Guangxi Zhuang folk dance, Zhuang shoulder pole dance culture

Zhuang culture is produced in the productive labor of Zhuang people, so Zhuang culture has its own local characteristics and national customs. The most popular dance of Zhuang nationality is the shoulder pole dance of Zhuang nationality. Although the pole dance is performed with labor tools, it contains a strong labor atmosphere and is the love and expression of Zhuang people for life.

Pole dance is a traditional folk dance of Zhuang nationality, which evolved from beat dance and is generally performed by women. It is popular in Linjiang, Sudi and Anyang townships in Du 'an County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Baishan, Guzhai and Fangjia townships in mashan county. This kind of dance is the most popular during the Spring Festival, and it places the hope that the masses are eager for a bumper harvest in the coming year.

The shoulder pole dance of Zhuang nationality, also known as "beating Lu Lie", "drumming waves" and "beating waves" (both transliteration in Zhuang language), is a folk dance form for the masses to entertain themselves. Especially for middle-aged and elderly women, it is better to play pole vault. When playing pole dancing, there are at least four people in a group, and at most ten eight people can dance pole dancing and knock each other on the long bench.

At first, pole dancing was done with wooden boards, covered with rice jars, and played with poles. Because the stone trough was too heavy to move, it was slowly changed into a long bench. Every year from the first day of the first lunar month to the sixteenth, every village carries a pole, and after the sixteenth, it will not play. In some places, bamboo poles are used instead of wooden poles and shoulder poles, and several ancient copper coins are tied at both ends of bamboo poles to pray for good weather, abundant crops, prosperity of people and animals, good luck and so on. The voice is crisp and nice.

Pole dancing is performed from the first day of the first lunar month to the Lantern Festival every year, and the venue is in the grain drying field in front of the village. There are four, six, ten and twenty performers, most of whom are even-numbered women. During the performance, each dancer stood face to face with a pole in his hand, surrounded by a wooden trough or bench more than a foot long and a foot wide. Dancers shouted with their mouths, hitting each other up and down, left and right, simulating the postures and movements of harrowing fields, transplanting rice, scooping water, harvesting, threshing and husking, singing and jumping while playing.

Dancers sometimes play in pairs, sometimes four people cross each other, and sometimes many people play together; There are standing, squatting, jumping, turning, hitting, etc. There are light and heavy, strong and weak, fast and slow, vigorous and beautiful movements, and the whole dance is natural and fresh. It can be seen that the pole is not only an ordinary labor tool, but also a rhythmic musical instrument for dancing. In some places, instead of carrying poles or wooden pestles, bamboo poles are used, and a few copper coins are tied at both ends of the bamboo pole, which makes the sound crisp and pleasant.