Taige

Ⅹ-87Folk CustomsZhongshan, GuangdongBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Taige originated in god-welcoming temple-fair processions in the Central Plains region and later spread gradually to the southeastern coast and the northwest. It enjoyed a period of popularity in the Qing dynasty; as it spread, it combined with local conditions in each place, giving rise to different characteristics. In the 1930s and 1940s, Yakou Piaose performed in Hong Kong and Macau in succession, making a certain impact. In 1998, the Zhongshan Charity Parade, a new folk activity, was founded, and Yakou Piaose gained new development as a result.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Taige (lifted pavilions) is also known by such names as taijiao, taige, gaotai, naoge, naoge, and gaozhuang, and is a form of folk procession performance in traditional festival activities. In taige performances, several children dress as figures in traditional opera costume and, following the plot, form splendid tableaux, which are fixed to iron pillars and supports on a square pavilion platform and carried along by bearers. Traditional taige tableaux are mostly drawn from such repertoire works as The Butterfly Lovers (Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai), The Marriage of the Fairy (Tianxian Pei), Legend of the White Snake (Baishe Zhuan), Journey to the West (Xiyouji), Zhaojun Goes Beyond the Frontier (Zhaojun Chusai), Meeting at the Blue Bridge (Lanqiao Hui), Yellow Crane Tower (Huanghelou), and The Fisherman's Revenge (Dayu Shajia). The tableaux stand roughly three to five meters high; the pavilions have three to five tiers, generally one performer per tier, though some have four performers on the bottom tier, five or six in the middle, and one on top. In a taige procession, four pavilions are generally used, and at most six or even eight; each pavilion is carried forward by four or eight bearers. Taige fuses painting, opera, colored paper-work, and paper sculpture into a single art; its tableaux are graceful and its scenes spectacular. It has long been loved by the broad masses and has flourished in folk tradition without decline. Piaose is a form of folk performance popular in Guangdong, similar to the taige and xinzi of the north: in both, boys and girls are dressed as figures from historical stories and frozen into poses on a color cabinet (seju), which is then carried through the streets in a procession accompanied by music. Nanlang Yakou Piaose, transmitted in Yakou Village, Nanlang Town, Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province, is also known as 'chuhuijing' and 'xiaose'. It originated in the Tang-dynasty sacrificial custom of playing the Bodhisattva (shua pusa) and gradually developed into its present form of expression; every year on the sixth day of the fifth lunar month, the birthday of the Dragon King, Yakou Village holds piaose performances. During processions, the 'sejiao' (lower figures) and 'sexin' (upper figures) are not fixed to the 'segeng' (color branch) but can swing up and down on the swing, and can also be replaced at any time. Yakou Piaose is colorful and gorgeous, lithe and floating, strongly narrative, and its movements are rich in rhythm. In addition, the head boards, round umbrellas, and colored flags used in the procession are all decorated with exquisite Yue (Guangdong) embroidery, which is another important feature of Yakou Piaose.

The Dragon King's birthday procession

Every year on the sixth day of the fifth lunar month, the Dragon King's birthday, the village holds its parade.

The swinging colour

The colour-foot and colour-core are not fixed to the pole but swing on a swing and can be changed at will.

Colour-foot below, colour-core above

It favours folk legends, with the swinging colour as its hallmark: the actor below is the colour-foot, the one above the colour-core.

Cantonese embroidery on banners and umbrellas

Banners, umbrellas and coloured flags are worked in fine Cantonese embroidery, another hallmark of the village style.

Renewed life in the charity parade

The founding of the Zhongshan charity parade in 1998 gave the village style new life.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Yakou Piaose mostly adopts folk legends and tales as its themes, with the most locally distinctive 'swing piaose' (qiuqian se) as an important component; the performers below are called 'sejiao' and those above 'sexin'.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

With the acceleration of modernization, taige activities are gradually declining, and in the countryside the craft of making taige now lacks successors; the related rescue and preservation work is imperative. Tan Haobin (from the official file of the associated inheritor): male, Han ethnicity, born December 1945, native of Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province. Later, using ordinary instruments of Guangdong music, he created piaose accompaniment music with strong local character, so that the century-old 'Yagefeng' gong-and-drum troupe remains popular to this day. At the same time, he introduced advanced forging techniques from Hong Kong to create the 'swing piaose', making piaose processions more humane as well as safer and more enjoyable to watch. From the 1960s onward, he devoted himself to learning and inheriting the rules for the overall organization and planning of Yakou Village's piaose processions, and has been responsible for procession organization ever since. To ensure that Yakou Piaose is passed down from generation to generation, he also teaches the younger generation in the village the techniques of making piaose and staging processions, promoting the development of the piaose art. Representative inheritor of Taige (Nanlang Yakou Piaose), an item of the fourth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage.

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)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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