Buzhaxi

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Buzhaxi, Male, Unspecified, from Nangqian, Qinghai, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Guozhuang Dance (Ⅲ-20). The tradition is documented in Nangqian, Qinghai. Within the regional tradition and school record of Guozhuang Dance in Nangqian, Qinghai: According to the region in which it is popular, guozhuang dance can further be divided into categories such as Ganzi guozhuang and Manai guozhuang. Men and women form teams and make a circle, facing inward, and dance gracefully. Nangqian Zhuoganma is an ancient folk dance passed on within Nangqian County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Legend has it that it originated in the Xuanhe reign period of the Northern Song, and to this day it has a history of nearly nine hundred years.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Tibetan ethnicity, born in March 1961, a native of Nangqian County, Qinghai Province. He came from a family of Nangqian Zhuoganma performers, several generations of which had been Zhuoganma performers. Carefully guided by his elders from childhood, he took the stage at sixteen, became a lead dancer and began teaching disciples at twenty-nine, and has trained more than three hundred disciples to date. From 2006 he led the Zhuoganma dance team at the annual Yushu Prefecture horse race festival. He worked over the long term with cultural departments on the performance, collection, organization and successor training of Nangqian Zhuoganma, with notable results. Within the documented technical tradition of Guozhuang Dance in Nangqian, Qinghai: Guozhuang dance is a type of folk dance popular in Tibetan-inhabited areas. It changes continually as the social history of the Tibetan people develops. There are songs and dances reflecting labour such as threshing highland barley, twisting wool, feeding livestock and brewing wine, and there are songs and dances portraying Tibetan customs and performed at weddings, house completions and when welcoming guests and entertaining visitors. Guozhuang dance is divided into old-style guozhuang and new-style guozhuang. Old-style guozhuang is sacrificial in character: only its set lyrics may be sung and no alteration whatsoever is permitted, and the dance is generally slow, steady, archaic and solemn. New-style guozhuang mostly reflects farming and herding production and commercial and trading activity; both its lyrics and its dance movements are relatively free and flexible. An ordinary guozhuang dance is not limited in the number of performers; it may be danced by one person or by many. Its dance steps fall into two main categories, 'guozhuo' and 'kuzhuo'; the former is walking dance, the latter turning dance. Zhuoganma was originally a dance performed by aristocratic families at religious events or at festivals. It was composed in the Kham-area Tibetan language and takes the form of a 'hymn' combined with 'dance'. When performed, the dancers hold hands and the men and women sing in separate lines in antiphony. While dancing, the legs supply the main force and the upper body follows along, while the footwork is highly varied. It is accompanied by flutes, ox-horn instruments and drums, of which the drum is the principal instrument. The lyrics rhyme and are neatly balanced in parallel structure. From the music to the dance and the performance costume, everything is noted for archaic simplicity and elegance. Zhuoganma is steadier and more solemn than other Tibetan dances, and some of its performance pieces carry a slight sense of ritual. The costume of Zhuoganma is its most distinctive feature. Male dancers tie a red cord on the head and wear a coiled long plait of alternating red and black hair, called 'zaluo' in Tibetan. Inside they wear a white silk long-sleeved garment, over it a dark reddish-brown Pulan Tibetan robe; at the waist they tie a belt carrying a fire striker, Tibetan knife and cartridge pouch made of leather and gold and silver and set with coral; below are white silk lantern trousers, and on the feet are leather Tibetan-style long boots. Female dancers wear elaborate and varied headdresses: their hair is combed into 50 to 60 small braids and they wear Tibetan-style hairpins of gold and silver at the temples. On the head is a long strip ornament of a jade waist seal sewn from Tibetan-style silk satin, with three ambers at the top. At the waist they gird on a leather belt decorated with gold, silver and copper beaten work characteristic of Nangqian, and on the belt hang a woman's Tibetan knife and a Tibetan purse also worked in gold, silver and copper; on the feet they wear leather mid-calf Tibetan boots. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The 'zalo' coiled braid and woollen robe": Male dancers wear a red-and-black coiled braid called zalo, a white silk shirt and a maroon woollen robe with coral-studded belt gear. "Fifty to sixty small braids": Women's hair is plaited into fifty or sixty small braids with silver-and-gold clasps and amber ornaments, worn with a decorated belt. "Flute, horn fiddle and drum": It is accompanied by flute, horn fiddle and drum, the drum being principal, to verse that is rhymed and neatly paired. "Hymn plus dance": First danced by noble households at religious events and festivals, it pairs hymns in Kham Tibetan with dancing, hand in hand and in separate male and female lines.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He was a national representative bearer of Guozhuang Dance (Nangqian Zhuoganma), a third-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. Buzhaxi · National Representative Bearer Archive