Xiushan Flower Lantern Dance
01 · Historical Records
Xiushan Flower Lantern is transmitted in Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, Chongqing. It originated in the Tang and Song dynasties, continued through the Yuan and Ming, flourished in the Qing, developed during the Republic of China period, and shone brilliantly after the founding of the People's Republic of China. It is a comprehensive performing art centered on song-and-dance performance, integrating song, dance, drama, and folk wind-and-percussion music.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xiushan Flower Lantern includes single flower lanterns performed by two people, double flower lanterns performed by four people, and group flower lanterns performed by many. The music comprises two parts: melodic tunes and percussion. The tunes are divided into main tunes and miscellaneous tunes; there are more than five hundred traditional pieces, such as Huangyang Biandan. The percussion tune patterns number more than forty, such as Lazy Dragon Crossing the River and Fierce Tiger Descending the Mountain. The flower lantern opera is also called the one-sided opera, and has more than thirty repertoire works, such as The Drunkard Beggar. Xiushan Flower Lantern performances begin on the second day of the first lunar month and end on the fifteenth; from the sixteenth day onward they are called thick-faced lanterns. Performing the flower lantern follows a complete set of procedures, including offering to the lantern, starting the lantern, opening the wealth door, viewing the lanterns, presenting longevity wishes, the red-lantern revelry, New Year greetings, thanking the host, taking leave of the gods, and burning the lantern. Over a long period of performance, it has developed the characteristics of dance, song, drama, mimesis, ethnicity, regionality, procedural regularity, and mass participation, and is deeply loved by the general public.
One-, two- and many-player lantern forms
Lantern troupes come in pairs, fours or larger groups, and this scale shapes both the company and its staging.
The two tune families
Tunes divide into the steady zhengdiao and the florid zediao, the latter passed line by line by older artists.
Lazy dragon crossing the river, tiger rushing down the mountain
Percussion carries more than forty named patterns whose titles evoke movement, sound and the scale of the lantern ground.
Offering, opening and closing rites
A full sequence runs from offering the lantern through opening, viewing, visiting households, and closes with thanks, dismissal and burning.
High-table lantern theatre
Shi Huanming moved the duet form onto a square table; fixed in practice, it became the high-table style that marks Shuishan lanterns.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The troupes of Xiushan Flower Lantern are rooted in the villages and hamlets; each village runs its own lantern troupe and performs for nearby households, so villages where Tujia and Miao people live intermingled accommodate one another. The size of a lantern troupe depends on the program: two performers make a single flower lantern, four make a double flower lantern, and larger numbers form a group flower lantern. The tunes are divided into main and miscellaneous paths, the main steady and the miscellaneous florid; the percussion has its own tune patterns, among them Lazy Dragon Crossing the River and Fierce Tiger Descending the Mountain. The flower lantern opera is locally called the one-sided opera, with more than thirty repertoire works such as The Drunkard Beggar at its base. The performance space also flexes to fit the venue: in the farmyard it is a procession-style circuit performance, but when an eight-immortal table is set up as a stage it becomes the elevated-platform flower lantern. In addition, each village lantern troupe has its own strengths and weaknesses in tunes, gong-and-drum patterns, and movements, so even dozens of troupes gathered together are never identical.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Rescuing and protecting Xiushan Flower Lantern is of important practical and academic value for enriching the cultural life of the people and for promoting research on Tujia folk music, dance art, and its history. Shi Huaming (recorded in the official archives of the associated inheritor): He learned the flower lantern at the age of twelve; in 1957 he founded the Zhaizhong Flower Lantern Troupe and often performed with the troupe. He inherited and developed the art of dancing the flower lantern from his forebears; his vocal delivery is bright and flowing, and his dance movements are graceful, nimble, and varied. He is familiar with all kinds of flower lantern percussion instruments, excels at playing dan (female) roles, can write, direct, and perform his own works, and also serves as designer of props, stage sets, and costumes. He creatively transferred the two-person flower lantern duo form onto the eight-immortal table for performance; thereafter this performance form came to be called the elevated-platform flower lantern and became fixed in place, becoming the greatest characteristic distinguishing Xiushan Flower Lantern from the flower lanterns of other regions. Male, Miao ethnicity, born in November 1930, died in April 2009, from Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, Chongqing. He is a representative inheritor of Xiushan Flower Lantern, an item of national-level intangible cultural heritage of the third batch. Peng Xingmao (recorded in the official archives of the associated inheritor): Male, Tujia ethnicity, born in July 1957, from Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, Chongqing. In 1963 he apprented under the renowned flower lantern artist Pan Guangbing, learning the chou (clown) and dan (female) roles, the vocal tunes, and the gong and cymbals, and dancing the flower lantern with the troupe. He took the stage in performance in 1965. In 1987 he became the lead tune-master and began passing on his art and taking disciples. He can perform, lead the singing, play gong and cymbals, and construct flower lanterns; he is familiar with every kind of flower lantern percussion technique, and has devoted himself to studying and innovating the lyrics, melodies, and percussion notation of the flower lantern, excelling particularly at performing the two-person flower lantern duo and flower lantern scene-plays. Over many years of performance he summarized and elevated the dance vocabulary of Xiushan Flower Lantern, making the previously improvised movements more standardized and beautiful, and laying the foundation for the flower lantern to move onto the professional stage. His representative works include The Peddler, Picking Tea, Six Songs on Responsibility, Tujia Baby Show, and Celebrating the Harvest, among others. He is a representative inheritor of Xiushan Flower Lantern, an item of national-level intangible cultural heritage of the third batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Shi Huaming 03-1468
- Peng Xingmao 03-1469
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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