Zhou Dance
01 · Historical Records
It comes from the primitive period when the Baima people revered the belief that everything has a spirit; it is a fusion of the Di-Qiang culture and Tibetan culture and carries a degree of sacrificial character.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Its animal-mimicking dance character shows that it must be one of the survivals of the ancient “dance of the hundred beasts led by the beast king”. The dance is generally performed by seven, nine or eleven people. The first set of movements in its dance combinations is called “niu”, and is generally performed at large sacrificial events and before the spirits, including sacrifices to the ancestral deities and to the mountain; the second set is called “ga”, and is generally performed in the open ground; the third set is called “yang”, a dance of blessing used mainly for house-to-house visits, paying respect to elders and exchanging good wishes. “Ali ga”, popularly called “jumping the little devils” in Chinese, is a two-person dance representing one male and one female, the female role being played by a man dressed as a woman. The whole dance presents the scene of love between Baima men and women. The lead dancer of the dance wears a lion-head mask, which is honoured as the king of the beasts and king of the forest; the animal masks worn by the remaining dancers, according to the custom, are in order the ox head, tiger head, dragon head, leopard head, snake head, rooster head, the two little devils and the two big devils. The dance combinations of the dance take the stepping-tapping step of the circle dance and the tiptoe leaping step of threading the flower as their basic forms of expression. The basic dynamic of the dance is given by the scraping step, the squatting step that circles the lower leg, and the jumping-turning step to the left and right; combined with coarse, mysterious movements of the upper body, it vividly presents the forms of the animals portrayed and embodies the unique aesthetic consciousness of the Baima people. The overall rite of the dance fully expresses the Baima people's veneration of nature and conveys the wish to maintain a harmonious social environment and a sound ecological environment locally. The dance is led by the lion-head mask, while the animal masks of the other dancers are arranged in the order of the ox head, tiger head, dragon head, leopard head, snake head, rooster head and the two devils, large and small; the order of appearance is fixed and unchanging. The three forms of seven, nine and eleven performers correspond to performances of different scales of sacrifice and house-to-house touring; the more performers there are, the denser the layers of the circle dance become and the more complicated the routes of threading the flower.
The three movement suites
The three suites: Niu for great sacrifices before the gods, Ga for the threshing floor, and Yang for blessing on village visits and greetings to elders.
Aliga, the little ghost dance
A duet known in Chinese as dancing the little ghosts, standing for a male and a female, the female danced by a man in woman's dress.
The animal mask sequence
The lead wears the lion mask, king of beasts, and the rest follow in fixed order: ox, tiger, dragon, leopard, snake, fowl, two little ghosts and two great ghosts.
Dot-steps and flower-threading hops
The dance is built on punctuating steps in a circle and threading hops, with shuffling, calf-circling crouches and pivoting jumps beneath coarse, mysterious arm movements.
Ban Wenyu's teaching and tours
Born in 1946 in Jiuzhaigou, Ban Wenyu leads the troupe, teaches freely and has carried the dance to Beijing and Hong Kong.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
“㑇” is a word in the dialect of the Baima people, meaning an auspicious mask dance; in Chinese it is popularly called the “twelve-phase dance”.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
This dance is of great research value for tracing the origin, development and evolution of primitive animal-mimicking dances and for the formation of dance ritual. Ban Wenyu (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, Tibetan, born in March 1946, native of Jiuzhaigou County, Sichuan Province. As the lead dancer locally, he plays an extremely important role in the whole troupe. He is able to bring out the core characteristics of the dance with brisk steps and graceful carriage. In recent years he has been devoted to teaching apprentices, has taken an active part in the various local folk-custom activities, and has carried the dance out of Sichuan Province to give performances in Beijing, Hong Kong and elsewhere, so that more people come to know it. Representative inheritor for this dance of the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage projects.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Banwenyu 05-2239
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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