Wu Huade

01 · Lineage & Regional School

In 1980 he became a disciple of Zeng Heju, transmitter of the Tan school of fanshan jiaozi. Within the regional tradition and school record of Fanshanjiaozi in Pingchang, Sichuan: Fanshanjiaozi is a men's dance in which the small bronze cymbals called "jiaozi" are waved and struck, and it is transmitted mainly around Pingchang County, Sichuan Province. The jiaozi was originally a ritual implement used by the Pingchang shamans colloquially called "duangong"; when local residents met with calamity or illness, they would invite a shaman to strike the jiaozi, using a variety of humorous or graceful movements to please the ghosts and spirits so that they would no longer do harm. According to the length of the cords, Fanshanjiaozi is divided into two types, "long-cord jiaozi" and "short-cord jiaozi". By the end of the Qing dynasty, Fanshanjiaozi was widely used at weddings, birthday celebrations and all kinds of other auspicious occasions, and gradually took on the dance form it has today.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, of Han ethnicity, born in April 1967 in Pingchang County, Sichuan Province. After inheriting the basic techniques of the Tan school he made bold innovations and founded the Wu school of fanshan jiaozi, enriching the repertories of the pingdi jiaozi (ground-level cymbals) and gaotai jiaozi (platform cymbals). In performance his movements are expansive, agile, vigorous and robust, displaying a variety of graceful postures and formations and creating a lively, festive and joyful atmosphere. He collects and collates materials relating to the fanshan jiaozi dance and has provided extensive assistance to professional literary and art workers at provincial, municipal and county levels. Within the documented technical tradition of Fanshanjiaozi in Pingchang, Sichuan: In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, Fanshanjiaozi was extremely popular in Pingchang. Its beating techniques include more than forty movements, basically not departing from four ways of handling: striking, scraping, flipping and turning. Most of the movements bear vivid figurative names, such as "the white heron spreads its wings", "wind blows the willows", "the soft-shelled turtle dries its shell", "the frog dries its belly", "flowers bloom on the bare ground" and "horse galloping, bow shooting", and so on. In performance, the jiaozi performer swings the two jiaozi in time with the beat so that they strike each other and give out sound, and from time to time lengthens or shortens the cords tied to them, at one moment flinging the jiaozi over the head and at another whirling them around the waist and legs, so as to strike the jiaozi against different parts of the body and display a variety of graceful dance poses and formations. The movements of the whole performance are expansive and flexible, the style vigorous and rough, and the atmosphere cheerful and extraordinarily lively. Fanshanjiaozi is a highly distinctive performance form among the dances of the Han nationality; to some extent it reflects the social life and cultural customs of the Ba people, and it is important reference material for research into Ba culture and the history of Chinese dance. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The four techniques of striking, brushing, flipping and turning": The forty-odd actions all come down to four techniques - striking, brushing, flipping and turning - as the dancer clashes the two cymbals in time. "The named movement images": Most movements carry image names - the egret spreading wings, willow in the wind, the turtle sunning its shell, the frog its belly, the ground lotus and the mounted archer. "Long-cord and short-cord cymbals": Depending on cord length the dance divides into long-cord and short-cord types; the dancer pays out and reels in the cord, now flinging the cymbals overhead, now whirling them round the waist. "From shaman's instrument to wedding entertainment": The cymbals began as a shaman's instrument played to placate spirits in sickness; by the late Qing they had moved into weddings and birthday celebrations in their present dance form.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

He is a national representative bearer of Fanshanjiaozi, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He has taken part in many artistic showcase performances and won awards; the folk dance fanshan jiaozi as performed by him in 1988 was included in the Sichuan Volume of the Compendium of Chinese Ethnic and Folk Dances.

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. Wu Huade · National Representative Bearer Archive