Yingge
01 · Historical Records
Chaoyang Yingge is a continuation of the Han folk square dance and of a form of nuo culture; in continuing, it has undergone certain changes, and by the Ming dynasty it had absorbed the northern da guzi yangge and gradually evolved into the Yingge dance, becoming a folk dance art with a distinctive form of expression in the Chaoyang area. In November 1996, Chaoyang was named a 'Hometown of Chinese Folk Art' by the Ministry of Culture.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Yingge, also called 'eagle song', 'parrot song', 'chanted yingge' or 'yangge', is a folk square dance that fuses dancing, southern boxing (nanquan) routines and operatic acting. Its performance is heroic and stirring and its atmosphere intense; it is transmitted in Guangdong, Fujian and other places, is performed by men, and carries a sense of praising heroes. The basic movement of the Yingge dance is the swinging of sticks. In the dance each performer holds two round short wooden sticks (10 centimetres in diameter and 20 centimetres long), plants the feet in a mounted rider's squatting stance, lifts a leg and leaps sideways, and strikes the sticks against each other up, down, left and right in time with the gongs and drums, the head and body swaying naturally in response. Yingge has three tempi, slow, medium and fast; a single repertoire sometimes contains as many as twenty sets of routines, among them 'washing the street', 'New Year greeting', 'laying out the year', 'back club', 'crossing the hip' and 'embracing the club and hooking the leg'. The Yingge dance carries a distinctly masculine and heroic character. When the dance reaches its climax, shouts and the sound of conch horns ring out in every direction; the momentum is overwhelming and deeply stirring. Chaoyang Yingge integrates drama, dance and martial arts into one and is imbued with a strongly masculine spirit. There is also 'drunken club' Yingge, in which the dancers look like drunken men and have a charm of their own. Medium-tempo Yingge has a rhythm somewhat faster than slow-tempo Yingge. Its basic dance forms include those in which five beats or seven beats of the club make up one set of movements, and those in which eight, ten, eleven or thirteen beats make up one set of movements. Its gong-and-drum patterns differ markedly from those of slow-tempo Yingge: in the former the beat patterns have pauses and drawn-out strokes in the middle, while in the latter the beats are struck continuously. Fast-tempo Yingge has a quick rhythm and tight drum beats, and varies greatly as the formation of the troupe opens and closes; the Yingge clubs used are shorter and easier to swing.
Slow-tempo yingge
The slow school uses longer sticks and builds each routine from three or four strikes, grave and archaic yet expansive; it survives chiefly in Wenguang, Mianbei and Chengnan.
The medium-tempo stick counts
Slightly faster than the slow school, its routines group five, seven, eight, ten, eleven or thirteen strikes, with pauses and sustained beats in the drumming.
Fast-tempo yingge and its three branches
The fastest branch, its tight drumming shifting with the opening and closing of the formation, using shorter sticks and divided into the paired-combat, Nanshan civil and Nanshan martial styles.
The drunken-stick yingge
A variant in which the dancers move like drunkards, a distinctive mood within Chaoyang's fusion of opera, dance and martial arts.
Yang Wei and the seven-strike routine
Born in 1932, Yang Wei learned through his family, led the troupe at eighteen, and in 1991 created the seven-strike routine admired for its plain grace and blend of hardness and softness.
Absorbing the northern drum-and-yangge
Continuing Han square dance and Nuo forms, Chaoyang's yingge absorbed the northern drum-and-yangge in Ming times and gradually took its present shape.
Named a home of Chinese folk art in 1996
In November 1996 the Ministry of Culture named Chaoyang a home of Chinese folk art; nearly every township still fields a troupe, some several of different styles or ages.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
According to tradition it already has a history of more than three hundred years; its origins are most often explained as a variant of the local people's martial customs or as a dramatization of stories from Water Margin. Yingge is generally performed during festivals. The number of dancers is usually even, as few as twelve and as many as 108; each holds a pair of coloured wooden sticks and, to the beat of gong and drum and to shouted calls, swings the two sticks, crossing and turning them to strike, dancing as they walk. The performance is divided into two sections, the 'front shed' and the 'rear shed'; the front shed presents gong-and-drum music and the Yingge dance, while the rear shed presents small plays distinctive in their own way and signature pieces. In practice it has formed several different schools of style; classified by the tempo pattern of the dance, it can be roughly divided into slow-tempo Yingge, medium-tempo Yingge and fast-tempo Yingge. Slow-tempo Yingge has a slow rhythm and uses dance sticks longer than those of the other schools; its basic dance form is three beats of the club or four beats of the club making up one set of movements, showing force within the slow and spirit within the force: weighty, simple and archaic, yet expansive and graceful. Slow-tempo Yingge is mainly transmitted in the Wenguang, Mianbei and Chengnan areas. Medium-tempo Yingge is also mainly transmitted in the Wenguang, Mianbei and Chengnan areas; its characteristic is that it shows ease within steadiness and vitality within archaism. Fast-tempo Yingge is generally divided into three types: paired-combat sets, the Nanshan literary school and the Nanshan martial school. Chaoyang Yingge is widely distributed and strongly pervasive; almost every town (subdistrict) has an Yingge troupe, and some towns even have at the same time several Yingge troupes of different styles or different age structures.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yingge · Yingge.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Chaoyang Yingge is still widely transmitted and continuing to develop today. Its main inheritors include Hong Feiying, Guo Yaoyang, Chen Hanlong, Yao Xinta, Yang Wei, Zhou Xiuxing, Chen Kunli, Lin Abao and others. With the rapid change of economy and society and the drastic change of the cultural ecology, Chaoyang Yingge has lost its former brilliance and faces the danger of being broken off and lost, so urgent rescue and protection are needed. Yang Wei (associated inheritor, as recorded in the official file): Male, Han ethnicity, born in 1932, native of Shantou, Guangdong. Yang Wei learned the Yingge dance through family transmission. He began practising martial arts at nine, had mastered the basic routines of the Yingge dance by fifteen, and at eighteen became the lead dancer of an Yingge troupe, after which he took charge of training the troupe. He is particularly skilled at reforming and innovating the Yingge dance; the simple and dignified, hard-and-soft combined movement routine of the Yingge dance that dancers and audiences love, 'seven beats of the club', was created by Yang Wei in 1991. Representative inheritor of Yingge (Chaoyang Yingge), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the second national batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chen Laifa 02-0355
- Yang Wei 02-0356
- Lin Bingguang 05-2213
- Linzhongcheng
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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