Streamer Hat Dance

Introduction

The closing men's dance of the farmers' dance, with hat streamers up to twenty metres long

The streamer hat dance closes the farmers' dance of the Korean community in China and is danced by men as the last item of the whole performance. The dancers wear hats topped with long ribbons, which they whirl through the air, and a streamer can reach twenty metres. The hats come in many kinds, long, middle and short, threaded, feathered, tailed and sparking. Dancers swing the streamers left and right or make them stand up front and back, with one, two or even three at a time, while standing, squatting, kneeling or diving to the ground. The farmers' dance came to China at the end of the nineteenth century and is accompanied by the suona and the taipingxiao shawm, bell-shaped gongs and many kinds of drum. In 2006 the Yanbian item entered the first national list of intangible cultural heritage, and in 2009 the farmers' dance was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.