Puning Folk Culture

Puning Yingge

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Yingge Traceability

Yingge is a popular folk dance style in Puning. It has a history of more than three hundred years, and is considered a symbol of righteousness, good luck and peace, and is loved and respected by the masses, with a broad mass and social base.

Puning Yingge has a history of about four hundred years. It originated in the people's favorite after work martial arts (learning fists), in order to eliminate fatigue, fitness and health, and then on the basis of martial arts, according to the story of the Song Dynasty Liangshanbo heroes attacked the Daimingfu created "singing songs", and then passed on from generation to generation, the development of the southern Han Chinese people's excellent folk traditional dance. (Qing Dynasty Qianlong years dry pond people into the technology to create "Ying song and dance", preaching to the people. (Qing Xianfeng years Tieshan Xu Yamei, Dachanglong Chen Niangkang singing heroes in the name of practicing martial arts, in preparation for the rise of the righteous division, but also Puning Yingge earlier well-known passers).

In Puning, every Spring Festival, Lantern Festival, and joyous celebrations, there will be English song and dance performances. This kind of English song and dance performance is called "singing English song" by the public. The vast majority of villages in Puning have English song teams, more than one village has five English song teams, people called Puning "English song of the countryside.

There are many legends about the origin of Puning's English song, but there are two main ones. One of them is that more than 300 years ago, the Waijiang Opera (Han Opera) came to Puning to perform the story of Lu Junyi, the hero of Liangshan Mountain in Song Dynasty, who came down from the mountain and attacked Daimingfu to save Lu Junyi. There was singing and dancing, which was called Singing Ying Song at that time. Later, the "singing" part was gradually deleted and the stick-dance part was retained. The second is: the end of the Ming and early Qing dynasties, class conflicts, feudal landlords, bureaucrats and gentry brutal oppression of peasants, in order to fight against oppression, the masses sing songs in the name of practicing martial arts. Legend has it that the earliest is a farmer in Dry Tong Township, in order to rebel against the oppression of the feudal landlords in his hometown, under the arrangement of his father, he trekked to Shaolin Temple to learn martial arts. Upon his return, he dared not set up a pavilion to teach martial arts for fear of the feudal power, so he adapted the martial arts he learned into Ying songs and dances, and taught them in the five doorways of the east, west, south, north and center. Over time, it developed into a popular art form, the English Song and Dance.

Puning Yingge has various types, some of the basic action is to lift the stick and eyebrow level, buckle the stick in front of the chest, flat flexed arms, horse stance, more side step, strong and powerful; some are buckled the stick in front of the chest, high lifting arm, a single jumping step, there is a bold; some of the buckled the stick in the bottom, from the bottom up, double lifting arm, a single kicking leg, a larger stride, mallet flower beautiful.

English song and dance performances can be through the streets and alleys, dance while moving forward, but also in the square or the open fixed site performance. English song and dance performance for the front shed and back shed (i.e., the front part and the back part). The front shed for the English song, which is the main part of the English song performance, after the shed is the folding theater and martial arts show Buma. The props for the performance in the front shed are short round mallets and tambourines, and about half of the performers dance with the mallets and half with the tambourines, while there are also performers who use all of the mallets. The number of performers is not fixed, in addition to the head of the team to play the snake, dance mallets, dance snare drums for 16 people, 24 people, 32 people or 36 people, 72 people, can be more or less, flexible. The dancers play the heroes and heroines of Liangshanbo in the Song Dynasty, so the masquerade faces of the dancers are based on the character images and personality traits of Liangshanbo. For example, Guan Sheng (or Yang Zhi) has a red face and beard, Li Kui has a black beard and barb, Lu Zhishen has a monk's costume, and Wu Song has a white face. Clothing is similar to the Peking Opera's "short tight", upper body shoulders, feet are "human" shaped leg wraps. In the past, each person also hung a small plate labeled with the name of the hero of Liangshanbo. Regardless of the number of performers, each performer's face and costume each represents a Liang Shan Po heroes. Ying song and dance performances are magnificent, sometimes as steady as Mount Taishan, sometimes moving like a silver snake, sometimes like a fierce eagle overlooking, sometimes like a tiger downhill. Movements are: "wash the street", "New Year's greetings", "Boutian", "back hammer", "Hook Foot", "Crossing", "Sitting Lotus", "Wheat Spike Flower", "Zigzag", "Finger of 8", and "Sitting Lotus". Zigzag", "catching the keel", "killing the four doors", "double dragons out to sea", etc., which beautifully expresses the heroes and heroines united in battle, life and death and *** heroism. **The heroic spirit of the heroes. The gongs and drums of Yingge are fast-paced and powerful, and the shouts of the dancers and the conch horns make them even more powerful and majestic. After the Yingge shed is a costume performance of the opera and the martial art of hitting the cloth horse. The "beating cloth horse" is a waist and lower body with cloth dressed up as a horse, as a riding posture, wearing an official hat, long eight beards, hand-held double mace performers and another playing a monk, holding a long stick to fight, and finally to the end of the official side of the defeat of the people. The story originates from the legend of the Tombstone Nunnery in Lihu, Puning. Yingge full set of performance program is more complex, large-scale, a variety of characters should be complete, strict requirements, but also in constant change, most of the Yingge performances now only take its more concise Yingge front shed (that is, the dance part)

Previously, the Yingge team sacrificed to the god is Tian Yuanshuai. It is said that the god was worshipped once at the beginning of the practice and at the end of each stage of the performance. The Yinggong dancers are the image of heroes, symbols of good luck and magic power to drive away evil spirits in the minds of the masses. Every young man who is lucky enough to be selected as a member of the Yinggong team will feel honored, so the Yinggong dance can be passed down from one generation to the next.

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Puning Yingge's outstanding spiritual, social and artistic values have been emphasized by experts, and it has been awarded the title of "Ansai Waist Drums in the North and Puning Songs in the South". The outstanding spiritual value, social value and artistic value have been valued by relevant experts and gained the reputation of "Ansai Waist Drums in the north and Puning Yingge in the south", and Puning has also been honored as the "Hometown of Ethnic Folk Art in Guangdong Province".

At present, due to unbalanced economic development in rural areas, the inheritor of the aging and other reasons, Puning Yingge team is not enough, gradually shrinking, endangered conditions, in urgent need of rescue and protection.

The state attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage, on May 20, 2006, Puning Yingge was approved by the State Council included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

Puning Hakka Hill Country Folklore Primer

[size=4] In Houxi Township, there are five management areas, including Pulou, Radius, Hanglou, Mining Pit, and Pingyang. The gods worshipped, I will first briefly introduce here. The mining pit management area worships Guan Di and Wuxian Huaguang Da Di. The radius is the Wuxian Emperor. Pit Lou is Master Tian Shi, Master Tian Shen, Master Tian Qing, etc. There are also some small villages that have their own Western Heavenly Buddha. Hanglou, Pulou and Hepingyang also have basically the same, i.e., the Seven Sacred Nuns. The latter two places are connected and the point of intersection is where the Seven Sages' Palace is located. In addition, the Hakka people in other places, as well, retain the belief in the worship of the Kings of Heaven, Earth and the Three Mountains. At the same time, they also retain the faith worship of their ancestors, who are regarded as protective gods and are worshipped every year. At the end of the year on the 30th day of the Lunar New Year, and at the beginning of the year on the first or second day of the first month of the lunar calendar, the main thing to do is to join villages and villages together to *** with the same ancestors; while Qingming is a ritual activity according to the family name, with the house as a unit and the family as a unit to worship the last one or two generations of ancestors.