation. "Five-peak hat and golden cape": Dancers wear a five-peaked auspicious hat and a golden lozenge-patterned cape, drum in the left hand and whip in the right. "Dragon-tail sweep and spiral": Formations include clockwise circles, square arrays, the dragon-tail sweep, diagonal crossings, spiral exchanges and straight lines, changing with each section. "The lahong, or lead dancer": Born in Xunhua in 1962 into a family of drum-dance artists, Dorje Tsering became lead at nineteen and trained over a hundred performers, seven of them later leads.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of the Tibetan Chi Drum Dance, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project.

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. Daojicairang · National Representative Bearer Archive