Wu Yang Town is the hometown of Yi people's cigarette box dance.

The hometown of Yi people's cigarette box dance

The birthplace of harmonious music cigarette box dance makes Wu Yang Town the hometown of Yi people's cigarette box dance. Black boy ringing, itchy feet and cigarette box dancing are the joyful spirit of Yi Nationality Village in Wu Yang Town and the soul of Yi family's spiritual and cultural life. Without the cigarette box dance, the Yi family is like life without salt, and life is unremarkable. There are 87 villages inhabited by Yi people in the town, and each village has its own cigarette box dance team. Adult men and women in the village can dance cigarette box dance. The cigarette box dance permeates all areas of Yi village life, such as entertainment, festivals, celebrations, parties, sacrifices, weddings and funerals, etc. It is a rare national cultural phenomenon that a dance has reached such a popular level in a place.

The harmonious Yi cigarette box dance in Lukui Mountain and Mopan Mountain in Wu Yang Town is rooted in the Yi people and has never stopped since ancient times, even in the era when the Cultural Revolution swept through the "four modernizations". 1988, Wu Yang Town Hele Yi People's Dance Team along the river once represented Yuxi in the performance of Yunnan Art Festival held in Kunming. 1995, the harmonious music Yi cigarette box dance team of the town participated in the "Mysterious Ailao Concert" held in Eshan, Xinping and Yuanjiang counties, and won the third prize; In May, 20001,professors from the Music Department of the University of the Philippines and the Music Department of Columbia University came to watch the cigarette box dance of the Yi people in Wu Yang Town. In June, 2002, Hunan TV station broadcasted the harmony music "Wu Yang Yi People's Cigarette Box Dance".