Yao Zhang Drum Dance

01 · Historical Records

The Yao long drum dance has a long history. It grew out of the dances performed in the Panwang worship rite, which originated very early, and in certain shamanic activities, and has now developed into a mass recreational activity. The Liannan Yao long drum dance is a festive open-square dance. It was brought to Liannan when the ancestors of the Paiyao migrated there during the Sui and Tang dynasties, and afterwards became popular as the shuagetang (song-gathering hall) gatherings flourished.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Yao long drum dance is a folk dance of the Yao people of China, popular in the Yao-inhabited areas of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and other provinces. It is mostly performed at Yao traditional festivals and on days celebrating a good harvest, a move into a new home, or a wedding. In the Yao language the long drum is called "gong". The Yao long drum is made by joining two drum bodies together; its middle waist is relatively slender so that it can be gripped, and each of its two ends is covered with a sheepskin drumhead. The Yao long drum dance has many performance routines: some specially depict the actions of building a house, while others incorporate interesting forms of animals and plants into the dance. The dance movements are agile and unrefined, vivid and lively, strange and wonderful, and full of imagination. By performance form, the Yao long drum dance includes types such as the "Pangu long drum dance", the "gongsheng long drum dance", the "desktop long drum dance", the "lusheng long drum dance" and the "sheep-horn short drum dance". By number of performers, it is further divided into solo dance, duet and group dance. In performance, the drumming is divided into "martial" and "civil" styles, and also into "high-post" and "low-post" styles. The Jianghua Yao long drum dance is the cultural entertainment form that draws the largest audience in Yao areas. It displays a moving curvilinear beauty through the curved postures of "qu" and the twisting position changes of "ning", reflects the life customs and spiritual outlook of the Yao people, and enjoys broad social influence. This long drum dance is divided into solo dance, duet and group dance. On traditional festivals such as the Spring Festival, the third day of the third lunar month, the sixth day of the sixth lunar month and the sixteenth day of the tenth lunar month, and on the days of the shuagetang, the Paiyao people gather on the open ground in front of the village or in the fields after the harvest, blowing cow horns, beating bronze gongs and dancing the long drum dance to celebrate the festival. The Fuchuan Yao long drum dance presents a magnificent spectacle. Bamboo flutes play out exquisite melodies, those who blow the lusheng play while dancing, and those beating the big long drum, the small long drum and the small gong strike the beat in time with the music, while calling out work chants to raise the mood. The flutes and lusheng, together with the chants, form multi-part harmony that is resonant, stirring and uplifting, carrying the event to its climax. The dance vocabulary of the Yao long drum dance is very rich, reflecting from every aspect the production and life customs and the primitive religious beliefs of the Paiyao.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The Liannan Yao long drum dance is transmitted in the Paiyao villages and hamlets of Youling, Nangang and other places in Liannan Yao Autonomous County, Guangdong Province; the protecting unit is the Liannan Yao Autonomous County Cultural Centre.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Yao Zhang Drum Dance · Yao Zhang Drum Dance · Yao Zhang Drum Dance · Yao Zhang Drum Dance.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

It organically brings together the history, art, literature and religion of the Yao people, forming a long drum dance culture distinctive to the Pingdi Yao, and it has research value in history, culture, ethnology and many other fields. As times develop, fewer and fewer people make the drums, performing artists are steadily declining, the dance faces a crisis of decline, and it urgently needs rescue and protection. Tang Qiao Xin'er (associated inheritor, official archival record): Male, Yao, born in February 1941, a native of Liannan Yao Autonomous County, Guangdong Province. By 1962 he had already fully mastered the movements and techniques of the Yao long drum dance and began to take part in the village's Yao Panwang Festival shuagetang activities, performing mainly the long drum dance. From then on he served as the drum leader of the long drum dance at every kind of cultural activity held in the village. The long drum dance he performs is both unrefined and unrestrained and at the same time steady and powerful, combining the soft with the hard. His movements are practised and free, light and graceful. On stage he appears mainly as the lead dancer, playing a commanding and decisive role in the dance's rhythm, movements and staging, and is acclaimed as the Yao "drum king". Representative inheritor of the Yao long drum dance, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth batch. He has long been devoted to the protection and transmission of the Yao long drum dance, holding training classes every year to coach villagers in dancing the long drum dance, and has taught more than 160 villagers.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Zhao Minghua 03-0938
• Panzhensong 04-1575
• Tangqiaoxinergong 05-2263
• Huang Daosheng 05-2264
• Zhao Xiong
• Panjinhai

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Yao Zhang Drum Dance (Liannanyaozuzizhi, Guangdong) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Tangqiaoxinergong · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗