Dai Xiangjiao Drum Dance
01 · Historical Records
There are many folk legends about the origin of the elephant-foot drum, such as that a husband and wife made it by imitating the sound of mangoes falling into water, or that people made it from dragon skin to celebrate their victory after killing the evil dragon that had brought the floods. The earliest record, however, is found in the Ming-dynasty Baiyi Zhuan: 'the large and small long-skin drums are struck with the hand'. The performance of the Dai elephant-foot drum dance can be divided into two types. The first is dancing to the beating of the drum, called 'xieguang' in Dai, which includes solo dance, duet, antiphonal dance and group dance; the second is dancing in response to the drum, called 'gaguang', in which the 'three bends' derive from the motion of early humans picking fruit from trees and later became a dance form peculiar to the Dai and to many peoples of South Asia and Southeast Asia.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The elephant-foot drum dance is the most widely popular, highest in performance level and most representative traditional ethnic dance of the Dai people. It has many performance forms such as solo dance, antiphonal dance and group dance, and can be performed or enjoyed recreationally on many occasions. Its purpose is to sacrifice to the spirits, ward off disaster and evil, and celebrate a good harvest. The elephant-foot drum dance is passed down not only among the Dai, De'ang, Jingpo, Achang and other ethnic minorities within China but has also spread to many countries in Southeast Asia. The elephant-foot drum is the emblematic percussion instrument of the Dai people. In the elephant-foot drum dance the dancer's arms must make the movements of turning the wrist backwards and scooping it forwards in a circle; this is a visual reflection of the Dai ancestors taking seed from a carrying basket on their backs and scattering it, showing that Dai society had already entered the era of agriculture. In performing the Dai elephant-foot drum dance the dancer carries the drum on the left shoulder with the drumhead forward and the tail pointing down, striking mainly with the right hand and supporting with the left; the fist, palm and fingers are generally used to beat the drumhead, and sometimes the elbow, knee, heel and toes are used as well — when the hand strikes the drum the knee bends, and when the elbow is raised the dancer stands up. The steps include a half-step squat to the front, a half-step squat to the back, a full squat on a stepping motion, a half squat in a figure-eight step, as well as movements such as swinging the leg, raising the leg, kicking the foot and jumping with a drawn-in leg. According to whether the drum is long, medium or small in shape there are three ways of dancing: the long elephant-foot drum dance, the medium elephant-foot drum dance and the small elephant-foot drum dance. The Dai elephant-foot drum dance is a men's dance that can be both performed recreationally and publicly staged, and has a distinctive artistic style. Because the long body of the drum restricts the movement of the body, the dance movements focus mainly on the lower half of the body, such as lifting and squatting walking steps, brushing the leg and the wide figure-eight step, sometimes accompanied by slight swaying movements of the body. The Dai elephant-foot drum dance is the means by which the Dai express a joyful mood, and so it has become a dance full of masculine vigour that is a welcome sight to the general populace.
Bo Hanbing's fusion of martial arts and dance
Bo Hanbing merged Dais martial arts into the drum dance and later learned drum making, becoming both maker and dancer.
Half-squat and full-squat steps
The step vocabulary ranges from front and back half-squats to full-squat walking, with leg swings, kicks and hops.
The long-skinned drum in the Baiyi Zhuan
The Ming-era Baiyi Zhuan records large and small long-skinned drums struck by hand, the earliest reference to the instrument.
A drum dance shared across peoples
The dance is shared by the De'ang, Jingpo and Achang as well, and spread to many Southeast Asian countries.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Xishuangbanna Dai elephant-foot drum dance is passed down chiefly in the Dai villages around Mengla, Jinghong and Menghai, with the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture Cultural Centre as its safeguarding unit; Bohan Bing was born in Mengla County, and at the age of eight apprenticed to Yan Wangdan of his own village, subsequently taking on more than one hundred and thirty disciples including Bohan Bian, Yan Yanfen, Yan Jiao, Yan Layue and Yan Hanbing.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Dai Xiangjiao Drum Dance.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Dai elephant-foot drum dance has the functions of delighting the spirit and the senses, strengthening body and mind and making friends through dance; much of the information carried in the dance can help people understand the changes in the history and culture of the Dai people, and it has a high academic research value. At present, in the situation where foreign culture forcibly intrudes, the traditional culture of the Dai and other ethnic minorities is subject to enormous impact, only a handful of folk artists master the performance skills of the elephant-foot drum dance, some highly difficult drum-beating techniques have already been lost, and urgent protection measures and timely rescue are needed from the relevant parties. Bohan Bing (recorded in the official archive of associated inheritors): male, Dai, born in February 1962, native of Mengla County, Yunnan Province. He had a strong interest in the Dai elephant-foot drum dance and martial arts from childhood. At the age of eight he apprenticed himself to Yan Wangdan of his own village to study the elephant-foot drum dance. He ingeniously incorporated Dai martial arts into the elephant-foot drum dance, embodying the combination of hardness and softness in martial arts and dance, and formed his own distinctive dance routines. By about the age of twenty he had already become an elephant-foot drum dance artist of some local renown. In 1999 he apprenticed himself once again to the old artist Botao Wanxianggangna of Mangangna Village, Mengla Town, to learn the technique of making elephant-foot drums, becoming a 'king of the elephant-foot drum dance' who both makes the drums and excels in the dance. Representative inheritor of the Dai elephant-foot drum dance, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth national batch. Through assiduous study he became the most outstanding of the thirteen disciples of Yan Wangdan. Beginning in 1986 he took on disciples widely and taught them devotedly, taking on more than one hundred and thirty disciples including Bohan Bian, Yan Yanfen, Yan Jiao, Yan Layue and Yan Hanbing, most of whom are now able to stand on their own.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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