One person plays the horse as a horseman, four people play the horse, and the remaining three people match the fierce beat of the dance, accompanied by cymbals, gongs and drums. This is the unique "Hippo Dance" of the Yi people in Guizhou.
In fact, the Seahorse Dance has been practiced for 2000 years among the Yi people. As an intangible cultural heritage of Qianxinan Prefecture, the Seahorse Dance is rumored to have been created by Meng Yu, the king of the southern barbarians in the last years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and it is now circulating in the area of Gegong, Digua Town, and Meizijing, Sanbanqiao Town, Pu'an County. In the Ninth National Minority Traditional Sports Meeting, the Hippocampus Dance was listed as a performance item.
A unique dance deep in the mountains
The dull and heavy beating of the leather drums sounded.
Malang jumped on one foot, and the four "strong horses" began to dance along with Malang's movements. Crisp horse bells rang out in the thick drums. The Seahorse Dance has begun.
Malang tiptoe jump away, "strong horse" then followed, the horse's head to the sky, there is a long whistling trend. At the same time, constantly changing the pace of one-legged jumps to closely follow the horse Lang.
The cymbals and gongs sounded, and the dull, slow sound of the drums gradually accelerated. The crowd began to boil. Someone shouts, "The climax is coming!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, Malang began to tiptoe quickly and jumped sharply, letting out a powerful roar from the depths of his throat. Behind the "strong horse" also seems to have sex, in the actor's very fast foot jump, props on the head of dozens of bronze bells ringing at the same time, the drums almost drowned out.
Suddenly, Malang jumped up and led the "strong horse" to run wildly on the field, and the rhythm of the drums, gongs, and cymbals rapidly accelerated, with sweat dripping from the actors' tanned skin, and a cloud of dust behind them.
Then, as the drums slowed down, the horse stopped, and the horses surrounded him in the center, stood still, and bowed.
This is one of the few villages in China where the Yi Haima Dance is still practiced.
Driving an L3 Lotus car through the mountains, we traveled for three hours on a winding road before we were able to see this small Yi village, Gegong.
Because it's a new car, I was worried about its chassis, but it's very competitive. According to Guihang Youth Lotus Automobile Co., Ltd. related personnel, as a family car, Lotus L3 is the most worthy of showing off its chassis. Originally from the British Lotus "X-TEC" chassis system, multi-link rear suspension structure, so that its chassis structure in the compact family car is particularly advanced, and even more rare is the front and rear suspension are equipped with a lateral stabilizer bar, the engine compartment of the lateral stabilizer bar is rare in the family car configuration, undoubtedly on the improvement of rigidity as well as driving stability plays an important role in the body. Driving stability plays an important role, is called 100,000 yuan level chassis best models. In the actual handling, we also feel this point. When we arrived at Gegong, it was already midday. The village "horse head" (captain of the meaning of) Wu Xingjin and his teammates performed a Yi unique seahorse dance.
The hippocampus dance lasted 5 minutes. Just like the more drums from the distant flood, the powerful roar, rhythmic accompaniment supplemented by the audience's shouts, primitive and simple atmosphere spread in the mountains.
All the people involved in the "carnival"
In Gegong, mention "jumping seahorses", the villagers have revealed a trace of hard to hide the pride: "won a lot of prizes, and now, in addition to us, are not many! The first thing you need to do is to get a good deal of money from your family.
Now, in the west of the village outside the wooden building, do more than 30 years of seahorse dance "horse head" Wu Xingjin has been 68 years old, but in his seemingly dark and thin body can not see the obvious aging. Wu said, but where the dance of the hippocampus, no one body is not strong, because the hippocampus dance rhythm is intense, a lot of exercise.
In the earliest days, the performance of the hippocampus dance was divided into groups of three. One of them played the horse, two people play the horse. Malang hold a one-person high bamboo pole, each end of a red and white flower, the horse is the head and the horse's buttocks two parts were tied to the waist of the dancers pretending to be a horse, props woven into a skeleton from bamboo strips, glued with white cotton paper made of. During the performance, the dancers hold the neck of the horse, the pace of the feet and jump, tiptoe jump, change the foot jump, free running and other jumping methods. Malang hands of the flower stick is used to guide the horse for a variety of dance steps.
"Jumping Hippocampus" is a great exercise, but it is the village of Gegong men, women and children all enjoy and the village to participate in the sport.
Most of the time, when the village jumped on the seahorse, people like villager Xie Long, who was a "layman", would participate. At that time, most people, whether they had dance props or not, would sing and dance along with "professionals" like Wu Xingjin under the influence of spirits, cymbals, gongs and drums.
Earliest origins in Yi funeral customs
The Seahorse Dance is rumored to have been passed down in Yi settlements for nearly 2,000 years.
According to legend, its founder is Mengwu, the king of the southern barbarians, who experienced seven captures by Zhuge Kongming in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
In the legend of the Yi people, before the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, all the barbarian kings had the habit of eating the living, but only Meng Yu loved the people, and resourceful, was considered a hero by the Yi people. Seahorse Dance is a set of dances he created during his lifetime, initially named Horse Dance, but because the Yi people have a strong worship of nature's water, so the "Horse Dance" was changed to "Seahorse Dance", and in the lunar calendar on June 24 every year to jump this dance in honor of their heroes.
During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty, the Yi tribes of Xie, Liu, Che, and Mao moved from Yunnan to Pu'an, Guizhou, and the Hippocampus Dance was introduced with them.
In the funeral customs of the Yi people, a team of people dressed as horsemen and people dressed as strong horses perform around the coffin.
The first circle performs the trekking of the horse gang, which means to tell friends and neighbors that the horse gang has come and invited the dead souls back to the coffin. The second circle performs the deployment of the horse team, the horse Lang led by the strong horse from time to time towards the spirit of bowing, said to the deceased kowtow to the spirit. The third circle performs the fight of the horses, the scene is warm, indicating that the lively scene when the deceased spirit was young and married is back again, so that the deceased spirit should not be sad and go happily. The fourth circle performance subdued horse, horse Lang hit the horse with a magic weapon that the spirit of the dead has gone to heaven, throw the magic weapon that feed the horse, rest for a while still have to continue to catch up with the road ahead.
Later, with the government's emphasis on national folk culture, the Hippocampus Dance gradually went to the fields, applied to weddings and funerals, farming, celebrations, festivals and other occasions. In the 1980s, Hippocampus Dance began to take to the stage, and participated in various cultural performances organized by the province, state and county for many times.
In 1982, under the improvement of him and his teammates, the number of people playing the blazing horse was increased to four, with cymbals, gongs and drums accompanying each one, and the dance steps and rhythms were more intense, and the stage effects of the hippopotamus dance could be enhanced.
Wu Xingjin believes that it is the greatest achievement of his life to bring the Seahorse Dance to the folk culture.
The ancient dance "jumped red" small village economy
In about 3 kilometers from the village of Rig Arch, there is a very wide site called the Waba Ping, is the local government specifically for the Yi hippocampus dance performances and rehearsals and construction.
Every June 24 of the lunar calendar and other festivals, Wu Xingjin and others would dance the hippocampus dance in this area. In this way, it gradually attracted foreign tourists or traders passing through the area to come and watch.
In Wu's memory, every dance they did at that time, there would be an audience in the side of the applause and shouting at the top of their voices "strong". "People like to see us jump hippocampus is our biggest motivation." Wu Xingjin and team members Mao Dalong said.
As time goes by, more and more people from all over the world come to the deepest part of the mountain to watch the seahorse dance.
Later, someone found a business opportunity. After that, whenever the Gegong Village Seahorse Dance Team came here to perform or rehearsal, there were always people carrying bags of groceries to sell, and over time, this place has developed into a small bazaar.
Every Tuesday, the Gegong Village Seahorse Dance Team will come here to give free performances, the mountain began to become lively. This kind of lively attracted not only business opportunities, but also attracted the attention of the relevant departments.
The local government spent 200,000, in Wu Xingjin and other people dancing place to build a venue, on the one hand, in order for them to rehearsal performances more convenient, on the other hand, also want to take this opportunity to form more of a small bazaar, to drive the local economic development.
Nowadays, every Tuesday, people from various towns will still go to Wafangping to catch the market.
For the people of Gegong village, this is one of the few other sources of income in addition to planting crops. Villager Xie Long said with a smile while recalling: "How did not expect, thousands of years ago, the hippocampus dance, and now also to the entire village and neighboring villages jumped out of the economic benefits."