Nuo Dance
01 · Historical Records
Wuyuan nuo dance went to Beijing in 1953 to take part in the first national folk music and dance performance convention, and four programmes including Chancellor Directing Troops were selected for the Anthology of Chinese Folk Dances. In June 2005 it took part in the Chinese Jiangxi International Nuo Culture and Art Week exhibition of nuo art from China and abroad, winning the gold award and the award for outstanding performance.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Nuo dance is a folk dance widespread in various localities that serves to expel ghosts and drive away epidemic disease and to make sacrifice; it is the dance portion of a nuo ceremony, and is generally performed from the first day of the first lunar month to the sixteenth day. Nuo dance has a long history; it took shape in the grand nuo rite of the court of the Zhou dynasty, and is explicitly recorded in the Zhouli (Rites of Zhou). In the course of historical development, nuo dance formed different styles in different regions, and occupies a different proportion within the nuo ceremony. In nuo dance performance one generally wears the mask of a particular character, including mythological figures as well as secular persons and historical celebrities, and these constitute a vast pantheon of nuo gods: remove the mask and it is a man, put on the mask and it is a god. The accompanying instruments of nuo dance are simple, generally drums, gongs and other percussion. The organisation that performs the nuo ceremony and nuo dance is called a nuoban (nuo troupe); its members generally number from eight to a dozen or more, and it usually has strict troupe rules. Nuo dance usually appears in the climactic part of the nuo ritual and during the repertoire performance stage; the nuo repertoire of each locality is rich and serves the dual purposes of sacrifice and entertainment. Through years of investigation, Wuyuan nuo dance is found to have more than one hundred programmes and more than two hundred nuo masks. Owing to social and historical circumstances, the exorcising nuo deity troupe of Changjing Village in Qiukou Town that survives today has nineteen performers and more than thirty masks, among them four original wooden-carved masks, and can perform twenty-four programmes. Wuyuan nuo dance has many programmes, including those reflecting myths and folk legends such as Creating Heaven and Earth, The Sun Shooting at the Moon and Meng Jiangnun Sending Winter Clothes; the performing forms include solo dance, duet, trio and group dance. The movements of Wuyuan nuo dance are very rich: the female-striding step (ni xing bu) that imitates women; the cleaving axe, the twisting axe and the grinding axe in Creating Heaven and Earth; the upper, middle and lower cross, the troop-drilling step, the single hand clap, the leg-slap across the river, the feather flourish, the flower dance and the staff wheeling in Chancellor Directing Troops; and the beard-touching point, the single beard touch and the double beard touch in The Sun Shooting at the Moon. Each is distinctive, retaining a unique manner that is archaic, rugged, concise, exaggerated, vivid and expressive. These movements mostly follow the beat of the same leg, bend the knees, sink downward, hold the chest in and thrust the belly out, and have the character of being heavy but never slack, and stiff but never rigid. The musical accompaniment consists of three parts — percussion, tune patterns and vocal styles — with its own special gong-and-drum notation and tune patterns, following the principle that when the dance stops the music ends. With its archaic dance style and numerous performing programmes, Wuyuan nuo dance carries rich traditional cultural content and deserves to be cherished.
The Changjing village exorcism troupe
The surviving troupe at Changjing village in Qiukou township has nineteen performers, over thirty masks including four original wood carvings, and can stage twenty-four items.
The nii xing bu (maiden's step)
A step imitating a woman's gait, seen in Meng Jiangnu Sends Winter Clothes and notable for preserving a distinctly female carriage within the Nuo vocabulary.
The axe movements of Pangu Creates Heaven and Earth
A set of axe movements — splitting, wrenching, grinding — enacting the creation of the world, carried out in an archaic, rough, spare and exaggerated manner.
The drill movements of The Chancellor Musters Troops
The movement group of The Chancellor Musters Troops, built on the cross-frame stances, drilling steps and weapon handling; four items were included in the national dance compendium in 1953.
The beard-touching points of The Sun Shoots the Moon
A movement group in The Sun Shoots the Moon marked by single and paired touching gestures of the hand to the beard.
Percussion, melodies and singing, and the rule that the music ends with the dance
The accompaniment comprises percussion, tunes and vocal passages with dedicated drum scores, following the rule that the music stops when the dance stops.
The 1953 national festival and the 2005 Nuo culture week
Wuyuan's Nuo dance went to Beijing for the first national folk music and dance festival in 1953, and won gold at the Jiangxi international Nuo culture week in June 2005.
Cheng Changqing and the Changjing amateur troupe
Cheng Changqing learned from village masters from 1955 and danced every second day of the first month; when the amateur troupe was founded in 1958 he joined it and later trained successors.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Nuo dance that survives today is distributed mainly in Jiangxi, Anhui, Guizhou, Guangxi, Shandong, Henan, Shaanxi, Hubei, Fujian, Yunnan and Guangdong; localities have their own regional names such as tiaonuo, guizhu (ghost dance) and wanxi (play for joy).
Other submitting regions for the same item: Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance · Nuo Dance.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wuyuan nuo dance is commonly called ghost dance or ghost dancing; it has a long history, numerous programmes and a distinctive style, and is a living fossil for the study of the history of ancient Chinese dance art, attracting close attention from experts and scholars at home and abroad. Hu Zhenkun (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): He is familiar with the ritual customs of the various nuo ceremonies, masters all the programmes of the troupe, including Chancellor Directing Troops, Meng Jiangnun Sending Winter Clothes and The Sun and the Moon, and also plays percussion. In the Meng Jiangnun Sending Winter Clothes that he performs he preserves the female-striding step (ni xing bu), which has female characteristics; he inherits the nuo ceremony, the caici songs and the various rituals that legend attributes to remote antiquity when a rack was raised to pursue a king, and in artistic style maintains the unique manner that is rugged, archaic, concise, exaggerated, vivid and expressive. Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1932, died in 2007, native of Wuyuan, Jiangxi. Representative inheritor of Nuo Dance (Wuyuan Nuo Dance), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the second batch. Cheng Changqing (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in October 1933, native of Wuyuan County, Jiangxi Province. From 1955 he learned nuo dance from the village's old artists Hu Xulin, Cheng Renjin and Hu Guishu, and thereafter took part in the nuo dance performance of Changjing Village on the second day of the first lunar month every year. When the Changjing Village amateur nuo dance drama troupe was founded in 1958, he became one of its members. In his spare time he voluntarily carried out various nuo dance training and publicity activities in primary and secondary schools, promoting the transmission and spread of Wuyuan nuo dance. Representative inheritor of Nuo Dance (Wuyuan Nuo Dance), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the third batch. From 1984 he went to the Wuyuan County Cultural Centre to teach Changjing nuo dance, and trained outstanding disciples such as He Baikun and Wang Shukun. In 2005 he took part in the China Jiangxi International Nuo Culture and Art Week performance jointly sponsored by the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the People's Government of Jiangxi Province and the China Folk Literature and Art Association, and won the gold award.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Luo Huiwu 02-0353
- Hu Zhenkun 02-0354
- Chengzhangqing 03-0911
- Peng Yingfang 03-0912
- Yu Yangfu 03-0913
- Fan Tinglu 03-0914
- Han Fulin 04-1557
- Wang Xuanzhi 04-1558
- Gong Maofa 04-1559
- Cheng Jinsheng 04-1560
- Wang Shunqing 05-2210
- Zhou Guoping 05-2211
- Yulinji 05-2212
- Banyongming
- Xiao Yiping
- Peng Qiusheng
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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