Dai Baixiangmalu Dance
01 · Historical Records
The Dai white elephant and deer dance has a long history and was already recorded in the Tang dynasty.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The dance carries traces of the primitive religious worship of the ancestors of the Dai people, while its later development is closely bound up with the spread of Buddhism. The Dai people use the dance to express their inner respect and veneration, their reverence and devotion, and their wish for blessings, auspiciousness and happiness and their longing for a good life in the future. The white elephant is called "zang fen" in Dai, and the deer is called "gang" in Dai. The white elephant and deer dance is collectively called "ga duo" in Dai, and is a traditional prop dance that the Dai people use for celebration and for the seeking of blessings. At the Dai Water-Splashing Festival, the Door-Closing Festival, the Door-Opening Festival and other important festivals, the Dai people always dance the white elephant and deer dance, to pray that heaven will protect them, that the weather will be favourable and that they will be auspicious, healthy and at peace. Each white elephant or deer is performed by two people in cooperation. The basic movements of the white elephant dance are stepping on the spot, stepping forward or backward, turning in a circle while stepping, and stepping to the left and right; the basic steps of the deer dance are the hooking-kicking step, the tapping step, the tiptoe step and the squat-leap step, and there are also technique movements such as "paying respects to the Buddha", "lifting the head and jumping", "rolling", "forward somersault", "pawing the earth" and "biting a flower and carrying an object". The dance is accompanied by the elephant-foot drum, the jinmang and cymbals; it may be performed either by the dancers following the language of the drums as instruction, or played by the drummer in response to observing the changes in the dancers' movements. Only after several years, or even several decades, of mutual accommodation between dancers and between dancers and musicians can they reach a deep understanding, and so mount a brilliant performance. The props of the Dai white elephant and deer dance, the white elephants and the deer, have frames made of bamboo and wood, covered with handmade bark paper or with shells sewn from coloured cloth, and are decorated and embellished with coloured velvet thread, round sequins and paper-cut patterns, with appropriate painting added; the eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, tail and the like can be moved freely, so the props are exquisitely made and lifelike in image. The dance is one of the oldest and most representative dance forms of the Dai people and an important part of Dai traditional culture; its development and transmission down to the present have not been confined to Buddhist ritual activity, for it is also performed at folk festivals and celebrations, is inseparable from Dai folk activity, and is full of the breath of everyday life and of the artistic appeal of joy and good fortune. For hundreds of years it has been deeply loved by the Dai people.
Gaduo: the white elephant and the deer
The white elephant and the deer are together called gaduo in Dai, each puppet carried and worked by two performers.
The elephant's stepping figures
The elephant dance marks time in place, advances and retreats and turns on the step, slow and stately against gong and cymbal.
Hooked, pointed, raised and crouching steps
The deer's hooked kick, pointed step, raised step and crouching hop make a nimble contrast with the elephant's weight.
Saluting the Buddha, tossing, rolling
The deer performs salutations to the Buddha, tossing jumps, rolling and tumbling, nuzzling the earth and taking flowers in its mouth.
Bamboo frame, bark paper and silk
Bamboo and wooden frames are covered in bark paper or coloured cloth, trimmed with silk, sequins and cut paper, the eyes, trunk, ears and tail all movable.
The drum language and its dancers
Dancers may take their cues from the drum language or drummers may follow the dance, a mutual understanding built up over years of playing together.
At the water festival and the Buddhist Lent
The dance appears at the water festival and at the opening and closing of the Buddhist Lent across some seventy Dai villages.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Dai white elephant and deer dance is a traditional dance form widely current in the Dai-inhabited areas of southwestern Yunnan Province, distributed mainly among more than seventy Dai villages in Mengyong Town and Mengding Town of Gengma County, Lincang City, and in Nayun Town, Mengma Town, Mangxin Town, Gongxin Township and Jingxin Township of Menglian County, Pu'er City, Yunnan Province. The Dai white elephant and deer dance embodies the long history and culture of the Dai people and carries a weighty humanistic history; it expresses the religious belief, the living customs, the aesthetic taste and the spiritual pursuit of the Dai people, and condenses a simple regional and national character, so it has high historical, cultural and social value.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
For a long time the Dai white elephant and deer dance has been learnt and passed on among the people spontaneously, through apprenticeship and group transmission; because this experiential transmission differs in the experience, the attainment and the understanding of individual performers, the performance of the white elephant and deer dance presents a rich variety of personal styles. Protecting this cultural heritage well plays a positive role in building a harmonious society and in promoting ethnic unity and cultural exchange.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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