The soaring road of Tongliang Dragon Dance

The Daoguang edition of Tongliang County Chronicle in the Qing Dynasty recorded the grand occasion of dragon dancing: "From August 9 to 15, the Lantern Festival in Shangyuan was splendid, with dragon lanterns, lion lanterns and other zaju, which caused a storm in the city. There was a view that people were chased by the moon and the dust followed the horse. " According to historical records, the dragon lanterns in Tongliang attracted businessmen from Bishan, Yongchuan, Rongchang, Dazu, Tongnan, Hechuan, Shangchuan East and Xiaochuan North to visit Tongliang. Every dragon dance in the first month, the county hotels are full and the streets are blocked. The slang of "worshipping Buddha with big feet and watching the lights with bronze beams" spread all over the Bayu River.

Li Mingzhong, a staff member of the County Wenguang New Bureau, said that Tongliang has the traditional custom of dancing dragons in the first month. Dragon dance is often hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, with the participation of gangs, and the Dragon Lantern Festival is also competitive. The level of tying, the number of dragon dancers and the level of dragon dancing are all competition subjects. The props of participating gangs reflect their respective industry characteristics, such as "Three Dragons" danced by fishermen, "Fire Dragons Celebrating the New Year" played by the iron industry, "Three flavors with a clam" played by Buddhists, "Eighteen bachelors" played in education, "Jumping Fish in Longmen", colorful dragons danced by department stores, "Two Dragons Playing with pearls", "Pigs Eating Pumpkins" and "Rhinos Watching the Moon" played by butchers. Year after year, many famous artists such as Liu Lianshan and Li Jiezhi have emerged in Tongliang, and more than 20 classic categories of Tongliang Dragon Lantern have been accumulated.

However, in the more than 20 years after the founding of New China, the dragon lantern was pulled out as a poisonous weed of feudal superstition, and the skill of tying and dancing dragons was almost lost.

Chongqing Tongliang Fire Dragon was crowned as the first dragon dance. This dance uses molten iron to beat golden flowers, supplemented by different materials such as guiding fire, mouth fire, ridge fire, belly fire, field fire and rising fire. , forming a fanatical three-dimensional fire array, extremely warm and colorful. Every Lantern Festival, people have the money to pay, and go to great lengths to buy gunpowder, make fire dragons, and match them with flame performances such as cigarette stands and Yumen. The longest fire dragon is more than 40 meters long, and its performance is spectacular and thrilling, especially favored by the masses. First of all, it has a unique flavor and varied routines. Interwoven sparks, exploding firecrackers, violent knocking and strong local flavor have fully mobilized people's enthusiasm for watching. Secondly, it is close to the taste of Han folk life. Dragon dancers are shirtless, struggling forward and full of masculinity, which reflects people's love for hot life. Then there is folklore that burning dragons and striking fire to attack people can get rid of bad luck, and the next year can eliminate disasters and avoid disasters, and everything goes well. The bigger the spark, the louder the firecrackers, and the more interested the dragon dancers and the dragon watchers will be.

Dragon dance in Tongliang has the characteristics of close connection with local Han folk activities, rich routines and humorous movements. The accompaniment music is unique, the props are cleverly conceived, the modeling is exaggerated, the costumes are simple and generous, the dancers are free to participate, it is convenient to quit dancing, and the mass participation is high. Dragon Dance on Tongliang embodies the spirit of unity, benefiting mankind, striving for progress and harmony with the sky, and has social functions such as entertaining gods and people and showing strength. Only a few species, such as creeping dragon and fire dragon, are famous in the world, and most of them are in an endangered state, which needs to be protected and saved urgently.

The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 20th, 2006, Tongliang Dragon Dance was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list. On June 8, 2007, the Tongliang Dragon Dance Performance Team of Chongqing Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center won the first Cultural Heritage Day Award from the Ministry of Culture. The exquisite production and wonderful dancing skills of Tongliang Dragon Dance are inseparable from several old artists and Tongliang people who love this sport. "Even if there are hundreds of dragons, dragons with bronze beams, we can recognize them at a glance!" As soon as they met, Zong, director of Tongliang County Cultural Center, told reporters. I thought it was just an exaggeration, but after reading dozens of photos, the reporter found it to be true. Take the faucet as an example. Dragons in other places have their mouths half open and half closed. Only Tongliang Longkou is nearly 90 degrees open, with a treasure in its mouth and a dignified and kind face. The magnificent red and yellow dragon body of the big creeping dragon is 48 meters long, and the big one is more than 100 meters long, which is much larger than the dragons in other places. Fire dragons and competitive dragons are also more exquisite than dragons in other places. Speaking of it, the development of Tongliang Dragon today is inseparable from the efforts of three old people-Jiang Yulin, Zhou Junan and Fu Quantai. They are the representatives of Tongliang dragon system in the 1980s. Unfortunately, only Fu Quantai is still alive today, and he is also the inheritor of the intangible cultural heritage of Tongliang Dragon.

"Jiang Yulin has a solid foundation and pays attention to materials. His dragon skeleton is the best. It's a pity that his son failed to learn the craft. After his death, his craft was lost. Zhou Junan has tied dragons since elementary school, and his dragon is fine. After his death, his descendants inherited his craft. "Fu Quantai, 75, recalled his colleagues and explained in detail the changes in the process of making Tonglianglong ties." At the beginning of the founding of New China, there were paper shops in the county town. Papermakers usually made paper products for sacrifice and tied dragons during the Chinese New Year. At that time, Tongliang Dragon only tied a faucet, and the dragon body was tied together with a rope and a wooden stick, emphasizing the spirit likeness. Slowly, the paper makers began to kidnap the children with bamboo strips, put cotton paper on the outside, and then painted scales and dragon fins with pigments, which became a complete dragon. The colors are mostly red, yellow and blue, which makes Tonglianglong have an ancient and generous temperament. "

Fu Quantai still remembers that when he was a child, he went to see the examination paper as soon as school was over. It is this hobby that made him give up his job as a middle school teacher and embark on the road of paper-bound artists. 1986, Fu Quantai founded the first individual Zhalong factory in the county-Tongliang Anju Paper Binding Technology Factory. With his own workshop, Fu Quantai figured it out: The original Longkou was empty without treasures, but if there were treasures, the Longkou would have to be bigger to look good. In this way, Tongliang Longkou has become a big mouth of nearly 90 degrees today; It turned out that the dragon body was made of cotton paper, which was easy to be damaged, so he tried to paste it with gauze, which was not good-looking, and finally found it.

Nylon yarn is beautiful and strong.

Dragon's horns and tongue are curved. Originally, the shelf made of roasted bamboo will be straight after a long time, so Fu Quantai came up with the idea of bending it with lead wire and wrapping it with cotton paper, which has good adhesion ... Little by little, Tong Lianglong finally appeared today. Fu Quantai's transformation of Tongliang Dragon was also summarized as "Ten Improvements of Tongliang Dragon Technology". "jiande city, Zhejiang Province, once bought a dragon and planned to study imitation. Unexpectedly, after the faucet was removed, it could not be restored. I still have to come to Tongliang to buy dragons every year. " Fu Quantai said proudly. The dragon dance in Tongliang is not only beautifully made, but also gorgeous and changeable. There are many dragon dances in Tongliang, far exceeding other provinces and cities. Yu Deqiang is a recognized dragon culture expert in the county. In his view, the dragon dance of Tongliang was very particular from the beginning. "First of all, the dragon came out of the cave, marking the beginning of spring, and the dragon was going to heaven; Second, spit beard. Shake your beard when the dragon comes out, just like people have to dress up before going out. Three nods', nodding with people around you, telling everyone that spring is here, everything is recovering, and it's time to get up and work; Worship the Quartet' wanders around, just like people visiting relatives and friends. "

The early dragon dance in Tongliang was much simpler. "Looking at the ancestors dancing dragons, dragons will only fall on both sides, left and right, and follow the dragon balls just to watch the excitement." Yu Deqiang recalled. Dragon Dance in Tongliang 1 * * *, at present, there are more than 30 routines, such as two dragons playing beads, peacock displaying screen, crossing the sea with eight immortals, dragon and phoenix becoming auspicious, etc ... These routines are formulated by invited old dragon dancers and experts in the dance field. Tonglianglong participated in the parade and performance of 1984 and 1999 on the 35th and 50th anniversary of the National Day, respectively, because of its exquisite production and exquisite dancing skills. Tongliang Dragon was also designated as the standard dragon tool of competitive dragon by the State Sports Commission at that time, and Tongliang Dragon Dance became the standard routine. Tong Lianglong's last appearance was a performance before the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Nine specially-made giant crawling dragons with bronze beams are jumping and tumbling in the "Bird's Nest", which is particularly eye-catching. Tong Lianglong not only showed off in China, but also was invited to perform in Japan, France, the United States, Canada, Southeast Asia, Arabia and other countries and regions. Wherever he went, there was a wave of dragon dancing.

Let the traditional dragon culture go global.

In the debate between adhering to tradition and adapting to the market, Tongliang made every effort to create dragon culture and embarked on the road of marketization. Fu Quantai has not been a dragon for some time. "Only foreigners from the county came to buy dragons and introduced them to me." In 20 12, he only tied two dragons, one for Canada and the other for America. After Zhou Junan's death, his son and grandson opened three Zhalong factories in the county, of which Zhou Heping was the best. Zhou Heping's company is located in Tongliang County, a two-story building. On the first floor, three workers are busy tying the faucet, sewing the dragon body and sticking the dragon ball. The dragon they tied is very different from the traditional craft. The biggest change is to change manual coloring to direct painting on nylon cloth. They carved their own plates and sprayed them with a spray gun, which could form different scales on the dragon's abdomen and body. Then, people draw and sew gold coins by hand. "It is fast, economical and brightly colored." The faucet is still hand-made and colored, but it has also been improved, such as the tongue and dragon horn filled with foam, "full and light." Zhou Heping said, "We often make improvements according to customers' needs. Like the dragon used in the Beijing Olympic Games, it looks elegant in order to increase its length and reduce its weight. We used breathable mesh cloth and changed bamboo strips into steel wires and rubber hoses, so that the original 30 kg dragon is only about 7 kg now. " The dragon made in Zhou Jia is light and beautiful, and can be customized according to customers' needs, so it is naturally more popular. "Look at the dragon dance photos posted in this building. I made them all." Zhou Heping said. Some photos were taken in the "Bird's Nest" during the Beijing Olympic Games. The latest one is a photo of Zhou Heping wearing a dragon suit with the Lord Mayor of London, England. Not only dragon tools, but also paper-tied lamps in Chongqing are basically from this factory, with annual sales of more than 2 million yuan. Uncle Zhou's other two factories also have annual sales of nearly one million yuan. Together, the county's Dragon Lantern Factory has an annual sales income of more than 6 million yuan. Tongliang dragon, represented by Zhou brothers, has embarked on the road of marketization in the past two years. The first to benefit is the dragon dancers.

It's interesting to listen to people who dance dragons chatting. On weekdays, it is more common to "catch up" in the north and south. Li Shimin proudly said, "I have basically traveled all over the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities." He hasn't spent the Spring Festival at home for many years. "At the feast, it is the time for the most dragon dance activities. Dancing for 80 yuan a day, plus performances and 40 yuan, can make a lot of money. " Since the Spring Festival, Li Shimin has earned more than 4,000 yuan just by dancing dragons. At present, Tongliang County has established large and small dragon dance companies 12. There are more than 20 dragon dance teams performing commercial performances all the year round, with nearly 1,000 dragon dance players, and the annual performance income is about 30 million yuan. Gaolou Town set up a high-rise fire dragon culture communication company, which is responsible for the fire dragon performance. In 20 12 years, the labor income was more than 6 million yuan. The town also bought a small truck, sprayed it with "dragon" and started a live advertisement, which was dubbed "dragon car".

Tongliang county is also known as the "hometown of dragons" because of dragon dancing. How to turn popularity into economic benefits, the county has made great efforts. In 2007, the county issued the "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Dragon Culture Industry", which clearly stated that "Dragon Culture Tourism Capital" should be regarded as the future development orientation of Tongliang. "The Dragon Culture Museum was built in the county, and the musical" Long Xiang Singing "was created. A Dragon Lantern Art Festival will also be held to promote dragon dancing into campus activities. " Zong He Yun said, "We just want the dragon element to penetrate into the lives of Tongliang people and become a breathing intangible cultural heritage."