Zhuma
01 · Historical Records
According to the records, the Chun'an bamboo horse began in the Southern Song dynasty. The Southern Song works Old Matters of Wulin and Record of Dreams of Liang both contain records of bamboo-horse dancing. In the Ming and Qing dynasties Chun'an had very many temple fairs, and bamboo-horse dance performances flourished. During the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, tea-picking opera was introduced into Chun'an and merged with the Chun'an bamboo horse, giving rise to the 'two-legged bamboo-horse troupe'. By the end of the Qing dynasty it had developed into the 'three-legged bamboo-horse troupe', which jumped the bamboo horse first and then performed short plays.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Chun'an bamboo horse, commonly called 'jumping the bamboo horse', is a traditional dance transmitted mainly among the townships of Chun'an County, Zhejiang Province, and radiating to neighbouring counties and cities such as Jiande City, Tonglu County and Kaihua County. In the early years after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Chun'an bamboo horse reached its peak, with bamboo-horse teams numbering more than three hundred. Whenever traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival or the Lantern Festival came round, jumping the bamboo horse was one of the main cultural activities of the local people. A Chun'an bamboo horse performance commonly consists of three men and two women, or two men and three women, who dance in the guise of figures from historical costume drama. The first horse is a red horse, danced by the male lead; the second is a yellow horse, danced by the female warrior; the third is a green horse, danced by the young male role; the fourth is a white horse, danced by the female clown; the fifth is a black horse, danced by the clown. In performance the dancer binds the bamboo horse to the waist, front and rear, grips the horse's neck with the left hand and holds the riding whip in the right hand, giving prominence to the single idea of 'jumping'. Common steps include quick-step circling of the stage, quick-step straight advance, quick-step leaping, sideways shuffling steps and horse-stance retreat. The traditional formation patterns of the Chun'an bamboo horse are extremely numerous, reaching 108. Common formation patterns include the horse-flower formation, the plum-blossom formation, opening the four gates, two horses leaping together, whipping the horse to gallop and five horses circling the pillar. The accompaniment is chiefly that of operatic gongs and drums, such as rolling head, horse legs and gale; it is supplemented by wind and string playing, and the pieces commonly used are [Twelve Monthly Flower Named Tunes]. Bamboo-horse performance is not restricted by time, place or number of participants, and may be performed in squares, on stages, in clan halls and other venues. To this day it still keeps such folk customs as jumping the bamboo horse to ask for auspicious blessings, sacrificing before jumping the horse, keeping the white horse out of the house (or the village), and ascending the temple hall to seek the gods and invite the horse.
The five horses and their role types
The five horses are colour-coded and cast by role type: red for the senior male, yellow for the demure female, green for the young male, white for the flower role, black for the clown.
The hundred-and-eight formations
The tradition counts 108 formations, among them the horse-flower, plum-blossom, four-gate, double-leap and five-horses-around-the-pillar patterns.
Household taboos and fetching the horse
Customs survive such as dancing for luck, sacrificing before dancing, keeping the white horse out of the house, and fetching the horse by worshipping in temple.
From two-role to three-role troupes
Tea-picking opera merged with the bamboo horse in the Kangxi era to produce two-role troupes, which by the late Qing had grown into three-role troupes that danced first and acted afterwards.
The characteristic steps
Dancers strap the horse fore and aft at the waist, grip the neck and brandish a whip; the steps include fast circling, straight advance, hopping, side shuffling and retreating in horse stance.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The bamboo-horse troupes are scattered in places such as Songcun, Miaofan, Zitong and Qiandaohu Town, with performers such as Fang Bingkun coaching them separately, each taking charge of his own group.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Zhuma · Zhuma · Zhuma.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Chun'an bamboo horse has many lines of transmission. In recent years Chun'an County has attached great importance to the protection and transmission of the bamboo horse, setting up a county bamboo-horse protection working group, building a provincial-level bamboo-horse transmission teaching base and exhibition hall, training a batch of folk bamboo-horse performance teams, and encouraging bamboo-horse inheritors and veteran performers to open their doors and take apprentices, so as to promote transmission from generation to generation. The Chun'an bamboo horse is distinctive in such matters as the eyes, the body, the technique, the steps and the singing and recitation, and it gave a direct impetus to the formation and development of 'Chun'an Sanjiao opera'; for studying the origins of local dance and opera it has important reference value. At the same time, its many-varying formation patterns, its flexible and varied steps and its exquisite and ingenious props fully display the wisdom of the Chun'an people, and they play an indispensable role in the study and transmission of Chun'an's history and culture. Fang Bingkun (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): male, of Han ethnicity, born in September 1939, a native of Chun'an County, Zhejiang Province. Beginning in 1953 he studied bamboo-horse performance under his elder uncle Fang Delin. From 1956 to 1989 he was an actor in the Chun'an Mu Opera Troupe, carrying out the troupe's bamboo-horse performances, and he engaged in bamboo-horse performance and instruction in the Sanjiao opera bamboo-horse troupes of Songcun, Miaofan, Changjinli and Qiangli. Since 1992 he has been engaged in the performance and transmission of the Chun'an bamboo horse, serving in turn as bamboo-horse instructor for the Wulong Island bamboo-horse team of Qiandaohu, the Xinyuan Art Troupe, Qiandaohu Town No. 1 Primary School (a provincial-level bamboo-horse teaching and transmission base), the Huangcun bamboo-horse team of Zitong Town, the Shilan Art Troupe of Songcun Township, and the county amateur Mu Opera Troupe. He masters more than ten traditional performance steps of the Chun'an bamboo horse, more than twenty formation patterns, as well as materials on sung and recited passages and tune patterns. Representative inheritor of the national-level intangible cultural heritage representative item Bamboo Horse (Chun'an Bamboo Horse) in the fifth national batch. He has taken part on many occasions in bamboo-horse performance activities and television programme recording at national, provincial, municipal and county level, and has guided teams to win honours including the China Folk Literature and Art Mountain Flower Award at the folk square song-and-dance competition.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Tang Yudao 03-0929
- Qu Shaojin 05-2250
- Ren Qiusheng 05-2251
- Fang Bingkun 05-2252
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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