Coin Drum Dance

35.Coin Drum Dance

Nominating Unit: City of Shanwei

Coin Drum Dance, also called coin drum steps, is mostly distributed in the city area of City of Shanwei and Haifeng County and Xinpu and Dongpu of the City of Lufeng. Legend has it that it was introduced into this area from Fujian Province with migration of people in the Qing Dynasty. The proven history is at least more than 100 years old.

Coin drum is viewed as an item of fortune by the locals, so on the series of celebrations from Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival every year, coin drum dance is usually performed to usher in the spring, with a symbolized meaning of good luck and good fortune in the coming year. The main prop, coin drum, is an octagonal single-sided drum, with a diameter of 24cm and height of 4cm. A pore is drilled on each side of the octagon to hang 2 coins, so altogether there would be 16 coins. When the drum is rotated, the coins would collide with each other and make clear and crisp sounds.(https://www.daowen.com)

Coin Drum Dance combines singing with dancing, with dancing to be the main form. Generally, it is performed in pair by a boy and a girl. The boy would wear a green costume, with an octagonal coin drum in hand. The girl would wear a purple costume, with a pair of bamboo strips in each hand which makes clattering sound when clamped together. The main movements of coin drum dance include three-coin fingers, drum banging, drum shaking, drum rotating, drum shivering, drum grinding, etc. Pair dance is the main form of coin drum dance, which has characters and plots. Representative dances include “Chen San Mo Jing”, “Guo Hua Mai Yan Zhi”, “Fei Hang Yu Yun Ying”, etc. There are many performing routines composed to narrate a story together with many dancing movements with strong martial art features. The performance is full of children’s innocence, with the boy shaking the drum and the girl clattering the bamboo strips. With the out-fl owing of rhythmic metal and bamboo colliding sounds, the performance is made more pleasant and interesting.

Historically, the coin drum dance was performed with other operas such as Fujian Nan Yin, Li Yuan Opera, old Bai Zi Opera, etc. Its accompaniment still bears traces of those old operas. The main instruments used include bamboo flute, giant string, giant drum, cymbal, moon gong, and five musical plates nicknamed “Wu Pi”, etc. Some scholars believe “Wu Pi” is a remnant from the Tang dynasty music, evident in the frescos of Tang and Song dynasties. The accompanying music includes “coin drum dance music”, rendered in Chao dialect by both male and female voices.

The coin drum dance was once on the verge of extinction, and was only recovered, sorted out, and restored shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. It was also gradually developed from a two-person dance to a four-person dance, or even group dance. However, due to strong impacts from imported culture and pop culture, coin drum dance is once again in a crisis of survival. Urgent and effective rescuing and protective measures are called for.