Editor’s Note: This article is produced in collaboration with the Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies, as part of a series of ongoing reports exploring the city’s abundant resources in intangible cultural heritages.
Qiangun Dance, which was successfully declared as the intangible cultural heritage list of Chongqing in 2009, is a traditional dance art with a history of nearly one thousand years in Chongqing, China. Chengkou County is known as the hometown of Chinese Qiangun dance, because of the popularity of this dance in the region. The Qiangun dance spread in Lantian Town of Chengkou County is an outstanding representative.
Legend has it that during the reign of Emperor Qianlong, a rich man named Cao Zhuo often hung plenty of copper coins on the gate because he thought the emperor’s title was carved on the coins, whose sound blown by the wind would exorcise evils and demons. For the sake of safety, ordinary people also began to hang a small number of copper coins on the gate and called them Qiangun. When the wind blows, Qiangun would shake and make a clear and melodic sound. Interestingly, people found Qiangun so funny and therefore took it down to swing and use it hit their bodies. Then, the residents in the courtyard gathered together to play Qiangun at a certain speed, which was the rudiment of the Qiangun Dance. Later on, people found the dance could eliminate fatigue and build up their bodies, so they choreographed a variety of ways to play with music, tune, and lyrics, which made the dance become a good way to relax during the slack farming season. The Qiangun Dance once served for Red Army to publicize revolutionary principles and paved the way for the revolution in Chengkou.
As Chongqing is undergoing development, the simple people from Lantian inherit and retain their predecessors’ experience out of their affections to Qiangun Dance, and integrate the elements of modern singing and dancing to give new momentum to the dance. From the classic song “the golden bamboo Qiangun comes 110 centimeters in length” to the popular ones like Zou Tianya, people in Lantian inherit Qiangun culture in their specific way.
Lantian Square witnesses dancers in a good formation stepping at the correct rhythm, shaking Qiangun in their hands, and Qiangun sounds like silver bells. And then they continue to hit crotches, shoulders, hips, waists, and feet, then run, dance hit the correct parts, and integrate songs and dances, as well as stretch broadly. Although all of these seem quite easy, beginners are often so stressed with their body movements that the sound of Qiangun is made quite dull, and their bodies will also get bruised. Since Qiangun Dance is demanding in tactics, learners need to keep calm and hone their will before getting skillful. It is a practice that makes perfect. Learning Qiangun Danc also can help dancers lose 5 kg weight in a month and make their bodies more flexible, which reflects its features of fitness.
The appreciation of Qiangun Dance is not only embodied in the dance, but also in Qiangun itself. The conventional production of Qiangun is to drill holes at both ends of an approximately one-meter long golden bamboo and to embed several copper coins. However, Yang, a local craftsman from “Zhongyue Root Carving,” exercises the ingenuity of root carving in the production of Qiangun. With his specific standard of the size and quality of golden bamboo, Yang will drill the holes and embed more coins, and then polish them carefully, ornament with fringes and coat with paint so that the golden bamboo could be presented in front of people in various shapes. These time-consuming and painstaking procedures render Qiangun a work of art.
Nowadays, 25 towns and villages in Chengkou County have built their own Qiangun teams. The Qiangun Dance is becoming one of the important means of entertainment and fitness for people, and it successfully made a striking appearance at the Shanghai World Expo in 2008. The Qiangun Dance competition and the thousand-people Qiangun Dance performance are becoming the new cultural name cards of Chengkou County and even Chongqing Municipality.
(The original article comes with a Chinese version authored by Yang Mini (advisor/Ran Hongqing)as well as an English version translated by Ren Shuxian (advisor/Li Ya, Wei Jingjun), and was later narrated by Zhang Zikang (advisor/Ren Yi), all of whom are students (and teachers) from Chongqing Institute of Foreign Studies.)