Guozhuang Dance
01 · Historical Records
Men and women form teams and make a circle, facing inward, and dance gracefully. Nangqian Zhuoganma is an ancient folk dance passed on within Nangqian County, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province. Legend has it that it originated in the Xuanhe reign period of the Northern Song, and to this day it has a history of nearly nine hundred years.
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. Zhuoganma was originally a dance performed by aristocratic families at religious events or at festivals. It was composed in the Kham-area Tibetan language and takes the form of a 'hymn' combined with 'dance'. When performed, the dancers hold hands and the men and women sing in separate lines in antiphony. While dancing, the legs supply the main force and the upper body follows along, while the footwork is highly varied. It is accompanied by flutes, ox-horn instruments and drums, of which the drum is the principal instrument. The lyrics rhyme and are neatly balanced in parallel structure. From the music to the dance and the performance costume, everything is noted for archaic simplicity and elegance. Zhuoganma is steadier and more solemn than other Tibetan dances, and some of its performance pieces carry a slight sense of ritual. The costume of Zhuoganma is its most distinctive feature. Male dancers tie a red cord on the head and wear a coiled long plait of alternating red and black hair, called 'zaluo' in Tibetan. Inside they wear a white silk long-sleeved garment, over it a dark reddish-brown Pulan Tibetan robe; at the waist they tie a belt carrying a fire striker, Tibetan knife and cartridge pouch made of leather and gold and silver and set with coral; below are white silk lantern trousers, and on the feet are leather Tibetan-style long boots. Female dancers wear elaborate and varied headdresses: their hair is combed into 50 to 60 small braids and they wear Tibetan-style hairpins of gold and silver at the temples. On the head is a long strip ornament of a jade waist seal sewn from Tibetan-style silk satin, with three ambers at the top. At the waist they gird on a leather belt decorated with gold, silver and copper beaten work characteristic of Nangqian, and on the belt hang a woman's Tibetan knife and a Tibetan purse also worked in gold, silver and copper; on the feet they wear leather mid-calf Tibetan boots.
The 'zalo' coiled braid and woollen robe
Male dancers wear a red-and-black coiled braid called zalo, a white silk shirt and a maroon woollen robe with coral-studded belt gear.
Fifty to sixty small braids
Women's hair is plaited into fifty or sixty small braids with silver-and-gold clasps and amber ornaments, worn with a decorated belt.
Flute, horn fiddle and drum
It is accompanied by flute, horn fiddle and drum, the drum being principal, to verse that is rhymed and neatly paired.
Hymn plus dance
First danced by noble households at religious events and festivals, it pairs hymns in Kham Tibetan with dancing, hand in hand and in separate male and female lines.
Buzhaxi's family of performers
The inheritor Buzhaxi, born in 1961 into a family of performers, danced at sixteen, led the troupe at twenty-nine and since 2006 appears at the Yushu horse festival.
Twenty-two repertoire items
Twenty-two of its repertoire items have been collected and transcribed; the dance is more solemn and ceremonial than other Tibetan forms.
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.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance · Guozhuang Dance.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It has several performance pieces, of which local enthusiasts have collected and sorted out twenty-two in recent years. Nangqian Zhuoganma is the crystallization of the collective wisdom of the Tibetan people of Nangqian in the Kham area, and it has broad popular appeal and folk transmission. At present this distinctive form of ethnic folk dance is facing a shortage of successors and urgently needs protection. Bu Zhaxi (official archive record of the associated inheritor): A man of Tibetan ethnicity, born in March 1961, from Nangqian County, Qinghai Province. He comes from a family of Nangqian Zhuoganma performers; several generations of his family have been Zhuoganma dancers, and he was carefully guided by his elders from childhood. He went on stage at sixteen, became a lead dancer and began taking apprentices at twenty-nine, and to date he has more than three hundred disciples. From 2006 he has led the Zhuoganma dance troupe at the annual Yushu Prefecture Horse Racing Festival. For a long time he has worked with the cultural departments on the performance, collection and sorting-out of Nangqian Zhuoganma and on the training of inheritors, with notable results achieved. Representative inheritor of the third batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item Guozhuang Dance (Nangqian Zhuoganma). Zhuoganma dance troupes in places such as Xiangda Town, Zhuoxiao Township and Jiqu Township of Nangqian County mostly perform during the Tibetan New Year and monastery religious ceremonies.
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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