Huazhou Exorcizing Dance

25.Huazhou Exorcizing Dance

Nominating Unit: Huazhou Municipality, City of Maoming

Exorcizing Dance is also called shed dance, high shed dance. It is mainly distributed among Changweigong Village, Juantangwei Village, etc. of Shiwanjie, Huazhou Municipality. According to historical records, Exorcizing Dance was already popular around this area in the final years of the Ming Dynasty. Its origin, however, has two versions. One of them says that the master of this dance are Chen Baoxue, Li Desheng of Changweigong Village; the second account comes from the narration by descendents of Yao’s family of the Village, who said that Exorcizing Dance was introduced into this area by the 7th forefather of Yao’s family who moved to Huazhou from Dajingtou Village, Zhujigang, Changpu of Fujian Province. A 60-years-old hand-written copy of Exorcizing Dance “keben” (play book) from the Qing Dynasty’s still exists, which fully records the whole procedure and all dancing movements of Exorcizing Dance, and is a valuable piece of cultural relic for studying the evolution and development of traditional Exorcizing Dance.

Huazhou Exorcizing Dance is a performing style of Exorcising Dance (Nuo is a god that can drive away plagues), and is held on a chosen day between “light snow” and “heavy snow”(both are solar terms) in October of the lunar calendar. During the day of shed performance to worship the Nuo god, a shed stand is erected to hold the divine figurine of Kanghuang. A Taoist practitioner would preside over the ceremony by welcoming the god and seating him first, and praying to the god for a timely wind and rain, a harvest and the well-being of the people, then the shed door is opened and the Exorcizing Dance begins.

Exorcizing Dance has a fixed “keben”, and is composed of 18 scenes, such as welcoming god, seating god, opening shed door, little children, Taoist practitioner, scholar, young lad singing, Yi Qian, Chen Jiu, plowing the field, fishing, the judge, watching the shed, giving worms, measuring the shed, 8 immortals, dismantling the shed, single-footed monk, etc. The basic form is dancing plus singing. During the performance, the dancers would wear 36 masks of different characters carved out of camphor wood respectively. The ones with a name include Taoist practitioner, Chen Jiu, the Judge, Guan Gong, and San Niang, etc. Except for two masks that have dual horns on them, the rest look similar to the painted facial masks of respective characters in an opera. The performance of the 18 scenes is carried out in order, with the Taoist practitioner part having the most singing and dancing. During this part, two Taoist practitioners would sing, talking mostly about agricultural affairs, romance, and praying for god’s bless. The most important dancing part is the paper money dance, with one dancer playing the paper money, who would carry out 9 movements depicting the movements of throwing out paper money. Later on, two Taoist practitioners nick named “Qi Gui Zai” and five roles such as a harrow, and a knife would come onto the stage and repeat paper money’s movements in a squatting position again at the four corners, which are called “four gate dance” and is the most featuring dancing pattern. The last one to show up is the “single-footed monk” who wears the outfit of a Taoist practitioner, hopping and pattering with only one foot. The dance concludes in the sound of gongs, drums and firecrackers.(https://www.daowen.com)

The accompaniment of the dance is mostly with percussions. The musical instruments used include the Hall drum, mid-sized cymbals, high-sided gongs, and high-keyed Dings, etc. Sometimes trumpets, Er Hu and Qin Qin are also used. Moreover, there is accompanying singing with lyrics out of the stage called “Gui Zai Diao”.

Huazhou Exorcizing Dance has a strong god worshipping and memorial feature, with Taoist practitioners playing the main roles, plus two different supporting roles. It is a combination of Exorcising culture and agriculture, a combination of ancient Exorcising Dance and Taoist dance, and is also a variant of Exorcising opera and Exorcising Dance. It is very valuable in studying the relations between Exorcising culture and the customs, religion, and agri-society, as well as the development of Exorcising Dance itself.

Due to historical reasons, Huazhou Exorcizing Dance was once severely devastated, and the masks, props, costumes, and written records were almost lost completely. Thus the recollecting and recording work is very important. However, the young generation’s cultural values have changed greatly, posing a severe challenge to the transmission of this art form. Urgent rescuing and protecting measures are called for.