Uyghur Sanam
01 · Historical Records
Sainaim has a long history and a distant source, arising mainly in the oases of southern Xinjiang, where the people live by agriculture, the ethnic groups live in concentrated settlements and culture is highly developed. From the sixteenth century onward, under the guidance of music masters such as Kadirhan, Yarkandi and Amani Luohan (Naifusi), the Twelve Muqam, formed through the excavating, collecting and organizing of numerous folk musicians, absorbed the Sainaim that had long circulated among the folk, becoming the component known as qiong nayerman in each muqam, while Sainaim itself continued to circulate widely in its independent form.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Sainaim is the most widespread folk dance of the Uyghur people, transmitted broadly in the towns and villages north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. It is an indispensable part of Uyghur daily life: on every festive occasion, wedding ceremony or gathering of relatives and friends, the Uyghurs hold a Meshrep evening and enthusiastically dance Sainaim there to celebrate. Wubao Sainaim is one of the Uyghur traditional song-and-dance arts widely current in the Wubao area. It consists mainly of nine suites: Sainaim, Baladingya, Yarda Yiduo and Yana Deyeduo, Mailibili Sayartula, Bulibulikizi, Tuoerhayi, Baierdaierdashaqiqin Ayila, Tuolakajiding Mansanha and Tahedikaierda. These include love ballads, life ballads and various folk ballads expressing the joys and sorrows, partings and reunions of the people. Kaqun Sainaim is a traditional song and dance performed to the accompaniment of Uyghur ethnic instruments such as the frame drum, the dutar, the flute, the ajek, the rawap, the tanbur and the suona. It consists of nine Sainaim, including Kaqun Sainaim, Tajihan Sainaim, Wisali Sainaim, Tuyi Sainaim and Tage Sainaim, together with 51 tunes (melodies) and 150 richly worded kushak (poems). Its performance falls into four main sections: muqam, Sainaim, selik quxur (the closing section) and Meshrep (fifteen Meshreps of single tunes, among which are more than one hundred kushak). Recreational folk games are inserted during the intervals of the Meshrep performance to enliven the atmosphere.
The nine suites of Wubao
The Wubao repertory consists of nine suites containing love songs, songs of daily life and ballads of parting and reunion.
The scale of the Kaqun repertory
The Kaqun form comprises nine sanam, fifty-one melodies and a hundred and fifty kushak poems, accompanied by drums, lutes, flute and shawm.
Muqam, sanam, coda and meshrep
Performance falls into muqam, sanam, a coda and the meshrep, the last holding fifteen melodies and over a hundred poems with games between numbers.
Stepping the melody, hand past the armpit
The inheritor Ahmat Ismayil's technique features stepping the melody, tapping the sole, passing the hand under the armpit and lifting both sleeves.
Compiling Hami muqam and sanam
Taught by the folk artist Sirepil Yusup, he took part in the 1975 compiling and recording of the muqam and supplied material for three collections of Hami folk literature.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Hami Sainaim takes the Meshrep of the Hami oasis as its main performance setting and interweaves with the melodies, style and rhythm of the Hami Muqam; performers often sing muqam first and then move into Sainaim within the same programme. The performers around Wubao and those around Kaqun each have their own lines of transmission, which has produced local differences in the arrangement of suites and in the movement vocabulary.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Uyghur Sanam · Sainaimu · Sainaimu · Sainaimu · Sainaimu · Sainaimu · Sainaimu.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Sainaim is a precious heritage of national culture; it fully reflects the Uyghur people's primitive religious beliefs, their local customs and the state of their music and dance, and it has high historical and cultural research value. At present, under the impact of outside culture, Uyghur Sainaim has few inheritors and urgently needs protection. Ahmat Sidi (as recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): from childhood he followed the folk artist Siripil Yusup of Wubao Township in learning the Hami Muqam and Sainaim. In performing Uyghur Sainaim he can not only bring out the characteristics of Turpan folk songs but also combine them with the melodies, style and rhythm of the Hami Muqam, presenting a distinctive style of his own. His dance technique is very distinctive, with fine movements such as “treading the melody”, “toeing the ground”, “passing the palm across the armpit” and “lifting both sleeves”. In 1975 he took part in the collecting and recording of the muqam and nayerman, providing a good deal of material for the compilation of books such as Hami Folk Ballads, Hami Folk Tales and Hami Folk Proverbs. Male, of Uyghur ethnicity, born in August 1933, died in November 2011, a native of Hami City, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Representative inheritor of the third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project Uyghur Sainaim.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Aimaiti Simayi 03-0954
- Nasier Nusuer 04-1583
- Aimidouli Rehemisha 05-2283
- Yimin Yibila 05-2284
- Yasen Aisa 05-2285
- Abulimiti Xiahabi 05-2286
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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