Guanhuixiangluo
01 · Historical Records
According to legend, during the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty the emperor travelled south of the Yangtze to see the conditions of the people himself, and officials from the areas of Anhui, Henan and Shandong came to the official assembly to welcome him.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Guanghui gong beating is a form of folk dance that uses bronze gongs as its prop. It is widely transmitted in Xiangcheng City, Henan Province, and has a history of more than three hundred years. Once the dance won the unanimous approval of both the officials and the common people, its fixed form was established and handed down from generation to generation. For hundreds of years Guanghui gong beating has stayed active across the rural areas of eastern Henan, playing an important role at weddings and funerals and at temple-fair celebrations, and it is deeply loved by the local people. Guanghui gong beating takes the gong as its prop and forms various designs with it, alternating between beating and dancing with subtle changes, reaching an artistic state in which it seems at once to resemble and not to resemble, and not to resemble yet to resemble. The striking of the gong is highly formalized; the principal patterns include the "seven-beat gong", "nine-beat gong", "twelve-beat gong", "sixteen-beat gong" and "twenty-four-beat gong". The performance form of Guanghui gong beating is distinctive, with routines such as "Erlang Carrying the Mountain", "Lion with the Embroidered Ball", "Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers", "Kou Zhun Carrying His Boots" and "Frog Nibbling the Mud". The gong team of Guanghui gong beating uses bronze gongs as its only prop. The gong faces differ in size, with the large gongs in the centre and the small gongs encircling them, and the formation opens and closes across the village square following the routine. Besides the formalized patterns from the "seven-beat gong" to the "twenty-four-beat gong", the locality also transmits performance routines such as "Zhang Guolao Riding Backwards on a Donkey". At weddings and funerals and at temple-fair celebrations the head of the association invites the team out; as the gong team advances it keeps the beat unified by the drum, and while striking, the lightness, heaviness, swiftness and slowness of the gong sound portray the moods and bearing of the figures.
The seven, nine, twelve, sixteen and twenty-four beat patterns
The drumming is codified into patterns of seven, nine, twelve, sixteen and twenty-four strokes, each suited to a different scene and mood.
The named routines
Using the gong alone the dancers build images while striking, with routines named after Erlang carrying the mountain, the lion and ball, the heavenly maiden, Kou Zhun's boot and the frog in the mud.
The Qianlong progress and the welcome at Guanhui
Tradition says that when the Qianlong emperor toured the south, officials gathered at Guanhui and villagers combined gong and dance into a welcome that became fixed as the local form.
Eighty routines recorded and pupils taught
Wang Jinliang, performing since 1960, commands the numbered gong patterns and dozens of routines, has collected over eighty of them and teaches close to a hundred pupils a year.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The local villagers joined the gong to the dance and devised the gong-beating dance in order to welcome the emperor.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Guanghui gong beating performance, with its distinctive eastern Henan character, wins the audience over with its vigorous and nimble carriage, its bold and uninhibited style and its buoyant, upward momentum. It expresses everywhere the bold and unrestrained character of Central Plains culture, and it shows important value for research in folklore, history, sociology and aesthetics. At present this important folk dance art form has few inheritors, is on the verge of being lost, and urgently needs rescue and protection. Wang Jinliang (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in October 1952, native of Xiangcheng City, Henan Province. From 1960 onward he studied the art of gong beating and performed together with his father; he has practised the art for more than fifty years, and his lineage of transmission is clearly documented. He masters the beating methods of traditional Guanghui gong beating, such as the "seven-beat gong", "nine-beat gong", "twelve-beat gong", "sixteen-beat gong" and "twenty-four-beat gong", and performance routines such as "Erlang Carrying the Mountain", "Frog Nibbling the Mud" and "Zhang Guolao Riding Backwards on a Donkey". Representative inheritor of Guanghui gong beating, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth national-level batch. He collects, organizes and preserves traditional materials, legends and stories, and has won awards many times. He has excavated and assembled more than eighty routines and takes close to a hundred new disciples every year; he is a locally influential inheritor who plays a central role in transmission.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Jinliang 05-2261
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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