What folk song is a genre of folk dance popularized by tea picking songs throughout the south of China

The answer is tea-picking opera!

The so-called tea-collecting opera is a category of opera popular in Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and other provinces and regions. In the provinces, each also popular in different areas, and the name of the place to distinguish. Such as Guangdong's "Yuebei tea-picking opera", Hubei's "Yangxin tea-picking opera", "Huangmei tea-picking opera", "Herb Spring tea-picking opera "and so on. This kind of theater, especially in Jiangxi is more common, more types of plays. Such as Jiangxi tea-picking opera, that is, there are "Gannan tea-picking opera", "Fuzhou tea-picking opera", "Nanchang tea-picking opera", "Gao'an tea-picking opera "Gannan Tea-picking Opera", "Fuzhou Tea-picking Opera", "Nanchang Tea-picking Opera", "Ga'an Tea-picking Opera", "Wuning Tea-picking Opera", "Gandong Tea-picking Opera", "Ji'an Tea-picking Opera", "Jingdezhen Tea-picking Opera "Ningdu Tea Casting Opera" and so on. These plays, although many names, but the time of their formation, roughly in the mid-Qing Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in this stage.

Jiangxi tea-picking opera, mainly originated in Gannan Xinfeng, Anyuan area, tea-picking opera and tea production. Ming Dynasty, Gannan, Gandong, Gannan tea area every rainy season, working women go to the mountains, while picking tea while singing songs to inspire the enthusiasm for labor, the songs circulated in the tea area, known as "tea-picking songs". This kind of song is called "Tea Picking Song". It is developed by the folk tea picking song and singing of tea picking lamps, and then it becomes a kind of folk opera with characters and storylines, which is also known as "Triangle Class" because it usually has only two dans and one clown, or the performances of the three persons of the student, the dan, and the clown. After the formation of Gannan Tea Casting Opera, it was developed outward in several ways, fused with local dialects and tunes to form five major genres of Gandong, West, South, North and Central, with different local cadences in each genre. The general characteristics of Jiangxi tea-picking opera are: cheerful performance, witty and funny, singing and dancing, strong comedy, rich in rich local flavor, quite popular with the masses.