Zhangjiajie Folk Performing Art: Flower Drum
Miao flower drum originated in the Tang Dynasty and has a history of over a thousand years. Why is it called flower drum? Since there are no written records, according to elderly flower drum masters, when they learned drumming as children, various bright flower petals were pasted on the drums. When striking, one was not allowed to knock off the petals — this required superior skill. Perhaps this is the origin of the flower drum. Miao people in both Hunan and Guizhou provinces have...
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The Miao flower drum originated in the Tang Dynasty and has a history of more than a thousand years. Why is it called the flower drum? Because there are no written records to verify it. According to elderly flower drum masters, when they learned drumming from the previous generation in childhood, various bright flower petals were pasted on the drums. When striking the drum, one was not allowed to knock off the petals, which required superior skill. Perhaps this is the origin of the flower drum.
The Miao people in both Hunan and Guizhou have flower drums, but the Miao flower drum of Fenghuang is uniquely distinctive. It is a slow drum, and the drum sound is majestic and deep. According to collected materials, the routines of the Fenghuang Miao flower drum number more than one hundred.
The Miao people deeply love their flower drum, because it is a symbol of the Miao people's clear distinction between love and hate: in the fifty-ninth year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, that is, 1794 AD, the Miao people centered on Fenghuang launched the large-scale "Qianjia Miao People's Uprising," which shocked the Qing court. On the march to kill corrupt officials, the Miao people beat the flower drums, causing many passionate Miao sons and daughters to fall on the yellow sand and bleed on the battlefield; when old China perished and the new China led by the Communist Party was founded, the Miao people beat the flower drums that had been silent for many years and received land; when the clarion call of reform and opening up of the Republic blew into the Miao mountains, the Miao people cast off poverty, and their drumbeats became denser, welcoming distant guests who came to help build the Miao mountains.
The Miao flower drum is a recreational activity that integrates dance and sports and benefits body and mind. Its dance vocabulary is extremely rich, and its steps and hand gestures are very rigorous. It can be roughly divided into two types: production type and life type. The production type is also called the labor type. It integrates various rugged and healthy postures of the industrious Miao people in production labor into the dance in a well-organized combination, such as plowing fields, transplanting rice, threshing grain, carrying loads...; the life type incorporates various graceful and subtle episodes of daily life into the dance, telling people: this is washing the face, combing hair, looking in the mirror...
The Miao flower drum has four-sided drums, which can be struck by four people. There are also two-sided drums, struck by two people. It can be danced in groups or performed individually. If several large drums are beaten together, the momentum is grand and overwhelming, like wind blowing through forest waves or a great river roaring. In previous years, several large-scale activities commemorating the "Qianjia Miao People's Uprising" were held on the border of Hunan and Guizhou, and the Fenghuang Miao flower drum appeared in group formation, winning the favor of experts and scholars from literary and art circles across the country. As a result, the Fenghuang Miao flower drum has also appeared many times in ethnic programs on central and provincial television stations.
The Miao people deeply love and value their flower drum. Besides entertaining themselves, flower drumming has also evolved into a custom, serving as a fair scale for testing the intelligence of a prospective son-in-law. The Miao people are civilized. Since ancient times, marriage has been entirely up to the daughter's own choice, with little arranged marriage. When the daughter brings her satisfactory lover home for the first time, the parents will place a flower drum in front of the house and encourage the whole village to come and watch. This is called the "gate-blocking drum." If this "son-in-law" can play the flower drum, sing Miao songs, and play the leaf flute, the parents will beam with pride and smile broadly, and the whole village will share in the joy. This son-in-law is qualified. If not, this son-in-law will be seized by the ears by relatives and friends, his face smeared with pot soot, and, blackened like a stupid beast, he will be shut in a chicken coop with a basin of water on top... At this time someone will surely jeer: What good judgment!
Even now, young men and women in love do not dare to be lazy. In their spare time after work, they all sing Miao songs and play flower drums, passing it down from generation to generation.
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