Laogu Dance
01 · Historical Records
Besides, whenever someone in the village falls ill, has a nightmare, or something inauspicious occurs, a “telling the ancestors” activity may also be held, asking the ancestral spirits to dispel disaster and remove misfortune; and even when all is peaceful, the whole village holds a “telling the ancestors” Laogu Dance once every three years, in the form of mourning for and sacrificing to the ancestors, to pray that the ancestors will protect their descendants.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Laogu Dance (a rendering into Chinese of the Li expression “chuang kan”, meaning “telling the ancestors”) is an ancient Li folk sacrificial dance. The dance is also called “kui dong long”, meaning “paying respect to the ancients”, that is, sacrificing to the old people who have passed away. The Laogu Dance is performed on occasions of funerals and rites of sacrifice. As a rule the “calling back of the wandering soul” (meaning “summoning the soul”) is carried out by day, and the Laogu Dance is danced at night. 1. Raising the master (welcoming the soul of the deceased); 2. Opening the gate (circling the mortars, further divided into walking four and walking six), by which the sound of gong and drum summons the dead back in pairs; 3. Circling and chanting (the dance troupe, carrying the spirit tablet of the deceased, circles around the twelve mortars); 4. Walking the great enclosure: on the ground, in rows of two, are planted no fewer than 1,200 thin bamboo poles about two metres high with burning incense sticks inserted at the top, and the poles are joined in pairs by grass rope (or red string). The “gou ta” (leader of the dance) holds scissors in his hand and, as he cuts the cords, leads the dance troupe weaving through among them, until all the cords have been cut and the troupe walks out of the great enclosure. At the same time, other dancers perform ploughing, hunting, fishing and the like among the several mortars holding spirit tablets that have been set out on the ground. The Laogu Dance represents in dance form the modes of production and of life of the Li people in the stage of primitive society, such as slash-and-burn cultivation, hunting, fishing, and ancestor worship.
The four sections of the old-drum dance
The four sections: welcoming the soul, turning the pestles to summon the dead in pairs, carrying the memorial tablet around twelve pestles, and threading the rope enclosure.
The rope enclosure of twelve hundred poles
The field is set with 1,200 slender bamboo poles about two metres tall topped with burning incense, linked in pairs by straw or red thread ropes.
The lead dancer cutting the ropes
The lead dancer cuts the ropes linking the poles while leading the troupe through the web until every rope is severed and the dancers emerge.
Farming, hunting and fishing between the pestles
While the enclosure is threaded, other dancers perform ploughing, hunting and fishing between the pestles that hold the memorial tablets, recalling slash-and-burn farming and hunting.
Zhong Chaoliang and his 180 apprentices
Zhong Chaoliang (1934-2013) of Baisha county mastered the full repertoire, taught more than 180 apprentices and formed a performing troupe in the local villages.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Laogu Dance is divided into four steps: In the Baisha Li language the Laogu Dance is called “chuang kan” and is also called “kui dong long”; the surviving place of transmission is concentrated in the Li villages around Xishui Township, Baisha Li Autonomous County, Hainan Province, and together with the Li villages of neighbouring townships it belongs to the same cultural area in terms of ancestor sacrifice. The ritual is held on a village basis, the site usually being an open space at the edge of the village, marked by the mortars holding the spirit tablets and the array of bamboo poles stuck into the ground; as soon as the gong-and-drum music starts the “gou ta” leads the team onto the ground. Because the Li have no script of their own, the procedure, the sung lines and the dance steps of the Laogu Dance are handed down entirely through oral instruction and personal transmission from master to disciple, and the villages differ slightly in the routes they take through the “walking the great enclosure” and in the order of cutting the cords, producing several recognisable local ways of dancing it.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Laogu Dance is rich in cultural connotation and is of important value for the study of anthropology, ethnology and folklore. At present, in the Li-inhabited areas of Hainan the Laogu Dance is rarely to be seen, surviving only in the remote Li villages of Xishui Township. Zhong Chaoliang (official archive record of the associated inheritor): He has completely mastered the performance sequences of the Laogu Dance and has won the praise of the local villagers. He conscientiously fulfils the duties of a representative inheritor, actively carries out transmission activities, has taught more than one hundred and eighty disciples, and has also organised a Laogu Dance performance troupe that is active in the various villages of the locality. Male, of Li ethnicity, born in May 1934, died in August 2013, native of Baisha Li Autonomous County, Hainan Province. Representative inheritor of the Laogu 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:
- Zhong Chaoliang 04-1585
- Wang Youchun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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