Minjian Shehuo Performance

01 · Historical Records

The history of Xinjiang shehuo is part of the history of tuntian (military-agricultural colonization). During the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, shehuo was brought into Xinjiang along with the military and civilian tuntian policies; by the Jiaqing period it had already become the principal mass cultural activity of the Spring Festival in the Changji area. The tuntian settlements gathered farmers from the inland provinces into guild halls; during the Guangxu years the Han population of Xinjiang increased sharply, native-place guild halls were established in various places, and it was under the impetus of these guild halls that the distinctive Xinjiang shehuo took shape. Thereafter, with the blending of ethnic cultures, the music, dance and literature of the local minority peoples were gradually absorbed into this performance form, and shehuo entered its heyday. The structure of transmission therefore differs from that of the inland: Xinjiang shehuo is performed mainly by troupes (shehuo banzi), the shehuo head is the core inheritor, who organizes choreography and practice during the agricultural off-season and assigns role types according to each person's strengths. The representative inheritor Liang Bingguang, for example, is an expert in making and playing the lusheng (a reed-pipe mouth organ): he makes lusheng, plays them, and leads others from village to village and town to town.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Xinjiang shehuo is a mass cultural and recreational activity composed of performance forms including dragon dance, lion dance, weifeng drums and gongs, yangge (sprout-song) dance, bawangbian (rattle-stick dance), running the land boat, taiping cart, big-headed dolls, stilt walking, carried pavilions (taige), the Hui people's banquet dance, the Kazakh hei zouma (black horse walk), and the Uyghur meshrep. Manas County, Jimsar County and Changji City, located on the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains at the southeastern edge of the Junggar Basin, are important agricultural regions and major Silk Road towns of Xinjiang; Xinjiang shehuo is most representative in these three places of the Changji Hui Autonomous Prefecture. Xinjiang shehuo takes the drum, cymbals (bo), na (large cymbals) and gong as its main instruments, with drum-and-gong music as its core, while also incorporating the music of the local minority peoples; it generally begins on the first day of the first lunar month, reaches its climax at the Lantern Festival, and is also held at opening celebrations and important festivals. It is the cultural activity with the longest duration, the highest participation rate and the greatest influence, and is characterized by diverse forms of expression and rich content. Xinjiang shehuo is transmitted mainly through troupes (shehuo banzi) that form performance groups; the "shehuo head" is the core inheritor, who organizes choreography and practice during the agricultural off-season and divides the members among the various role types as circumstances require. The content and rules of Xinjiang shehuo performances fully display the history of blending, exchange and interaction among the ethnic groups of Xinjiang, as well as the cultural creativity of the masses. Xinjiang shehuo performances involve a large number of stories that punish evil and promote good and satirize social ills; they have educational significance, and participants can consciously acquire certain social norms from them. The whole process of Xinjiang shehuo relies on the spontaneous and voluntary participation of the people; the cohesion and centripetal force of the masses and the harmonious relations between villages and communities are thereby sustained, and the joint participation of all ethnic groups is conducive to building a community for the Chinese nation and strengthening cultural identity, playing a positive role in safeguarding national unity and ethnic unity and in promoting social harmony and sustainable development.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Xinjiang shehuo is distributed in every region of Xinjiang. During the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, shehuo was brought to Xinjiang along with the military and civilian tuntian policies; during the Jiaqing period of the Qing dynasty, shehuo became the principal mass cultural activity of the Spring Festival in the Changji area; during the Guangxu years of the Qing dynasty, the Han population of Xinjiang increased sharply and native-place guild halls were established in various places, and it was under the impetus of the guild halls that the distinctive Xinjiang shehuo took shape; after the founding of the People's Republic of China, with the blending of ethnic cultures, Xinjiang shehuo absorbed artistic forms such as the music, dance and literature of the local minority peoples, and entered its heyday. Xinjiang shehuo displays its scale through yangge formations such as simen dou (four-gate shake), juan baicai (roll the cabbage), she tuopi (snake shedding its skin), long tuxu (dragon spouting its whiskers) and suan bianzi (garlic braid); it transmits fine traditional culture through items such as two ghosts wrestling, the journey to the Western Heaven (for the Buddhist scriptures), the Old Longevity Star, chubby baby dolls, Afanti riding a donkey, and minority dances such as the red-silk, colored-fan, flower-stick and flower-umbrella yangge, three-steps-and-a-lift, flicking the wrist, moving the neck and shaking the shoulder; in this way a shehuo form has been created that has both traditional shehuo characteristics and Xinjiang regional characteristics.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance · Minjian Shehuo Performance.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Xinjiang shehuo takes the drum, cymbals (bo), na (large cymbals) and gong as its main instruments, with drum-and-gong music as its core, while also incorporating the music of the local minority peoples; the history of blending, exchange and interaction among the ethnic groups is thus naturally revealed in performance. The yangge formations follow routines such as simen dou (four-gate shake), juan baicai (roll the cabbage), she tuopi (snake shedding its skin), long tuxu (dragon spouting its whiskers) and suan bianzi (garlic braid), and the movements of the red-silk, colored-fan, flower-stick and flower-umbrella yangge also carry the flavor of minority dances such as three-steps-and-a-lift, flicking the wrist, moving the neck and shaking the shoulder; the two sources have been kneaded into a single form that has both traditional shehuo characteristics and Xinjiang regional characteristics. The stories are mostly themes of punishing evil and promoting good and satirizing social ills, from which participants consciously acquire certain social norms. The whole process relies on the spontaneous and voluntary participation of the people, sustaining the cohesion of the masses and harmonious relations between villages and communities; the joint participation of all ethnic groups is further tied to the building of a community for the Chinese nation, and plays a positive role in safeguarding national unity, ethnic unity and social harmony.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Du Tonghai 03-1470
• Zhao Xiwen 03-1471
• Yang Fengshan 05-2992
• Zhao Zhigao 05-2993
• Lvchunjing 05-2994
• Sun Shulin 05-2995
• Li Jianzhong 05-2996
• Pei Baolin

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Minjian Shehuo Performance (Changjihuizuzizhi, Xinjiang) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗