Tibetan Chi Drum Dance
01 · Historical Records
The formation of Chi drum dance is connected with the rain-praying and calamity-averting customs of the Tibetan villages around Xunhua: every year in the sixth lunar month the men of the village form a team, led by the “lahong”, who complete the whole ceremony in the order of inviting the deities, honouring the deities, subduing demons and seeing the deities off. The dancers wear five-peak auspicious hats on their heads and golden lozenge-shaped shawls over their shoulders, hold the drum in the left hand and the whip in the right, and dance while beating the drum, with no other instrumental accompaniment.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tibetan Chi drum dance is a large-scale folk ritual sacrificial dance transmitted in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. It is held every year in the sixth lunar month, with the purpose of praying to the deities, averting calamity and expelling evil, and bringing the villagers peace, long life, plentiful harvests and good grain. “Chi” is one of the nine sons of the dragon in legend; it has a large mouth and can swallow the sea. Performing Chi drum dance is a form of sacrificing to the water dragon; thirteen sets of movements have come down to us. In a performance of Tibetan Chi drum dance, a troupe is formed of several men; the dancers wear five-peak auspicious hats on their heads and golden lozenge-shaped shawls over their shoulders, hold the drum in the left hand and the whip in the right, and dance while beating the drum, with no other instrumental accompaniment. The dance postures of Chi drum dance have sharply defined angles and are full of masculine vigour; the movement of bending the leg forward, hooking the foot and striking the drum, together with the bending, extending and trembling of the knees, forms a distinctive rhythm, displaying the coarse, robust and passionate dancing culture of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The whole dance is in multiple sections; its structure is rigorous and complete, its movements are uniform and perfectly aligned, and it admits no free improvisation. The basic movements include such elements as “stepping forward, bending the leg and jumping while striking the drum”, while the basic formations include walking clockwise in a circle, a square formation, Chi swishing its tail, diagonal lines crossing, a circular spiral of alternating positions, a horizontal row and so on; each section changes to one formation.
Thirteen sets of movement
Thirteen sets survive, the dance being a strict multi-part sequence of uniform movement that admits no improvisation.
Five-peak hat and golden cape
Dancers wear a five-peaked auspicious hat and a golden lozenge-patterned cape, drum in the left hand and whip in the right.
Dragon-tail sweep and spiral
Formations include clockwise circles, square arrays, the dragon-tail sweep, diagonal crossings, spiral exchanges and straight lines, changing with each section.
The lahong, or lead dancer
Born in Xunhua in 1962 into a family of drum-dance artists, Dorje Tsering became lead at nineteen and trained over a hundred performers, seven of them later leads.
The sixth-month apotropaic rite
Performed each sixth lunar month to invoke the gods, avert calamity and pray for long life and good harvest, it enacts inviting, honouring, expelling and sending off the spirits.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Tibetan Chi drum dance is transmitted in the Tibetan-inhabited areas of Daowei, Galeng, Wendu and other places in Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. The dance troupe is made up of men from the village, and the “lahong” is the lead dancer. None of the thirteen sets of movements that have come down to us admits free improvisation; the basic formations include walking clockwise in a circle, a square formation, Chi swishing its tail, diagonal lines crossing, a circular spiral of alternating positions and a horizontal row, and each section changes to one formation.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Tibetan Chi drum dance presents the processes of inviting the deities, honouring the deities, seeing the deities off and subduing demons in the form of a collective dance, expressing the simple remains of ancient primitive religious culture, and it vividly and concretely reflects the religious beliefs, living conditions and aesthetic concepts of the local ethnic minority, so it has fairly high value for historical and cultural research. In recent years, because of the drastic changes in the social environment, the survival of this ancient dance form has fallen into difficulty and a crisis of transmission has arisen, so it urgently needs protection. Daoji Cairang (associated inheritor, as recorded in the official file): Male, Tibetan ethnicity, born in April 1962, native of Xunhua Salar Autonomous County, Qinghai Province. He was immersed in the village Chi drum dance performances from childhood, and all of his elders on his father's side were Chi drum dance artists. At sixteen he began to study and take part in Chi drum dance performance, and at nineteen he became the “lahong” (lead dancer) of the Chi drum dance troupe. He masters the multi-section (set) structure of Chi drum dance, which is relatively complete and rigorous, and the troupe's movements are uniform and perfectly aligned. He has been engaged in the art for nearly twenty years and has taken part in more than two hundred large and medium-sized performances. During his tenure as “lahong” he trained more than one hundred folk performers in all, of whom seven became successors serving as “lahong”. Representative inheritor of Tibetan Chi drum dance, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fourth national batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Daojicairang 04-1582
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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