Xuan Dance
01 · Historical Records
Its origins can at present be traced back to the period of the ancient Zhangzhung civilization; it was further developed during the period of the Guge kingdom, and it has a history of more than a thousand years up to the present.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xuan dance is a folk dance peculiar to Tibet, current mainly in the canyon areas on the China-India border within Zanda County. Traces of xuan dance are clearly preserved in the murals of the main hall of the Red Temple at the Guge ruins; the murals show a grand ceremonial occasion held by the king of Guge to welcome Master Atisha, in which ten women dressed in brilliant costumes are dancing xuan dance. Historical records show that in 1042 xuan dance was performed as a ritual dance at the ceremony welcoming Master Atisha at Toling Monastery. Guge xuan dance is said to comprise the “Thirteen Xuan Dances”; together with folk xuan dance it is collectively called “Guge xuan dance”, a traditional dance that combines speech, singing and dancing. As a ritual dance, xuan dance may only be performed at a specified time and place, by specified performers wearing specified costumes; it may not be performed in ordinary folk settings. Besides the “Thirteen Xuan Dances”, other forms of xuan dance performance are still current in places such as Diya, Chulunsongjie and Sharang within Zanda County, Ngari, Tibet Autonomous Region. In performance one male dancer holds a hide drum, while the female dancers link their arms and, moving to the xuan dance steps, sing as they dance, changing their formations along “dragon-body” lines. The dance is strongly rhythmic, beginning slowly and quickening by degrees, and it carries the steady style peculiar to the Guge region. The singing that goes on at the same time as the dance is rich in content and strongly rhythmic. Usually one person begins the song and the others take up the singing, and then they move their steps forward, backward, left and right in a counterclockwise direction to the rhythm of the song. There is no limit on the number of performers; there are thirteen tunes in all, and performing all of them takes ten days and ten nights. Guge xuan dance combines speech, singing and dancing in one, and is highly rewarding to watch.
The dance in the Red Temple murals
Murals in the Red Temple at the Guge ruins show ten richly dressed women dancing Xuan at a grand reception.
A ceremonial dance at Tholing
In 1042 it was performed as a ceremonial dance at Tholing monastery for Atisha, restricted ever after to set occasions.
Thirteen items over ten days
The thirteen items would take ten days and nights in full; a drummer leads women linked arm in arm in serpentine formations.
Zhuoga
Zhuoga, born in Zhada in 1932, alone holds the full lyrics and steps and recorded a complete video set.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The “Thirteen Xuan Dances” is a ritual dance: it may only be performed at a specified time and place, by specified performers wearing specified costumes, and may not be performed among the folk; the other forms of xuan dance that run alongside it are transmitted in the border canyon villages of Diya, Chulunsongjie, Sharang and other places in Zanda County. The two together are called Guge xuan dance. Zanda County lies in the Xiangquan River valley of the Ngari Plateau; both the ruins of the Guge kingdom and Toling Monastery are within the county, and the repertoire and formation lineage of xuan dance are largely connected with the ritual systems of these monasteries. The Zanda County Bureau of Culture, Tourism and Sports is the protecting organization, and Zhuoga is currently the only artist who masters all the lyrics and dance steps of Guge xuan dance.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Xuan Dance · Xuan Dance.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The dance vocabulary has typical local characteristics, has value for ethnological research, and carries the historical and cultural information and the primitive memories of Guge in Tibet. At present, under the impact of outside culture, xuan dance has few inheritors, and its rescue and protection have become an urgent task. Zhuoga (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): female, of Tibetan ethnicity, born in January 1932, a native of Zanda County, Tibet Autonomous Region. She has loved song and dance since childhood, and is the only person in the entire Tibetan-inhabited area who masters the lyrics and dance steps of Guge xuan dance. She can dance to the xuan dance steps while singing, using “dragon-body” lines and changing formations with a dance rhythm that moves from slow to fast. She took an active part in the rescue-oriented collecting and organizing of Guge xuan dance, and recorded and published a complete set of Guge xuan dance discs. Representative inheritor of the fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project xuan dance (Guge xuan dance). She is devoted to the transmission and dissemination of Guge xuan dance: besides taking on apprentices, she often goes to the local county folk art troupe to give instruction, and she has choreographed new tunes on the basis of traditional xuan dance, leading the public in dancing Guge xuan dance together in the square.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Angga 03-0944
- Luojie 04-1578
- Zhuoga 05-2275
- Renzengwangmu
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。