Mini Long Drum Dance of Yao Minority

43. Mini Long Drum Dance of Yao Minority

Nominating Unit: Lianshan Autonomous County of the Zhuang and Yao Minorities, City of Qingyuan

Mini Long Drum Dance used to be called long drum dance, and is a folk dance in Guoshanyao community in northern Guangdong Province. Guoshanyao is a branch of Yao Minority, which got its name because of its frequent migration in history. According to various ancient records, Mini Long Drum Dance was introduced into Guangdong Province by south migrating Guoshanyao Minority before the Sui Dynasty, and has a history of more than 1500 years. Now it is mainly distributed around Guoshanyao community in Lianshan Autonomous County of the Zhuang and Yao Minorities, as well as neighboring counties and Guoshanyao communities in Guangxi Province. Villages in Guoshanyao community perform Mini Long Drum Dance on celebrations for new years, festivals, harvests, weddings, and especially the Pan Wang festival to commemorate ancestors.

The basic movements for this dance mainly mimic the working scenes of building houses and making Mini Long Drums, and are called expressive movements. For example, there are 24 expressive movements for building houses, including “sky and earth rotation”, “finding the land”, “digging the land”, “leveling the land”, “laying stone corners”, “lumbering”, “sawing wood”, “chiseling wood”, “erecting pillar”, “installing beam”, “fixing door”, “fixing shrine”, “building the roof”, etc. There are 16 expressive movements for making the drum, including “finding the drum wood”, “chopping the drum wood”, “fixing the drum wood”, “repairing the drum”, “sealing the drum”, “hearing the drum”, “fixing drum waist”, “joining table”,“finishing the drum”, etc. There are also 3 programme movements, called “lotus hat”, “sailing the sea”,“cruising the river”, the last two of which are generalizations of Guoshanyao people’s migrating lives. The“lotus hat” is the most difficult and skillful programme movement because it has to combine the “small lotus” and “big lotus” techniques in drum dance with basic lower limb movements such as “squatting and shivering”, and “squatting and turning”.

Mini Long Drum Dance is known to have “72 sets of movements”, because when depicting the process of building a house, 24 expressive movements are combined with 2 programme movements “lotus hat” and “sailing the sea” (or “cruising the river”) to make 24 sets of independent movements, with each composed of “lotus hat”, “expressive movement” and “sailing the sea” (or “cruising the river”). Each set of movement is performed once from east to north, west, and south, in a counterclockwise direction, and the second set of movement only starts after the dancer has returned to the original place. The dance features strong regularity and directions.(https://www.daowen.com)

Mini Long Drum is the only prop used in the dance. It is also a musical instrument to provide rhythms for the dance. It is made up of light-weighted tung wood, and is 2 feet and 3 inches long. The waist of the drum is so thin that an adult can grab it in his palm. The two ends of the drum are round-shaped and even sized. The drum is hollow inside, covered with high-quality animal skins. It produces clear sound when being banged. The drum body is painted red with stripes of strong-contrasting colors that can be found on a turtle shell. The ornamental laces are orderly “dog teeth pattern”, apparently revealing Yao people’s totem worship toward dragon dogs and turtles.

Mini Long Drum Dance is performed by either 2 or 4 people, who are generally all males. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, there has been addition of dual dance with both a male and a female dancer. The drum dancing techniques were added with new movements such as “under-leg banging”and “side banging”, making the dance more expressive and inspiring.

Mini Long Drum Dance vividly depicts Guoshanyao people’s hard lives in farming, hunting and frequent migrating with its unique rendering styles, and faithfully records Guoshanyao ancestors’knowledge and skills in house building. It not only bears significance to Yao people’s living and developing which never had its own characters, but also has unique historical and cultural values. This dancing form has withstood a thousand year’s time, but with time changing, it is now in a predicament of breaking down in transmitters, as well as losses in its dancing routines. Attention should be paid and rescuing and protective measures are called for.