Guozhuang Dance
01 · Historical Records
Men and women form teams and make a circle, facing inward, and dance gracefully. Bailong Village lies in Chengwen Town on the banks of the Tongtian River. In the village the Zhuo dances are classified by dance type, each with its own fixed lyrics and sleeve-flinging procedure, and in former times they were mostly performed at monastery religious ceremonies, when the tribe welcomed guests and at weddings. As performance occasions have diminished, the average age of the dozen or so artists left in the village is already close to sixty, and only one person can sing all the dance types in full.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Guozhuang dance is a type of folk dance popular in Tibetan-inhabited areas. It changes continually as the social history of the Tibetan people develops. There are songs and dances reflecting labour such as threshing highland barley, twisting wool, feeding livestock and brewing wine, and there are songs and dances portraying Tibetan customs and performed at weddings, house completions and when welcoming guests and entertaining visitors. Guozhuang dance is divided into old-style guozhuang and new-style guozhuang. Old-style guozhuang is sacrificial in character: only its set lyrics may be sung and no alteration whatsoever is permitted, and the dance is generally slow, steady, archaic and solemn. New-style guozhuang mostly reflects farming and herding production and commercial and trading activity; both its lyrics and its dance movements are relatively free and flexible. An ordinary guozhuang dance is not limited in the number of performers; it may be danced by one person or by many. Its dance steps fall into two main categories, 'guozhuo' and 'kuzhuo'; the former is walking dance, the latter turning dance. It is said that more than nine hundred years ago artists of Bailong Zhuo dance were already invited to perform at the wedding of King Gesar. Over its long course of development, as a former banquet dance or welcoming dance, Bailong Zhuo dance has held a lofty place among the folk dances of the Tibetan areas. Bailong Zhuo dance both keeps the rugged, sustained character peculiar to Tibetan dance and has a livelier, lighter style than other Tibetan dances. Its dance combines movement and stillness, shifting suddenly between the two, and the body's centre of gravity sinks low; it relies chiefly on combinations of footwork and the swing of the arms, and in motion the legs supply the main force while the upper body follows along. As the times have changed, generation after generation of old artists have grown old and passed away in turn. Bailong Zhuo dance, once enormously popular, has lost its former splendour and is steadily declining. Bailong Village, the birthplace of Zhuo dance, now has only 16 Zhuo dance artists left, with an average age of 57.6. Of the 80 dance types that once existed only 30 remain, and among the artists only one can sing and dance these 30 Zhuo dances skillfully; the rest can only follow along in singing and dancing.
Eighty genres of Bailong Dro
Of eighty original genres only thirty survive, and just one performer can sing and dance all of them unaided.
Sunken weight and stepping patterns
The dance alternates stillness and motion with a sunken centre of gravity, the legs driving and the upper body following.
Dro danced at Gesar's wedding
Some nine centuries ago Bailong dancers are said to have performed at King Gesar's wedding, giving the form its high standing as a banquet and welcome dance.
Cai Wa's seven hundred students
The inheritor Cai Wa, born in 1949 into a family of Dro dancers, has taught more than seven hundred pupils.
Bailong village, land of song and dance
The dance is kept in Bailong village on the Tongtian river, long famed as a land of song and dance but now short of successors.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
According to the region in which it is popular, guozhuang dance can further be divided into categories such as Ganzi guozhuang and Manai guozhuang. Bailong Zhuo dance is an important branch of the guozhuang school, and for more than nine hundred years it has been cherished and handed down by the Tibetan people.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Bailong Zhuo dance is passed on in Bailong Village, Chengwen Town, Chengduo County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, a place known as the 'hometown of song and dance', and it has a long history of transmission. The remarkable Bailong Zhuo dance faces a shortage of successors and the verge of extinction, and urgently needs rescue and protection. Cai Wa (official archive record of the associated inheritor): A man of Tibetan ethnicity, born in February 1949, from Chengduo County, Qinghai Province. He comes from a family of Chengduo Bailong Zhuo dance performers. He loved dance as a child, was shaped by his surroundings and his family, and received his father's performing skills by direct instruction. He became a Bailong Zhuo dance performer at twenty and began to lead the dance and take apprentices at thirty-two; to date he has more than seven hundred disciples. He has many times led the dance at the annual Yushu Prefecture Horse Racing Festival, and has performed at monasteries, temple fairs, major ceremonial occasions of villages and major festivals both within and outside Qinghai Province. For a long time he has devoted himself to the performance, collection and sorting-out of Chengduo Bailong Zhuo dance and to the training of inheritors. Representative inheritor of the third batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item Guozhuang Dance (Chengduo Bailong Zhuo Dance).
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Dazhenqupi 02-0369
- Xuguilian 02-0370
- Songjizhaxi 02-0371
- Luosongjiangcun 02-0372
- Angjiacuo 02-0373
- Ade 03-0919
- Bai Manimai 03-0920
- Caiwa 03-0921
- Buzhaxi 03-0922
- Abu 05-2229
- Zerennima 05-2230
- Cideng
- Zhaxicairen
- Qianfuquan
- Tugazeren
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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