The Miao are rich in song and dance, only the Miao "drum dance" one, nearly a dozen kinds of more. Miao "drum dance" in the Tang Dynasty "Dynasty Legitimacy" on the "five streams of barbarians, parents died in the village outside the coccyx its corpse, three years and burial, drumming road song, relatives drinking and dancing play a month and a day" record, which shows that the Miao "drum dance" a long history.
The Hmong people have a long history of "drumming".
The main types of Miao "drum dance" is concentrated in the western part of Hunan Province, southeast of Guizhou Province, along the watershed of the Qingshui River.
The Miao "wooden drum dance" in Qiandongnan is a form of "drum dance" for the large-scale ritual activities of "eating bullu dirty", which was held only once every 13 years in the past. During the festival, the dancing men and women danced wildly for three days, wasting sleep and food, all night long, like drunkenness.
"Flower drum dance" is a festival of the Miao people in Phoenix, Baojing, Huayuan and other counties in Hunan Province to celebrate the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth month of the lunar calendar. Catch the summer" "catch 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 characteristic of "Flower Encouragement" is that the two drummers can play harmonious and unified drum music while performing various symmetrical dance postures under spinning, flipping or jumping.
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, a drummer drumming behind the drum, another drum face toward the dancers wearing monkey costumes, painted monkey face. Most of the dance movements simulate monkeys gnawing and eating the buds, swinging, looking at the drum, trying 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 interesting, warm, strong technical, and has a certain dramatic plot.
The Miao folk self-entertainment "step on the drum", is the annual festival, festive gatherings, especially in March lunar calendar "Sisters Festival", 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, in the Miao all kinds of self-entertainment and performance "drum" on the basis of people and created by four people at the same time beat for the dance of "four drums". This kind of "drum and dance" is circulated 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 direction to the next drum position, and then other sets of "encouragement" performance, both performative and entertaining.
The history of the Miao people playing and dancing with the lusheng has been recorded since the Song Dynasty. In the Qing Dynasty, the image of the dance in the book "Guangyi Shengli" and "every year in the spring, choose a flat land for the moon field, men blowing reed-sheng, women shaking bells, circling songs and dances, which is called jumping to the moon" is clearly a record of the so-called "Copper Bell Dance" now.
The Miao ancestors who lived on the shores of Dongting Lake, with the bird as a totem, so today's Miao women's headdresses silver crowns and colorful strips of long skirts, still full of mottled colors and bird patterns of feathers. To this day, the Miao people in Qiannan, Guizhou Province
have preserved a large-scale dance called "Lusheng Tang", which originated from ancient rituals. During the performance, a man plays the reed-sheng, a person beats the 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 shellfish storage vessel on the "drum singing figure", can be further explored to the Miao and the ancient Baiyue tribes and the close relationship between the culture of copper drums.
In the Miao's self-indulgent dance, there is also the Jinji Dance, which wears a silver crown and a colorful skirt to imitate the dynamics of the Jinji; the Lusheng Dance, which wears a feathered crown and imitates pheasants fighting, jumping, and playing, and which contains acrobatic skills, as well as the Banbanban Dance, which originated from the women's embroidery, mahjong rubbing, and other household chores.
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, Guizhou Province, "Huaxi Miao" of the "Lusheng Dance", "red sticky Miao" of the "jumping", "flower Miao" of the "Flower Tree Dance", "the ancient ladybird dance" circulated 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.