On the fifteenth day of the first month, stilts are stepped
——"Smart Jinan" series of essays no. 19
Author/Li Zhensheng
Stilt walking is a unique dance art in mainland China, and many places have the custom of stepping on stilts on the fifteenth day of the first month, but if you talk about skills, appearance, style, and kung fu, jinan's stilt performance level is definitely first-class. Jinan's stilts are good because it is particularly popular, no matter the suburbs and suburbs almost all villages have stilt teams, everyone will step on stilts, every year into the waxing moon, the stilt teams of each village will automatically resurrect, people will seal the props that have been sealed for a year to take out and scrub clean, knock up gongs and drums to play a cheer and rehearse happily. As long as the people in the city hear the gongs, drums or screams coming from afar, they know that the year is coming.
The most authentic day of stilt performance is the fifteenth day of the first month, this day is the Lantern Festival, also known as the Shangyuan Festival, is the first full moon day at the beginning of the new year, people set this day as a festival, is looking forward to life in the new year as full as a full moon, career as complete as a full moon, mood as bright as a full moon, family harmony as perfect as a full moon. However, unlike other festivals, the Lantern Festival is not quiet, so from ancient times to the present, there is such a saying as "Noisy Lantern Festival", a "noisy" word, which tells the fiery atmosphere of the Lantern Festival and the ecstatic and happy mood of people.
As for the form of "making trouble", that is even more. For example, social fires, running dry boats, driving donkeys, twisting songs, playing lions, and dancing dragon lanterns, these traditional programs that are popular all over the country are in Jinan, but the old Jinan people like and are best at it, or step on stilts. It seems that there is a kind of talent, the children of the stilt towns around Jinan, as long as they reach the age of playing horseback and fighting, have learned to step on stilts early, and they can rush to the ground and run wildly on stilts. It is precisely because of such a deep mass base that the stunt stunts have never been lost in Jinan, and have always been the most popular, stunning, crazy and dazzling reserved program of the Lantern Festival.
In fact, there is no need to wait until the fifteenth, as long as the old Jinan people finish the etiquette procedures of the first day of worshiping their parents and the second year of worshipping their fathers, the surrounding stilt teams will successively pour into the urban area to start the tour, and the fifteenth day of the first month has only reached a climax. No matter where this time goes, it is crowded and lively, especially through the main streets such as Shi Road, Beiyuan Road, Dawei 2nd Road, etc., there are many stilt teams shuttling back and forth every day, the performers dress up as Sun Wukong, Pig Eight Commandments, Lame Li, He Xiangu, Zhang Sheng, Red Lady, Green Snake, White Snake and other characters, holding gold hoop sticks, wine gourds, large tobacco bags, banana fans and other corresponding props, pedaling one or two meters of stilts to do all kinds of strange and difficult actions, such as flying in the sky, dancing in the sky, The tall buildings on both sides were suddenly half short.
Even more lively than this was the crowd of onlookers, many of whom were pouring out of their nests, with the granddaughter-in-law supporting the grandmother, the mother-in-law leading the eldest granddaughter, the young man carrying the fat boy, the fat boy holding the sugar gourd, and the stilt team followed wherever the people went, encircling the spacious road. Fortunately, in the early years of Jinan, there were not many cars, even if there were cars, they would consciously detour, and everyone knew that carnival was the main theme of the fifteenth day of the first month, and everything had to make way for joy.
If two or several stilt teams meet together, it's time to open your eyes. At the beginning, the teams were still more polite in crepe, holding their fists to greet each other, playing the round field without hurrying, only those matchmakers, JiGong, Eight Precepts and other kinds of clowns such as Secko were scurrying around the scene, which made people laugh uncontrollably. But before long, the atmosphere felt wrong, as if the teams had suddenly exchanged battle books, and the field was pulled to the point of the needle against The Wheat Mangdi was more intense. Listening to the drum beats is not as steady as before, but the machine gun fire is like a burst of tight, so urgent that people can't breathe. There was also a whistle blowing a small song, first there was no melody, then there was no way to find the key, and then it was just a straight tone. In the deafening sound of gongs and drums, each of them exerted their own solutions and showed the unique skills of each family, this side "exploring the sea on one leg", that side "scorpion climbing holes"; this side "Wolong stranding pillar", that side "fierce tiger up the mountain"; this side "harrier turned over", that side "carp stiffened"; this side "jumped double stool", that side "big fork"; this side "crossed the immortal bridge", that side "stacked Arhat". Obediently, you see those brave stilt team members, first carefully stacked up layer by layer, and then stood up straight, trembling and standing upright, when this three-dimensional pyramid, which was supported by people and wooden sticks and was four stories high, towered in front of the audience, people's eyes were also straight, their faces were yellow, and the heart that mentioned the throat eye could not go down, and stood there stupidly, not even shouting "good".
Nowadays, with the rapid improvement of material, cultural and spiritual life, the taste of the year in various places is getting weaker and weaker. However, the popularity of Jinan people's stilts in the New Year has not diminished at all. Why? Please listen to a new song from Jinan: "On the fifteenth day of the first month, on stilts, the new wind blows in the spring and comes early." Stilts a step on the blessing to, step by step to ascend the year is good! ”
【About the author】Li Zhensheng (male), a member of the Chinese Prose Literature Association, a member of the Shandong Writers Association, a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Association, and a member of the Shandong Old Cadres Poetry Society, worked for the Shandong Provincial Department of Finance before retirement, and served as a member of the party group and the head of the discipline inspection team.