Dongtou County, Zhejiang shell dance origin, performance forms, artistic characteristics?

Spirited dancing shells several vicissitudes of love the night of the Lantern Festival this year, Dongtou Island a happy sound. In the "fire tripod" under the leadership of the dragon dance team, fishing lantern team, shell team passionate sidewalk dance, from the fishing village of the mountain path has been dancing to the county street. Especially the shell team's style is quite oceanic flavor. Back in the mid-1950s, a Dongtou County cultural departments to discover, folk artists to collect and adapt the folk dance "shell dance", in the audience and dance connoisseurs in a burst of applause, from the county to the region, from the region to the province, has been performed to the capital of Beijing. For a time, the favorable reviews, awards and trophies. To this day, through the dust of 50 years of history, we can still feel her impressive style. The Shell Dance is a folk dance developed on the basis of the folk "welcoming fire tripod" activity of the parade of lanterns, which is mainly circulated in the village plains of Dongtou County where the Minnan language is spoken, and has a history of about 200 years. In southern Fujian, especially in Quanzhou, the "welcoming fire tripod" has long been passed down as an activity to welcome the gods. In Minnan language, "welcome" means to parade and let people watch; "tripod" means pot. When the local people carry out this kind of folk activities, people beat gongs and drums to parade, the front of the team must be two people carrying a big iron pot with burning firewood, that is, the famous Quanzhou "fire tripod male and female fire tripod". By two people dressed as an old man, old lady, with a long bamboo pole carrying the iron pot, in the procession through the dance, improvisation; the back of a person dressed as a fisherman's aunt, picking the firewood, dance step closely followed, from time to time to add firewood to the iron pot, so that the fire in the pot is more vigorous. The purpose of the dance is to drive away evil spirits and pray for good fortune. The ancestors of the Southern Min-speaking residents of Dongtou moved from Fujian and inherited and developed this custom. Every year on the Lantern Festival, the activity of "welcoming the fire tripod" is held. The Spring Festival to the Lantern Festival is the fishing season, the fishing industry is a little good, fishermen to celebrate the festival, the larger-scale activities in addition to the Dragon Dance, is the "welcome fire tripod". This activity is mainly fire tripod, or lead, or behind the temple, the pot of firewood valves burned "beeping" sound, the fire is red hot. The long procession, there are made according to the shape of fish, shrimp, crab and shellfish fish lamp team and shellfish lamp team, according to the traditional opera stories dressed up in costume characters team, there are also holding colorful flags to lift the lanterns of the Lanterns accompanying the team and so on. Parade, along the village plain, around the mountain road, whenever there are a lot of people, they will swim and dance. Parade, shell lamps are very popular. Marine shellfish already have different shapes, colorful, folk artisans and heart production: to thin bamboo gimlets tied out of the frame, covered with white paper, and then painted with different colors, made of razor clams, clams, arkshells, Xishi tongue, tamarind, small conch, and so on, lifelike. Performers will be tied to the shell on the back, holding the handle of the shell, in the music of the hands one by one, the body when turning and squatting, footsteps also broken also tend. The melody of the music, shell props colorful, human body dancing bright and vivid, composed of a harmonious and beautiful dance scene, very eye-catching. "Welcome fire tripod" this kind of large-scale folk cultural activities, expressed the people celebrate the festival to celebrate the fisheries production of the joy of the harvest mood, sent to the years of peace, life is red-hot good wishes, and therefore became a man, woman and child are enthusiastic participation in the activities. There are the whole village together, there is a village in the middle of a secret race. Among them, the shell lanterns of Dawangdeng Village in the former Beisha Township were more famous in those years. Rooted in the culture of the masses, the shell dance went from parading and stamping on the street to the stage of performance, and from the plotless improvisation and performance with the team to the dance with a distinctive theme in the middle of the 1950's. In January, 1919, the shell dance was performed in the village of Dongtou. In January 1952, Dongtou was liberated. As the society stabilized, the people lived and worked in peace and contentment, the demand for cultural life also increased. The county cultural department gave full play to the advantage of the island's rich folk culture, focusing on the discovery and organization of folk dance and folk music. From January 1955 to December 1956, the county held three consecutive folk music and dance and fishing village amateur troupes, a number of excellent programs such as folk instrumental music "dragon head dragon tail", "bang bang head pass", "marine harvest", folk dance "fish lamp dance", "red shrimp and tongue sole" and so on stood out, "Shell Dance" is one of the best. Shi Shubao was one of the main organizers of the Shell Dance. This young folk artist, who was less than 30 years old, was familiar with local folklore and practiced folk music performance. He extracted nutrients from the fishing village folklore such as "sea mussel fairy into a human marriage" and "generation of hermit crabs" and other artists together after several finishing and refining, so that the "Shell Dance" has become a fairy tale dance to promote goodness, glorify justice, and lash out at evil. The then director of the county cultural center, Jim Bozhi, as well as Yang Jiyang, Zheng Deyou and others also did a lot of guidance, assistance. The basic plot of "Shell Dance" is: on a windy and sunny day, a group of sea shells dance happily on the golden beach, preparing for the wedding of clams and arkshells, which have been in love for a long time. Suddenly, the vicious crab came, captured and mutilated the young and weak little conch, drilled into the shell and mixed into the shellfish group, waiting for the opportunity to do violence again. The clever razor clam sister recognized the crab's disguise and led the shellfish to fight with it to the death. The sea shells hold together, bravely fight the enemy, and finally win over the crab, and the beach is quiet again. Shell Dance" is quite innovative in the design of dance vocabulary: not only retaining the traditional "round field" steps, but also according to the different habits of shellfish, newly created "jumping", "swimming", "horizontal", "walking", "walking", "walking", "walking", "walking" and "walking". ", "wandering", "horizontal walk" and other actions; not only retained the shells on the back of the original stance of squatting and turning, but also from the needs of stage performances, designed to take off the shells to stretch the new scene of dance. The accompanying music, on the other hand, uses a lot of folk music, such as "Nezha Goes to the Clouds", "Towards Heaven", "Wasp Comes Out of the Cave" and other traditional tunes, so that the whole dance is full of rich oceanic flavors and life atmosphere. In the 1990s, the Zhejiang Song and Dance Troupe adapted the accompanying music of the Shell Dance into an instrumental piece, which is so melodious and pleasing to the ear that people are mesmerized by it. Of course, this is an afterthought. In the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, Dongtou's mass cultural activities carried out a very red-hot. October 1960, Zhejiang Provincial Museum of Mass Art Dance Room in the national publication "Dance" published an article reviewing the province's mass dance situation, there were three times mentioned in Dongtou, two examples of the "Shell Dance", praising Dongtou, "has been a red flag of the province to carry out mass dance activities". Dongtou was praised as "always a red flag for mass dance activities in this province". In the same year, Wenzhou Municipal Cultural Center in the "mass dance activities flourish" article wrote: "Dongtou is the city's advanced mass dance activities in the region ...... we seize not let go, as a benchmark to learn to encourage the communes to set up ambitions, learn from Dongtou, catch up with Dongtou." Shell Dance" this flower, it is in the party's "Double Hundred" policy of rain and moisturize, in the island of mass culture in the flower garden to get cultivated and open. Colorful Capital Stage On January 8, 1957, Wenzhou held a folk music and dance selection contest. The "Shell Dance", which first appeared in the county, was a hit, captivating the audience with its vivid image, beautiful dance and melodious music. Zhennan newspaper on January 11, the front page of the news: "the district held a general assembly performance, shell dance all shouting", the same day, page 3 published a "a beautiful and moving mythological poem" article, in a lyrical tone of detail about the dance. Soon, as the region's outstanding program, "Shell Dance" went to Hangzhou to participate in the province's second folk music and dance performances, won the performance of the first prize. Zhennan newspaper reported the good news on the front page of February 23: "Song and Dance Concert, Shell Dance in Beijing"! However, good things come in threes, the province finally determined to participate in the national performance of the program list, Dongtou County, only the folk instrumental ensemble "dragon head, dragon tail", but not the "shell dance". From April 29 to May 5, 1959, the province held a music and dance performance, and among the 40 programs, there were only 7 folk dances. The Shell Dance was fortunate enough to be selected, and caused a sensation again after the performance. on May 8, Zhejiang Daily published an after-thought article by the captain of the dance team of the Shanghai Experimental Opera House at the same time as it reported the news of the performance, mentioning in particular: "The Shell Dance performed by the team of Wenzhou Prefecture vividly suggests the struggle between good and evil in the life of mankind with the life of the shells in the ocean. ...... If you were to ask me what I felt about the rendezvous, in a word, folk art is always a model for us professionals to learn from." A large photo of the performance of Shell Dance was also published in the Zhejiang Pictorial published that month. In July of the same year, Dance magazine published three articles under the general title of "Zhejiang Province Holds Song and Dance Concert", one of which was entitled "Dance Rich in Oceanic Characteristics", which highly commented on Shell Dance in terms of its distinctive theme, concise structure, successful music, and so on. Another article used "Shell Dance" as an example to illustrate that an excellent dance program needs to be organized and processed over and over again. The Shell Dance was once again recognized. Under the attention of the dance connoisseurs, in the Dongtou people's ardent hope, "Shell Dance" was finally on the stage of literature and art in Beijing, the capital city. 1959, at the end of July, the Ministry of Culture of the eight provinces and autonomous regions sponsored by the music and dance performance in Beijing, from Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Xinjiang, Tibet, Fujian, Anhui performers performed three 56 excellent programs, "Shell Dance" shone! The Shell Dance was a great success. Dance" magazine reported the performance in September of that year, published a signed article entitled "inheritance and development - eight provinces and autonomous regions to report on the performance of the perception", the full text of less than 5,000 words, but nearly two-fifths of the length of the review of the "Shell Dance", that the success of this dance, dance practitioners worth studying the example. Shell Dance" returned with honors, and since then it has become a reserved program of Dongtou County Literary and Artistic Performances. 1960 June Chinese People's Liberation Army held a joint exercise of the three armies in Dongtou, and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the liberation of Dongtou in January 1962, and there were "Shell Dance" on the Literary and Artistic Evening of these major events. Survival in Heritage Protection The Shell Dance has come to us with the accumulation of more than 200 years of marine folk culture. Starting from the mid-1950s, it has passed through splendor, confinement and silence. During the period, as the census results of the seven integration of folk arts and culture, the county cultural center to collect the "shell dance" data into the "Chinese folk dance integration - Zhejiang Wenzhou volume". 1997, the Ministry of Culture of the compilation of folk dance as a national art science "Ninth Five-Year Plan" planning key projects of the task handed down, "Chinese Dance - Zhejiang Volume" compiled and published, "Chinese Dance - Zhejiang Volume" compiled and published, "Chinese Dance - Zhejiang Volume" compiled and published, "Chinese Dance - Zhejiang Volume" compiled and published. Zhejiang Volume" was compiled and published, "Shell Dance" is listed among them. In July 1997, dongtou county held the first "fisherman's paradise" folk style tourism festival, "shell dance" is listed as the preferred program. County cultural departments to overcome the difficulties of rearranging, in the form of square dance performances, so that she reappeared in the past, won the appreciation of the majority of tourists. In all levels of government vigorously advocate the protection of national folk cultural heritage today, "Shell Dance" is lucky. 2003, by the county declared that she was listed as the national folk art protection project in Zhejiang Province. Now in Dongtou, some large-scale folk celebrations, cultural evenings, and can see the "shell dance" performance, beautiful posture is not reduced. Protection of "shell dance", but also to protect the island a number of folk art: shell props are folk craft production, its materials from gabion to lead wire, from papier-maché to cloth bandage, from the external candle lighting to the internal flash device ...... people's aesthetic concepts of the update, the promotion of the development of folk craft production. Dance accompaniment belongs to folk music, the use of its instruments from pure folk music to the addition of Western instruments, from only dance accompaniment to become an independent instrumental ensemble song ...... The development with the times has greatly benefited the sister arts. Preserving the Shell Dance also protects the fine tradition of learning and inheriting excellent folk culture. Island literary workers from the "Shell Dance" in the success of the experience of inspiration, efforts to absorb nutrients from the marine folk culture, adapted, created a number of unique characteristics of the marine arts and cultural works, music and dance alone, farther away from the "Jelly Fish Dance", "catching sharks", "Laundry Dance", "full return conch ringing", etc.; closer to home, there are based on the custom of fishermen going to sea to strengthen the wine to create a dance "send the wind", based on marine folk legends adapted from the "boat wind", to the sea to the sea, to the sea, to the sea. ", to marine folklore adapted dance "Dragon Palace treasure", "daughter reef"; there are also songs "fishing song", "quit gambling ballad" and so on. These programs, in the provincial and municipal performances have notable achievements.