Drum and Percussion Dance

Introduction

Waist drums on the hip, frame drums in hand: striking while dancing

Drum and percussion dance is the Han folk dance in which dancers carry or hold drums, gongs, cymbals, clappers or whips and strike them while dancing, unlike gong-and-drum ensembles that only play. Its main listed forms are the Ansai waist drum (III-13), the Jingxi taiping drum (III-1), the Lanzhou taiping drum (III-15), the Yicheng flower drum (III-11), the Luochuan biegu (III-14) and the drum dances of III-42, together with roulianxiang, fanshan jiaozi and the Huangyang coin whip, which keep time with the body, small cymbals or coin whips. The Lantern Festival troupes of Southern Song Lin'an already included an earthen-basin drum troupe and a gong-carrying ghost troupe, and the late Ming Dijing jingwu lue records the taiping drum in Beijing; in the 1940s the northern Shaanxi waist drum spread across the country with the New Yangge movement.

Timeline

1. 1270OriginAmong the Lantern Festival troupes of Lin'an listed in Zhou Mi's Old Affairs of Wulin at the end of the Southern Song are troupes named for drums and gongs, such as the earthen-basin drum, the drum-and-clappers and the gong-carrying ghosts, an early reliable record of folk troupes that danced while striking percussion.
2. 1635EvolutionThe Dijing jingwu lue of Liu Tong and Yu Yizheng, printed in 1635, already records the taiping drum among Beijing's seasonal customs; the Jingxi taiping drum has been played since the Ming and was especially popular in the early Qing.
3. 1942EvolutionFrom 1942 the New Yangge movement in Yan'an took the northern Shaanxi waist drum into propaganda performances with the yangge troupes; known as the Victory Waist Drum, it spread across the country.
4. 1986ImpactIn 1986 the Ansai waist drum won the top award at the first China Folk Dance Competition, and in 1990 it performed at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Asian Games; in 2006 the Ansai waist drum, the Jingxi and Lanzhou taiping drums and others entered the first national list.

Heritage Listings

1. 2006National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage1st batch · 2006: III-1 Jingxi taiping drum of Mentougou · Beijing · no. 104 · III-11 Yicheng flower drum · no. 114 · III-12 Quanzhou chest-slapping dance · no. 115 · III-13 Ansai waist drum · no. 116 · III-14 Luochuan biegu · no. 117 · III-15 Lanzhou taiping drum · no. 118
2. 2008National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2nd batch, 2008: III-42 Drum dances, no. 639, twelve forms from Beijing, Hebei, Shanxi, Zhejiang, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu, among them the Hengshan old waist drum, the Yichuan chest drum, the Liangzhou gong guzi and the Wushan spinning-drum dance; III-51 Guanhui xiangluo of Xiangcheng, no. 648; III-52 Roulianxiang of Lichuan, no. 649; III-55 Fanshan jiaozi of Pingchang, no. 652); 2008 extension of III-1: Shijingshan and Guaicun taiping drums
3. 2011National list, 2011 extensions of III-42: Wanrong flower drum, Tuwo old flower drum of Qinshui, Jishan high-platform flower drum, and the Wula Chen-clan Han-banner single-drum dance of Jilin City
4. 2014National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage4th batch · III-112 Taiziwu wuchaozi · no. 1265 · nominated by Daxing · Beijing
5. 2014National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage4th batch · III-117 Yihuang hegang pole dance · no. 1270 · Yihuang · Jiangxi
6. 2021National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage (5th batch, 2021: III-133 Yicheng hunshenban, no. 1405; III-136 Yinyangban of Zoucheng, no. 1408; III-142 Longxi yunyangban, no. 1414; III-143 Huangyang coin whip of Zhongning, no. 1415); 2021 extensions of III-42: Liaoxi taiping drum, four-tube drum dance of Zhaoyang, and the Yi flower-drum dance of Eshan