Nanxiandi Flower Drum
01 · Historical Records
The Nanxian local flower drum originated in the third year of the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty (1796); it evolved on the basis of folk mountain songs, xiaodiao (tune-ful folk ditties) and labour calls. The Nanxian local flower drum passed through an initiatory period in the Qing, a period of development after the founding of the People’s Republic of China and a period of flourishing after the 1980s, and played a crucial role in the initiatory stage of Hunan flower drum opera.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The distinctive folk dance — the local flower drum — grew out of this very stretch of land. With its plain and rugged movements, its bright and high-pitched music, its lively and uninhibited performance, its strong flavour of everyday life and its distinctive artistic style, it has taken deep root among the people. The Nanxian local flower drum has many forms of expression, including the paired local flower drum, the bamboo-horse local flower drum and the encircling-dragon local flower drum. The paired local flower drum is also called the “single flower drum”; two men dress as one female role and one clown role, and play the “suites” and the “turning patterns” to the meanings of such items as “Twelfth Month Waiting for the Lover”, “Dragging the Stool”, “Tenth Month Visiting the Sister”, “Tea Picking”, “Flower Insertion”, “Fan Tune” and “Song of Sending Wealth”, and are skilled at using fans and handkerchiefs to portray a character’s mood and temperament. The bamboo-horse local flower drum is a performance form that evolved on the basis of the paired local flower drum; the protagonist added to it is a warrior who holds a horse-whip and carries on his shoulders or at his waist a cloth or paper-and-bamboo horse covered with various colours, and who performs in alternation with the clown and female roles of the local flower drum; some versions also feature a horse-groom who does somersaults, so that the scene is martial and the performance is delicate. In the encircling-dragon local flower drum the performance conventions of the female and clown roles differ somewhat from those of the two forms above: on entering there is “Sending Wealth”, on leaving there is “Bidding the East”, and the performers work through suites such as “Playing with the Pearl”, “Raising the Well”, “Coiling the Pillar”, “Holding up the Butterfly” and “Sleeping Arhat”, or set out the characters for “Five Grains Abound”, rendering an atmosphere of festivity and auspiciousness.
The set routines of the duet earth-flower drum
The duet earth-flower drum has two men play a dan and a chou, working through set routines on the themes of twelve song titles and expressing character with fans and handkerchiefs.
The warrior and bamboo horse of the bamboo-horse form
Evolved from the duet form, the bamboo-horse version adds a warrior with a whip and a cloth or paper horse who dances among the chou and dan, sometimes with a somersaulting groom.
Sending wealth in and taking leave of the host
The encirlcing-dragon form opens with a send-wealth routine at the door and closes with leave-taking, using set figures to spell out blessings of harvest abundance.
The song titles behind the routines
A group of folk songs arranged by season, farm work and courtship that supply both the routines of the duet form and early tunes shared with Hunan flower-drum opera.
Village-to-village shows in the lake townships
Performed at New Year, Lantern Festival, temple fairs and weddings, the troupes move from village to village and remain a key popular entertainment in the lake district of northern Hunan.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Nanxian local flower drum has as its centre of transmission the townships and villages of Nanxian County in the northern part of the Hunan plain on the Dongting Lake plain, and it also spreads to the neighbouring counties and cities of Huarong, Anxiang and Yuanjiang and to the lakeside market towns on the Hunan-Hubei border. Performers mostly form troupes on a village basis that farm in season and perform in season; they go from village to village at Spring Festival, on the Lantern Festival, at temple fairs and at weddings and birthday celebrations, moving on to the neighbouring village as soon as one village’s performance ends. This has produced a pattern in which the three forms — paired, bamboo-horse and encircling-dragon — coexist and learn from one another. The singing uses the local accent of northern Hunan Mandarin, and the gong-and-drum accompaniment and the huqin are undertaken by the village’s own musicians; craftsmen such as teachers, boatmen and tailors also often take the clown and female roles. Because the troupes travel over a wide area, the suites and tunes of the Nanxian local flower drum are mutually absorbed among the counties of the lake region, and it maintains a long-standing two-way influence with the local flower drums and flower drum opera of the Yiyang and Yuanjiang areas.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Nanxian lies at the northern extremity of Hunan Province, on the boundary between the provinces of Hunan and Hubei; within the county rivers and canals crisscross and ponds and lakes are densely spread. It is precisely the character of this watery land that forms the distinctive geographical environment in which folk customs and culture grow and are handed down. With the sharp changes in the economy and society, the cultural ecology has changed dramatically; the Nanxian local flower drum has lost its former brilliance and is on the verge of dying out and being lost, so that urgent rescue and protection are needed.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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