Aimaiti Simayi

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Aimaiti Simayi, Male, Unspecified, from Hamidi, Xinjiang, is a third-batch national representative bearer of Uyghur Sanam (Ⅲ-96). The tradition is documented in Hamidi, Xinjiang. Within the regional tradition and school record of Uyghur Sanam in Hamidi, Xinjiang: Hami Sainaim takes the Meshrep of the Hami oasis as its main performance setting and interweaves with the melodies, style and rhythm of the Hami Muqam; performers often sing muqam first and then move into Sainaim within the same programme. The performers around Wubao and those around Kaqun each have their own lines of transmission, which has produced local differences in the arrangement of suites and in the movement vocabulary. Sainaim has a long history and a distant source, arising mainly in the oases of southern Xinjiang, where the people live by agriculture, the ethnic groups live in concentrated settlements and culture is highly developed. From the sixteenth century onward, under the guidance of music masters such as Kadirhan, Yarkandi and Amani Luohan (Naifusi), the Twelve Muqam, formed through the excavating, collecting and organizing of numerous folk musicians, absorbed the Sainaim that had long circulated among the folk, becoming the component known as qiong nayerman in each muqam, while Sainaim itself continued to circulate widely in its independent form.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

From childhood he studied the Hami muqam and the sanam under Sirepile Yusupu, a folk artist of Wubao township. In Uyghur sanam performance he not only brings out the character of Turpan folk songs but also combines them with the melody, style and rhythm of the Hami muqam, presenting a distinctive style of his own. His dance technique is highly individual, with such striking movements as treading the melody, tapping the ground with the sole, passing the palm beneath the armpit and lifting both sleeves. In 1975 he took part in the collation and recording of the muqam and nawa suites and supplied a great deal of material for the compilation of Hami Folk Ballads, Hami Folktales and Hami Folk Proverbs. Within the documented technical tradition of Uyghur Sanam in Hamidi, Xinjiang: Sainaim is the most widespread folk dance of the Uyghur people, transmitted broadly in the towns and villages north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. It is an indispensable part of Uyghur daily life: on every festive occasion, wedding ceremony or gathering of relatives and friends, the Uyghurs hold a Meshrep evening and enthusiastically dance Sainaim there to celebrate. Wubao Sainaim is one of the Uyghur traditional song-and-dance arts widely current in the Wubao area. It consists mainly of nine suites: Sainaim, Baladingya, Yarda Yiduo and Yana Deyeduo, Mailibili Sayartula, Bulibulikizi, Tuoerhayi, Baierdaierdashaqiqin Ayila, Tuolakajiding Mansanha and Tahedikaierda. These include love ballads, life ballads and various folk ballads expressing the joys and sorrows, partings and reunions of the people. Kaqun Sainaim is a traditional song and dance performed to the accompaniment of Uyghur ethnic instruments such as the frame drum, the dutar, the flute, the ajek, the rawap, the tanbur and the suona. It consists of nine Sainaim, including Kaqun Sainaim, Tajihan Sainaim, Wisali Sainaim, Tuyi Sainaim and Tage Sainaim, together with 51 tunes (melodies) and 150 richly worded kushak (poems). Its performance falls into four main sections: muqam, Sainaim, selik quxur (the closing section) and Meshrep (fifteen Meshreps of single tunes, among which are more than one hundred kushak). Recreational folk games are inserted during the intervals of the Meshrep performance to enliven the atmosphere. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The nine suites of Wubao": The Wubao repertory consists of nine suites containing love songs, songs of daily life and ballads of parting and reunion. "The scale of the Kaqun repertory": The Kaqun form comprises nine sanam, fifty-one melodies and a hundred and fifty kushak poems, accompanied by drums, lutes, flute and shawm. "Muqam, sanam, coda and meshrep": Performance falls into muqam, sanam, a coda and the meshrep, the last holding fifteen melodies and over a hundred poems with games between numbers. "Stepping the melody, hand past the armpit": The inheritor Ahmat Ismayil's technique features stepping the melody, tapping the sole, passing the hand under the armpit and lifting both sleeves.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Male, of Uyghur ethnicity, born in August 1933 and deceased in November 2011, a native of Hami, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. National representative bearer of the Uyghur Sanam, 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. Aimaiti Simayi · National Representative Bearer Archive