Li Zonglin: 10 years of rushing to help the dance won the national intangible cultural heritage

Source: Taiwan Straits Network

Li Zonglin. Courtesy of respondents

Initiated the establishment of Fuqing Lida kong Society to inherit the dance

According to the Fuzhou Evening News on June 15, on the morning of the 12th, in the main venue of the 2021 "Cultural and Natural Heritage Day" in Fuzhou City, 52-year-old Li Zonglin, as the representative inheritor of the Fuqing Dance, which has just been selected into the national intangible cultural heritage list, accepted a 300,000 yuan bonus awarded by the Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism to the project inheritance and development.

In his early years, Li Zonglin operated travel agencies and interprovincial bus passenger transport in Fuzhou and Fuqing, and in 2003, he was involved in import and export trade, and set up an import and export company headquarters in the Netherlands.

During his visit to Fuqing in early 2011, Li Zonglin became acquainted with Jiang Yizi, a scholar of Confucius in Taiwan. Jiang Yizi told him that Lile was the core carrier of Kongxue culture, and the Dance was the jewel in the crown of Lile, and the Taipei Dance was passed down from Fuzhou. After hearing this, Li Zonglin decided to stay in Fuqing to study and inherit the dance.

At the beginning of 2012, Li Zonglin initiated the establishment of the Fuqing Lidakong Society, focusing on the inheritance of dance. His wife and children also returned to Fuqing from the Netherlands and joined the ranks of the Dance Tradition.

Introduced by Jiang Yizi, since July 2012, Zhuang Wenhuan, the sixth generation of Taipei's nongwundier, has often used his weekend time to teach Li Zonglin the theory and skills of the "Three Gifts", as well as the dance scores, atlases and "Da Sheng Le" music scores in the Pangong Lile Complete Book.

Through the efforts of Li Zonglin, in 2014, the dance was included in the list of intangible cultural heritage in Fuqing City. The Fuqing Municipal Government launched the Dance Protection Program and helped solve the problems of costumes and props of the Dance Display Team through special financial funds.

In 2016 and 2018, Hewu was successively selected into the municipal and provincial intangible cultural heritage lists, and in July 2019, it was included in the fifth batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists recommended by the provincial government.

In the past 10 years, Li Zonglin and the Rieter Kong Society have invested more than 4 million yuan in the inheritance of the dance. He said that passing on the dance is a matter of spending money without making money, but it is a heritage culture, which is very meaningful.

Li Zonglin said that nowadays, as an excellent carrier of traditional Chinese culture, the dance has become a practical course of "five educations" in the school, more than 20 schools in Fuqing have been promoting, and the Experimental Primary School in Gulou District of Fuzhou has also joined the ranks of carrying out dance training.

"Prosperous liturgical music, shared by the people" is Li Zonglin's ideal positioning for the dance. He looks forward to having a venue in Fuzhou City, where as soon as the monthly and seasonal orders arrive, they will fully display the rich cultural connotation of the dance through the combination of online presentation and offline experience, so that more people can experience the charm of ancient ritual music. (Fuzhou Evening News reporter Zhang Xuyang)