Red Deer Dance

45.Red Deer Dance

Nominating Unit: Lianzhou Municipality, City of Qingyuan

Red Deer Dance is a unique folk dance in Xi’an Township, Lianzhou Municipality in the mountainous area of northern Guangdong Province. According to old artists from this area, it has a history of more than 150 years.

Red Deer Dance was originally called “red deer hunt”, because it mimics a hunter with bows, arrows and spears who tracks, chases and finally kills a red deer. It mainly depicts a mountain hunter’s life. As the deer is a gentle and lovely creature, the locals would rather believe that gold deer symbolizes fortune and longevity, and a gold deer with flowers in its mouth symbolizes good luck. Red deer hunt therefore is turned into a more symbolized red deer dance, and is mainly performed around Lunar New Year celebrations.

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The red deer prop used in the dance has a horse-like head, a donkey-like body, a cow’s legs and a pair of deer horns. This peculiar outlook gives its name: red deer. Its look is not unlike the heavenly deer from fairytales of immortals and Buddha. In Red Deer Dance, four dancers would play two red deer, and one dancer would play the hunter. The whole dance is composed of three segments, including tracking, capturing, and taming the deer. It mainly tells a story in which two red deer run and leap in the woods and rub each other’s back and play with each other by a spring fountain. Suddenly the deer get alert because they sense the hunter’s approaching. The hunter casts rope loops to capture them but is eluded by the vigilant deer. In the heart-shivering music of gongs, drums, and trumpets, the red deer’s bodies glow up with a dominating momentum. The hunter is totally enchanted, and he offers the two red deer with glossy ganoderma and flowers he picked up. At last the hunter dances up merrily with the red deer with glossy ganoderma and flowers in their mouths.

Red Deer Dance learned from the movement of Tea Picking Dance from northern Guangdong Province, and formed its own set of dancing movements, mainly including head swinging to the left, head swinging to the right, head stretching, leg sucking step, hopping step, scampering step, etc. The agility and vigilance of red deer, together with the hunter’s vigor and swiftness are rendered vividly in the action performance, which also has humorous elements. The performance possesses relatively high artistic values.

Due to the less developed economy and other reasons, the number of dancers for Lianzhou Red Deer Dance is diminishing every year, and the troupe lacks recruitment of new members, and its transmission is great jeopardized. Urgent rescuing and protective measures are called for.