Looking for the scene of the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance Performance in Ziying Village Information picture
◀ Wang Haibin holds a fish lamp
□ reporter Xing Xiaorui text/photo
On November 5, in The Village of Ziying in Tieshan Street, Wugang City, 82-year-old Wang Haibin held a fish lamp in his hand, danced his body, sometimes bent over, sometimes stepped forward, like a fish swimming and playing, which was praised by people one after another. The Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance displayed by the old man is a folk traditional dance written and created by the villagers themselves, which originated from the Qing Dynasty and originated from the folk, and has a history of nearly 300 years.
The Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance has a strong local atmosphere and vitality, and is known as the most wonderful, local flavor, and most vivid and touching form of artistic expression in folk performing arts. On May 22, 2008, the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance in Zhaziying Village was included in the second batch of Henan Province's Intangible Cultural Heritage List, and Wang Haibin became a non-hereditary inheritor.
Do not change the original intention: love fish lamp 70 years
On the morning of November 5, the reporter and his party had just arrived at The Tieshan Street of Wugang City to find Ziying Village, and Wang Haibin greeted them with a smile. Although he is over eighty years old, he does not have flowers in his eyes and ears, and when he talks about the fish lantern flower dance, his eyes are glowing and gushing endlessly.
The Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance Performance is a dance created by local villagers to celebrate the harvest, sing the praises of prosperity, pray for the New Year, and create their own dances according to the scene of the fish playing and swimming in the river, commonly known as the "Play Club". Every year after the 20th lunar month, the villagers begin to prepare and perform around the Spring Festival.
"All the fish lamps and bronze utensils used in the 'Play Club' have been placed here, and in the past two years, because of the epidemic, they have only been shown to the children in the village, and they have not been performed outside." Wang Haibin led the reporter and his party into the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance Training Center, only to see that there were 4 large drums next to the wall in the house, several pairs of cymbals and cymbals next to them, and dozens of brightly colored fish lamps and performance costumes were stacked on the tables and shelves, filling the small rooms.
Wang Haibin said that when he was eleven or twelve years old, he began to follow the older generation to the countryside and dance fish lanterns. In the past, the 'play club' was very popular, with dancers as few as 10 people and as many as 30 people, each holding a fish lamp, lined up in two teams, and when there were many people, the hundred and ten people performed together, the gongs and drums were noisy, and the formation was huge, attracting the masses of the eight villages in ten miles to watch.
Wang Haibin introduced that the fish lamp is brightly colored, the fish lamp is yellow, and the rest of the fish lamps are big red. The accompanying instruments of the Fish Lantern Flower Dance include the big drum, cymbals, cymbals, etc., and the drum beats used in the performance are mostly "three hundred hammers". "From the beginning of the drumming performance to the end, the drummer hits a total of 300 times, and it is not enough to do more or less." Wang Haibin said that this kind of drum beat is magnificent, sonorous and powerful, passionate and unrestrained, which is particularly suitable for group dance, and can also best express the joyful mood of song and dance, rising to the prosperity of the world, and the harvest of grain and the harvest of the year. In addition, the dance team can also conjure up pomegranate flowers, figure-eight shapes, lotus flowers and other formations.
Dancing fish lanterns is not an easy task, a dance down, to take an hour, the dancers sweaty, tired and sore arms. In the village, from the fifth dance of the Chinese New Year to the fifteenth day of the first month, Wang Haibin must go to almost every scene. "The people who dance the lanterns don't want anything, the lord's family gives some fruits and other gifts, and everyone has a share, and the picture is happy." When he was young, he often held the "Aoyu" dance as the "head of the society" in front of the team, with a lively dance posture and a flexible performance, bringing countless laughter to the audience.
The charm is undiminished: it has been passed down for nearly 300 years
Playing with flower lanterns and singing is a folk activity widely spread in China during the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, and the fish lantern takes the harmonic sound of "auspicious celebration and more than enough". In the "Qingyu Case • New Year's Eve" written by Xin Shuyi in the Song Dynasty, there is a description of "the sound of the phoenix, the light of the jade pot, and the dance of the fish and dragon in one night", which depicts the lively scene of the Lantern Night.
Wang Haibin is still alone, but his love for the fish lantern flower society dance has never changed. As the 10th generation of the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance, he not only led the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance to the CCTV 2018 "Legendary Chinese Festival" Spring Festival Gala Live Broadcast Program, but also established the "Wugang City Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance Training Institute" in the village, teaching the children and young people in the village to learn the fish lantern flower society dance performance skills every year.
It is impossible to verify when the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance in Ziying Village was specifically developed. Ms. Dong, director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center of Wugang City, said that the Yu lantern flower society dance is self-written and created by local farmers, and it can be passed on by word of mouth.
"Thanks to Dade, auspicious celebration, this is the meaning of the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance." Wang Haibin excitedly told the legend of the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance. It was during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, and there was no rain in The village of Zhaoziying for nearly a winter, the ground was cracked and withered, and the villagers' drinking water became a problem. The ancestor of the local Wang clan summoned the clan to discuss the worship of the Dragon King and pray for Ganlin. The night before he went to ask for rain, the ancestor of the Wang clan had a strange dream, dreaming that a god with a dragon's head and a fish tail said to him: "I am the third prince of the Dragon King of the East Sea, my name is called Ao, the Dragon King knows the drought, send me to come with rain clouds, tomorrow the villagers do not have to pray for rain, there is a Ganlin coming." "After saying that, I was gone. The ancestor surnamed Wang was suspicious, and just when everyone was carrying the sacrifice to pray for rain, suddenly lightning flashed and thundered, and the heavy rain came in an instant, and the villagers cheered and cheered. From this year on, the Qianlong Emperor ordered that the peasants' taxes be reduced. The ancestor surnamed Wang was full of gratitude, made a fish lamp according to the appearance of the fish in the dream, and led the villagers to dance around the water, in order to thank the Dragon King for his kindness, but also to express his gratitude to the prosperity of the world. Later, whenever there was a drought or flood disaster or a New Year's festival, the villagers of Zhaoziying Village danced fish lanterns and danced their own choreographed dances, one to pray for rain and blessings, and the other to enliven the festive atmosphere and add festive joy. Gradually, the Fish Lantern Flower Dance was passed down.
Tian Chunyu, a 59-year-old villager who is good at making fish lamps, said with his own fish lamp: "After the fish lamp is tied into a skeleton with a bamboo stick, the fish body is woven with bamboo, and the fish head, fish body and tail are connected and formed with thin wire." When weaving the fish body, we should pay attention to the symmetry between the left and right, otherwise the size of the fish belly is uneven, and it is not good. "Tian Chunyu and his wife Cao Aili usually work together to make fish lamps, he tied the frame of the fish lamp, and his wife took over to use colored satin to open its surface, and then painted the fish eyes, mouth, scales and tail with colored paper or spray paint, and made up to two or three fish lamps a day.
"The fish lamp is divided into three sections: head, body and tail, and these three sections can be moved." Tian Chunyu said that a wooden stick about 1 meter long is fixed under the belly of the fish, and the performer dances with the stick, and the fish will shake its head and tail, as if swimming in the air.
Passing on the Torch: Traditional Intangible Cultural Heritage Shines Brightly
With the unremitting efforts of Wang Haibin, Tian Chunyu and others, the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance is also advancing with the times. In the past, there were wax tables in the belly of the fish, which were installed with sheep's oil wax at night for performance, and now the batteries and light bulbs are installed, and the performance is more convenient; in the past, the lights were pasted with colored paper, and now they are made of colored silk, which looks more beautiful; the fish lantern performance patterns are also constantly innovating, they have ingeniously designed the "thousand hand fish" and "butterfly fish" and other styles, and are also ready to design "carp pond" and other stunt performances to bring the audience a better visual enjoyment.
In the previous folk art performance competitions in Pingdingshan City, the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance has frequently won awards. In 2018, the Dance Performance Team of the Fish Lantern Flower Society participated in the live broadcast of the four sets of CCTV Chinese New Year's Eve "Legendary Chinese Festival" dance steel, spreading ancient folk art in all directions. In 2020, the vibrato video "Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance" produced by the Pingdingshan Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism won the first prize of the Pingdingshan Intangible Cultural Heritage Micro Video Competition of "Enjoy the Pingdingshan Intangible Cultural Heritage".
How to better pass on the precious intangible cultural heritage wealth? Wang Haibin said solemnly, "We are all old, and we must quickly cultivate a group of young people." What makes him anxious is that most of today's young people go out to work and didn't come home until a few years ago, and his desire to form a fish lantern and flower dance team in the village will not be realized until the New Year.
To the old man's relief, the villagers are very fond of the Fish Lantern Flower Club Dance and are proud that there are such intangible cultural heritage projects in the village. "Children also like it, and sometimes they will make some small fish lamps for the children to play with." Tian Chunyu said.
In addition to the innovative Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance, Wang Haibin teaches the children in the village to learn the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance in his spare time, sowing the seeds of inheritance in the hearts of young people. Today, 9-year-old Wang Leilei, 14-year-old Tian Peipei and others can perform the Fish Lantern Flower Club Dance like a decent.
In recent years, the Wugang Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism and the Wugang Intangible Cultural Heritage Center have also spared no effort to protect the Fish Lantern Flower Dance, and applied for financial support to promote the better inheritance of the Fish Lantern Flower Dance.
On November 4th, the Maigang Intangible Cultural Heritage Center once again held a seminar on the dance of the Fish Lantern Flower Society. "In the next step, we are ready to upgrade and renovate the Maigang City Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance Transmission Center, and establish a Dance Heritage Base for the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance in Wugang City near the Primary School near The Search Camp." Ms. Dong said that they are also preparing to update the performance equipment, costumes, fish lantern dance equipment, etc., and invite dance experts from Wugang City to conduct on-site guidance and lectures, so that the Dance of the Fish Lantern Flower Society can be connected with the aesthetics of the times; they are ready to establish a fish lamp dance production base in The Village of Zhaoziying, Tieshan Street, Wugang City, for use in performances and training; and prepare to record online classes or micro-videos of the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance and promote it on the Internet. "We will also hold a fish lantern dance training class to train 20 inheritors of the fish lantern flower club dance performance and dance equipment, so that the traditional fish lantern making technique can be inherited, and it can be used for practice and performance."
Listening to Ms. Dong talk about the planning of the inheritance and promotion of the Fish Lantern Flower Society Dance, Wang Haibin's face appeared with a smile and his eyes flashed with excitement. "The things left by the ancestors cannot be lost, and it is my greatest wish to pass on the Fish Lantern Flower Dance!"
【Source: Pingdingshan Evening News】
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