The Hmong have a long history.
The main types of Miao "drums and drums" are concentrated in the western part of Hunan Province, Guizhou Province
Miao dance "Walking on the Miao Mountain"
Southeast of the watershed area of the Qingshui River.
The Miao "Wooden Drum Dance" of Qiandongnan is a form of "drum dance" for the large-scale festival of "Eating Gul", which used to be held only once every 13 years. During the festival, men and women danced for three days and were drunk all night long, without sleep or food.
The "flower drum dance" is a popular event for the Miao people in Phoenix, Baojing and Huayuan counties in Hunan Province to celebrate the "June 6", "August 8" and "Summer" festivals of the lunar calendar. Catch summer" "catching the fall" and other traditional festivals, there must be self-indulgent dance. At that time, in the center of the square where the event is held, a big drum is set up which is beaten by three people. Two people hold double mallets to beat the drum skin, and one person holds a single mallet to beat the drum, and there is no limitation on the number of people and men and women who can participate in the collective dance. Before the dance, the drummers sing in their own language about the merits of the inventor of the wooden drum as a tribute to their ancestors. Then, the people dance in a circle around the drum to the beat of the drum. The basic dance movements of the dancers are mostly simulations of various kinds of life movements, with some martial arts elements added to make the dance movements soft and strong. The "Flower Encouragement Dance" is characterized by two drummers who perform a variety of symmetrical dance postures while spinning, flipping or jumping, and at the same time, play a harmonious and unified drum music.
The Miao folk dance "Monkey Drums" is a male performance dance in which three or more people simulate the various habits of monkeys and drumming postures. During the performance, one drummer beats the drum behind the drum, and the other drum faces the dancers who wear monkey costumes and draw monkey faces. Most of the dance movements simulate monkeys gnawing and eating the buds, swinging, looking at the drum, testing the drum, frightening the drum, playing with each other, etc. The dancers playing the monkeys can use boxing to play the drums. Dancers playing the role of monkeys can hit the drum with their fists or mallets. The whole "drum dance" is not only funny, enthusiastic, highly technical, but also has a certain dramatic plot.
Miao dance
Miao folk self-indulgence of "stepping on the drum", is the annual festival, festive gatherings, especially in March of the lunar calendar, "Sisters Festival", the essential women's "encouragement". During the dance, a young girl walks into the field while singing, and then continues to sing and beat the drum to accompany her. The lyrics of the song are basically a call to arms, such as "Sisters, don't miss the opportunity, come and dance". Afterwards, many dressed Hmong sisters gather around the drum set and face the drums to dance to the rhythm. At the climax of the dance, the periphery of the audience of men, women and children can also enter the dance, forming a number of layers of concentric circles *** with the dance. Dance movement is free, cheerful, sometimes there are two legs trembling and drive the whole body characteristics.
Popular in Qiandongnan "anti-row wooden drum dance", has become a representative of the Miao festivals and celebrations as well as visits to other countries, by neighboring friends known as the "Oriental Disco".
After the founding of New China, on the basis of a variety of self-indulgent and performative "drums and dances" of the Miao, people created the "four drums and dances" which were danced by four people at the same time. This kind of "drum and dance" has been spreading in Fenghuang County in western Hunan Province and Songtao County in Guizhou Province, where the Miao people live. The dance is open to both men and women, with four people standing in front of the drum, holding mallets in both hands and beating the drum. Under the unified rhythm, they beat the drum while performing the prescribed routines. After the completion of each set of movements, everyone clockwise to the next drum surface position, and then other sets of "encouragement" performance, both performative and entertaining.
The history of the Miao people's playing the lusheng and dancing with the lusheng has been recorded since the Song Dynasty. The image of the dance in the Qing dynasty's book "Guangyi Shengwan" and the phrase "Every year in Bengchun, they choose a flat area as a moon field, where men play the lusheng and women shake the bells, and they sing and dance in circles, which is called "jumping to the moon" are records of the so-called "bronze bell dance".
The Miao ancestors, who once lived on the shores of Dongting Lake, took birds as their totems, so today's Miao women's headdresses, silver crowns and colorful striped skirts, are still full of the variegated colors and bird motifs of Jinji feathers. To this day, the Miao people of Guizhou Province's Qiannan
have preserved a large-scale dance called "Lusheng Tang," which originated in ancient rituals. During the performance, a man plays the reed-sheng, a person beats a bronze drum, and a young girl dressed in full costume and wearing a silver crown dances with her arms in a bird-like manner. This scene is very similar to the decoration on the surface of the bronze drum unearthed in Kaihua, Yunnan Province, more than 2,000 years ago. In addition, from the Yunnan Province, Shi Zhai mountain excavated copper drum-shaped shell storage vessel on the "drum singing figure", can further probe into the Miao and the ancient Baiyue tribes and the close relationship between the culture of copper drums.
Among the Miao's self-indulgent dances, there is also the "Jinji Dance," which imitates the dynamics of the golden pheasant by wearing a silver crown and a colorful striped skirt; the "Lusheng Dance," which imitates the pheasant's fighting, jumping, and playing, and which contains acrobatic skills; and the "Bench Dance," which originated from women's household chores, such as embroidery and mahjong rubbing, and so on.
The Miao people in China have a large number of branches and a wide distribution, forming a large number of songs and dances with rich contents. In addition to the above, there are the "Lusheng Dance" of the "Huaxi Miao" in Guizhou Province, the "Dance of the Red Sticky Miao", the "Flower Tree Dance" of the "Flower Miao" and the "Ancient Ladybird Dance" which has been passed down in Danzhai County, The "Lusheng Dance" of the Miao in Yunnan Province, the "Mango Dance" of the Miao in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as well as the "Bullfighting Dance", "Sheep Pulling", "Flower Stick Dance", and so on, are too numerous to mention.