Chachunmei

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Fond of Yi folk song and dance from childhood, she eagerly learned the art from the elders of her village and gradually grew into a leading figure in local folk song and dance. Within the regional tradition and school record of Yi Dage Dance in Weishanyizuhuizuzizhi, Yunnan: Yi dage is also called “tage” and is the most widely distributed, most influential and most popular self-entertainment dance among the Yi in Weishan County, Yunnan Province. In the Weishan area, dage in the western hills is generally danced with the men forming a half circle and the women a half circle, the circles closing in layer upon layer as the activity unfolds; in the eastern hills it is generally danced with one man facing one woman, with dozens of such pairs moving anticlockwise, singing as they dance, gradually forming a circle and freely displaying beautiful dance and a ringing voice. Its lyric forms may be in four lines, six lines, eight lines, ten lines, twelve lines, an odd number of lines, and so on, while the lines themselves include five-syllable, six-syllable, seven-syllable and long-and-short forms. According to the Jingdong Zhili Ting Zhi (Gazetteer of Jingdong Directly Administered Subprefecture) compiled in the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty, “dage” was already widely circulated at that time. Apart from certain occasions with strict rules about time and place, whenever the Spring Festival, the Little New Year (the fifteenth day of the first lunar month), the Torch Festival, or a wedding, a gathering or a feast came round, people would dance through the night.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, of Yi ethnicity, born in August 1962 in Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County, Yunnan Province. Her voice is sweet and high, and she is a folk singer known to every household in Qingyun Township. The dage she performs has a brisk rhythm and varied footwork, including Shiliu Bu Ping Bai (Sixteen-step Level Sway), San Bu Yi Dian (Three Steps with a Bounce), Ban Fan Ban Zhuan (Half Turn and Half Pivot), Quan Fan (Full Turn) and San Fan San Zhuan (Three Turns and Three Pivots). She has taken part many times in various performances organized at provincial, prefectural and county levels. In 2006 she led the Ma'anshan Qingyun dage team to Beijing for the China Ethnic and Folk Song and Dance Festival, where her brisk, varied dancing and ardent, spirited feeling deeply moved the audience. Within the documented technical tradition of Yi Dage Dance in Weishanyizuhuizuzizhi, Yunnan: Yi dage is mostly performed in the evening. At the start a bonfire is lit in the centre of the dance ground, and taking the fire as the centre, people form naturally one circle or several circles, stamping their feet to the beat as they dance and sing. If dage is danced in the daytime, there is no need to light a fire. The lusheng and the flute are indispensable instruments for dage. While the activity is going on, one or several people within the circle play the lusheng and are called the “song leaders”; another plays the flute, and one or two people swing sabres and brandish staves. Besides the lusheng and the flute, in some places the sanxian and the yueqin are used as accompanying instruments. The dance movements take the waist and legs as their pulse; there are few changes of formation, the dancers must be in pairs, hand clasping hand and shoulder resting on shoulder. Dage has a great many tunes, the principal ones being dage tunes for happy occasions, for festivals, for occasions of mourning, dage tunes of temple fairs for good deeds, and everyday dage tunes. The melodies are beautiful and the style distinctive; the tunes move smoothly, the intervals leap and rise only a little, and are mostly structured in upper and lower lines or in four-line phrases. A single tune can be quick or slow according to the dancers’ mood and needs, can be used repeatedly with elaborations added, and individual style can be introduced into it. In the social life of the Weishan area dage occupies an important position, and it is an indispensable element of the local Yi traditional festivals and of major events such as weddings and funerals, and the raising of the ridge beam and the erecting of the new house pillar. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Wedding, mourning and temple-fair tunes": The tune repertory ranges from wedding and festival to mourning and temple-fair songs, built on two- or four-phrase periods. "The song head and weapon dancers": Reed pipes blown by the song head, a flute, and one or two weapon dancers form the core of the ensemble. "West hill and east hill styles": In the western hills men and women form facing half-circles; in the east, dozens of pairs circle counter-clockwise in couples. "Cha Chunmei": Cha Chunmei of Weishan commands steps such as the sixteen-step sway and triple turns, performing in Beijing in 2006.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

She is a national representative bearer of Yi Dage Dance, a third-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. As a leader of Yi dage, she actively teaches dage skills to villagers and trains successors.

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. Chachunmei · National Representative Bearer Archive