Draw a circle on your waist with your hands; Take three steps to the right and lick your left foot; Take three steps to the left and lick your right foot; Four steps back, three steps forward, squat and stamp your feet. Yi dance is a kind of dance that is popular in Yi areas.
Song and dance are an important part of Yi people's life. Its forms are rich and colorful, and most of them imitate the movements during productive labor. Ancient dances include cockfighting and sheep fighting, which imitate animal images, symbolizing the "jumping hairpin" and "knife dance" of war and celebrating the bumper harvest. In the Yi people's New Year celebrations, we can see the dance forms of "bamboo horse" and "stilts" from the Central Plains culture.
Yi dance is a kind of dance that is popular in Yi areas. Song and dance are an important part of Yi people's life. Its forms are rich and colorful, and most of them imitate the movements during productive labor. Ancient dances include cockfighting and sheep fighting, which imitate animal images, symbolizing the "jumping hairpin" and "knife dance" of war and celebrating the bumper harvest.
In the Yi people's New Year celebrations, we can see the dance forms of "bamboo horse" and "stilts" from the Central Plains culture. Modern Yi stilts retain and develop their acrobatic features. When the Yi people hold ceremonies to worship their ancestors and pray for a bumper harvest, they can see wood drum, bronze drum and sheepskin drum. These dances are performed by the wizards "Bimo" and "Su Ye". When playing drums, the main dance vocabulary is to swing shoulders, chest and hips quickly.
In addition, in the dances such as "Jumping Palace" and "Jumping Armor" performed in the "Jumping Palace Festival", traces of ancient hunting and inter-tribal wars, as well as sacrificial ceremonies and dance scenes of soldiers' expeditions, battles and triumphs, are still preserved to express their nostalgia and praise for ancient heroes.
Folklore: In ancient times, there was a beautiful Yi girl who could sing and dance well. One day, when she was washing the crock, she accidentally touched the jar mouth and the crock made a banging sound. She thinks it sounds good. When she went up the mountain to cut wood, she picked up a hollow tree, covered it with sheepskin and knocked it with a wooden stick. Its voice is particularly nice.
Since then, the Yi people have had their own drum and flower drum activities. To commemorate the inventor of Huagu, the Yi people made a memorial tablet which read "I feel the memorial tablet of Huagu Queen". Every time you dance the flower drum, you should kill the chicken to pay homage, hold a ceremony and hold a "flower drum meeting". Although there is no exact historical record and strong evidence to prove its authenticity, this beautiful legend about the origin of the Yi flower drum dance in Eshan comes from this.