Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, December 29 (Xinhua) -- On December 29, Xinhua Daily Telegraph published a report entitled "Ying Song: "Chinese War Dance" Triggers Cultural Consciousness".
On August 18, a new WeChat group appeared on Chen Zefan's mobile phone - "The Coaching Staff of the Yingge Team in Guangnan Village, Puning City".
The beginning of autumn has passed, and the heat in Chaoshan, Guangdong is still unbearable. But that night in August, after five years, 16-year-old Chen Songgui heard the sound of the "buckle" of the Yingge mallet in Guangnan Village. He rushed to the basketball court, picked up the mallet and learned without waiting for registration.
It has been half a year since Yingge became popular all over the Internet, and the throbbing of the teenager has not decreased. "It was because of the influence of Yingge ** that I felt very interested, so I signed up. ”
In the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rabbit, the rehearsal of a New Year's performance of a British song team in Puning has been clicked nearly 200 million times with its fierce and masculine momentum. A few days later, the enthusiasm for fermentation surged in Chen Zefan's circle of friends like the Shanghai wave of the short ** platform.
On the first day of the first month of the Year of the Rabbit, Chaoshan Yingge suddenly broke into people's field of vision with the posture of "Chinese War Dance". Photo by Chen Kengquan This traditional dance, which has a history of more than 300 years and was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage representative items in 2006, suddenly broke into people's field of vision with the posture of "Chinese War Dance".
It's time for the British to sing and dance. Chen Zefan, who grew up dancing English songs in Guangnan, thought, "It would be nice if I could lead my team to perform."
A few months later, the Yingge team was rebuilt after a five-year hiatus in Gwangnam Village.
Along with the changes, there are also hundreds of English singing teams and thousands of English singers, who spend a year, ten years, and decades answering the question: Why does a traditional culture "fire"?And how to "fire"?
Dance on fire.
Chen Bingcheng, the village party secretary of Guangnan Village, saw the popular English song for the first time. His reaction was, "We have that too."
Although it is famous for Chaoshan Yingge, Yingge is the most prosperous in Puning in Jieyang City and Chaoyang and Chaonan in Shantou City. Guangnan Village, located in Puning, established an English singing team in the 40s of the last century, which was mainly organized by each wing (that is, the village group) itself, and there was no unified team.
The most recent performance was in 2018, after which due to the pandemic and other reasons, the performance and practice were suspended. "This year's Yingge is very popular, we have a foundation before, and the upcoming few celebrations and folk customs also need Yingge. A few months after the "fire," Chen Bingcheng asked the village committee whether it was possible to rebuild an Yingge team for the entire Guangnan Village
No one has any objections", the message spread through loudspeakers, bulletin boards, and WeChat groups. For the first time, more than 20 people signed up, and after a few months, the number of members of the singing team increased to about 100, basically all young people, half of whom were students. Because of his foundation, Chen Zefan was elected as the head coach, and at one or two o'clock in the night, he also received a WeChat application to join the team.
In the beginning, in order to recover as soon as possible, training is held every night. Later, it was changed to three times a week, from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. Some team members came to "urge": "Three days is too little, can you add two more days?."”
In March 2022, Chen Danping, director of the Puning Cultural Center and director of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, and his colleagues made a survey of the English song teams in Puning, with a total of 103 teams. "Now I guess it's more than that. Chen Danping said that from what she had heard, there were forty or fifty teams rebuilt.
Chen Shaobing, deputy director of the Shantou Cultural Center, has noticed a similar situation, describing it as a "group of heroes". "In this year's National Day parade, there was a 107-member singing team, which was difficult to get together before. ”
Many newly established Yingge teams need to ask coaches to teach their skills, which makes the Lao Xixi Yingge Team, which was founded in the 80s of the last century, has a provincial inheritor Chen Songqi, and the Internet celebrity "Fat Snake" Chen Zhihui is overwhelmed. Chen Zhihui said that at least 20 Yingge teams have come to ask for coaches, which is far more than in the past, and they are really too busy, and some can only refuse politely.
There are not enough coaches, but the students are full. As the inheritance base of intangible cultural heritage in Guangdong Province, more than 100 people signed up for the Houxi Yingge Team in Chaoyang District, Shantou City, when they enrolled students this summer, and the team leader Lin Fangwu said that before the epidemic, the number was about 60, nearly doubled.
The Ximen Women's Singing Team in Chaoyang District also encountered this situation. Head coach Chen Tanpeng said that the original new students only wanted to recruit 20 people, but as a result, 40 people were reported at once, and after a period of training, all of them reached the standard. He smiled and told "sweet troubles" - he couldn't find a reason to be eliminated at all, and they all joined the team. Because there are too many people who have signed up to contact them, and there are many surging performances, Chen Tanpeng had to use the original *** exclusively for "Yingge" to reapply for a new number for life and work.
From nearby Chaozhou to Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Taiwan, there are invitations from folk groups and performances. "Since the beginning of the first month of this year, I have been busy until now. Wu Yanhua, captain of the Ximen Women's English Song Team, said. She used to be a kindergarten teacher, and in order to facilitate Yingge training, she quit her job and opened a nail salon. Even so, this year she still lacked the energy to take care of the store, so she had to hire someone to help maintain the business.
This year, I feel that the biggest change is that Yingge has been taken seriously, there were few performances in the past, and there was less attention, and after persisting for more than ten years, it finally became popular out of the circle, and I feel that the previous efforts were worth it. Wu Yanhua said.
Living intangible cultural heritage.
Chen Songgui signed up for the first time, and there was another reason, his father and two cousins skipped the English song. Dad struck the gong, one year he jumped the "second mallet", the lobby brother also danced the "second mallet", and the second cousin sometimes danced the "seven mallets" and "eight mallets" ......The "first mallet" and "second mallet" are the lead dancers of the Yingge team, and some teams have "three mallets" and "four mallets" after them, so it is often a matter of pride to be able to jump to these top positions.
He explained why he remembered it so clearly: "As long as someone in my family dances the English song, it will be the glory of the ancestors." ”
In the state of tides, the sea is in the south and the mountains are in the north. Ma Dongtao, a special researcher at the Chaoshan History and Culture Research Center, believes that Chaoshan is located in the "corner of the province", with many people and few places, frequent natural disasters, and the ancestors revered the gods, attached importance to sacrifices, and used dances to drive away evil and avoid evil. With the arrival of the southward migrants, the spread of the Central Plains culture and the spread of the Water Margin, the tradition of opening the way with English singing and dancing in the folk customs of the Youshen Games has gradually formed, which is regarded as a move to drive away evil spirits and eliminate filth.
Flying and jumping, opening and closing, drumsticks, footsteps, shouts, mountains and seas. In the words of the locals, to dance English songs, you must have a heroic spirit.
The faces and costumes of each team may be different, but most of the dances are the stories of the heroes of Liangshan who plotted bravely to attack the Daimyo's Mansion to rescue Lu Junyi. "This spirit of Yingge is to do the right thing for heaven, eliminate evil and help the weak, they are all heroes, not afraid of hardship, not afraid of tiredness, and brave. We, Chaoshan people, how many people went to the South Seas on red-headed boats at that time, all have these spirits contained in it. Chen Zefan said.
Bitterness is true bitterness. Dancing English songs is extremely physically demanding, and training in the summer, the sweat-soaked sand is "like a rain". Courage is also true bravery. I was asked what I should do if I was physically exhausted during the performanceThe answer for no one is rest. Someone replied, "Of course it's up to your will." Someone else said, "You can't go back even if you die." ”
Chen Zefan remembers that he started painting his face at one or two o'clock in the morning on the first day of the first lunar month, and went out to perform at 6 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the evening. "If you can persevere in this whole day of performance, you will find that many difficulties will not be difficult in the future of life. ”
not difficult", including reconstruction. "We have the foundation. Chen Zefan said, "The most important thing is that the people are still there, and the old-timers still retain the enthusiasm for inheritance."
At about 11 o'clock in the night, he received a call from Hong Kong from a rural entrepreneur and asked him: "The training ** sent by the group, why didn't you see the 'single rope stock'?""This is a complex traditional formation, in order to preserve physical strength, it was simplified during training, and I didn't expect to be discovered at a glance. Every time I trained, there were seniors who "came uninvited", and people in their sixties and seventies stayed up until midnight with the young people.
Those who teach and listen to lectures are not subsidized. On the contrary, many people want to "pay backwards". Puning is an important town in the textile and apparel industry, and the e-commerce is developed. Many team members are engaged in online wholesale and e-commerce, and the evening is the peak of business. "They don't earn a few hundred yuan a night, they come to dance English songs. Chen Zefan said that someone jumped to 10 o'clock and ran back to deliver the goods profusely. He is a teacher himself, and often trains until midnight and gets up early in the morning to go to class.
Some village councils, village sages, and villagers will sponsor costumes, props, food, and travel expenses, but they only maintain training performances, and the team members do not receive salaries, which are all obligations.
Almost all young people continue to participate because they worship their ancestors and love their hometown. Chen Sanhe, secretary general of the Laoxixi Council, said.
Here, English songs are a part of life.
Lin Qinjian, the "head hammer" of the Houxi Ying Song Team, works in Guangzhou, and rushes back to Shantou when there is a performance, and this year's activities have surged, and he has run back and forth more than a dozen times. Another "head hammer", Xiao Mianlin of the Ximen Women's Singing Team, performed for the first time just in time for the first day of work, and she didn't have time to remove her makeup after the performance, so she went to report with a "fire" on her forehead. The head coach Chen Tanpeng works in the traffic police department and sometimes deals with traffic accidents”
At present, the New Year is approaching, shuttling through the streets and alleys, from time to time you can hear the gentle sound of "buckle", Chen Tanpeng said, it is a child imitating the hammer.
Now the English song and dance is basically not afraid of being lost in our place. He said firmly.
The pace of the times.
Many times, late at night after training, Chen Zefan's work has just begun.
Every training session will be videotaped, and he has to quickly cut it into highlights, review it for the students, and then post it on Douyin. In addition to standardizing actions, he also has an original intention - to spread to the Internet.
No one denies the significance of this "new stage" to Yingge's outing. Almost every English song team interviewed has opened a short ** number, and some have special personnel in charge of taking care of it. The account of the Ximen Women's English Song Team was opened in the first month, and within two months, there were more than 10,000 fans. Their training is also live-streamed, and the players have learned how to "dodge the cameraman when kicking".
The stage is changing, and the "old actors" also have to adjust their postures.
Perhaps it is as a place where immigrants from all over the country gather and culture collide, so that an eclectic character has been formed here, or the ebb and flow of the tide and the changes of the wind and clouds make people think about change, what is impressive is that when the tide of the times comes, Chaoshan, which preserves the "old" well, does not contradict the "new". On the contrary, in the interviews, from young people to the elderly, almost all of them emphasized over and over again the importance of innovation to Yingge. Many of the elements that have helped Yingge get out of the circle this year are precisely the result of decades of innovation.
Twenty or thirty years ago, Lin Zhongzhong, the veteran captain of the Houxi Yingge team, realized that Yingge could not dance the same, so he "new" his face and integrated martial arts and dance elements into the movements. Not long ago, the Houxi Yingge Team updated the smallest lineup since the establishment of the team - 9 people, which is the limit of the stage capacity of 3 meters deep and 6 meters long. Lin Fangwu said that traditional English songs are performed on the march, and the number of people and the length of the team should be important. In recent years, there have been more square and stage performances, and the team has "evolved", adding new specifications of 32 and 28 people in addition to the traditional lineup of 72 and 36 people.
Before becoming an Internet celebrity, "Fat Snake" Chen Zhihui had been pondering the "snake" in his hand for decades, how to move more flexibly and more coherently. "I have my own style of dancing English songs. For example, he said, the traditional technique of "time migration" in the English song is to catch the snake's body, but he catches the snake's head and tail, because this can increase the degree of change.
Innovation is about keeping up with the times. Wang Jianhong, one of the coaches of the Guangnan Yingge team, said that he and several other coaches were discussing whether they could add a few more sparring moves to "look more exciting."
Some of the more important "innovations" are slow and invisible.
The reconstruction of the Guangnan Yingge team did not encounter technical problems, but it encountered difficulties in unifying ideas. Chen Bingcheng said that in the past, there were some contradictions between the various wings in the villageWho is involved?Each has its own ideas. He wants to break this "restlessness": "If the drums are not the same, then it will be messy." Good things must be inherited, some things must keep pace with the times, a whole, large-scale English song team can be inherited, go out, unity can develop. ”
Today, there is no longer any objection. People who used to be "not so unified in thought" approached Chen Zefan and admitted that "this is a good thing".
The uninterrupted "strong team" Houxi Yingge Team also had a difficult moment. In the 90s of the last century, when Lin Fangwu joined the team, the enrollment depended on the household registration, as long as the locals were there. However, with the retirement of veteran players and more and more people going out to work, the number of students has decreased sharply.
Around 2003, the old captain Lin Zhongzhong and another inheritor held a meeting in the village and decided to change the "old thinking", as long as they are interested in practicing English singing and dancing, no matter how good they are, they can come. In the first year, students from Chongqing and Fujian were recruited. "That's a big change. Lin Fangwu remembered that the Yingge team suddenly "came alive".
For a long time, the members of the Yingge team were all men. "I grew up watching Yingge, but unfortunately I have always only seen boys dancing Yingge, and even the female characters in it are played by men, I have felt more than once that it would be nice if one of those female characters was me. Wu Yanhua said that English singing and dancing is a traditional culture, and it should not be passed on only to men and not to women.
The situation was broken in 2011 by the Ximen Women's Singing Team, which was established in 1952 and discontinued halfway through the rebuilding of the team, becoming a rare women's singing team at that time, 15-year-old Wu Yanhua was taken by a friend to sign up, and is now the oldest member of the team.
Different from the heroic and rough men's singing and dancing, the women's singing and dancing are mostly based on the story of Hua Mulan joining the army or Mu Guiying being in command, with red and green clothes staggered, light and agile dancing, beautiful and sassy.
Wu Yanhua heard that several more women's singing teams were established this year. She remembered that many comments under her previous account were that there was also a women's singing team"Now that there are fewer such voices, some fans will take the initiative to reply, there have been since 1952. ”
Consciousness of value.
English singing and dancing can be roughly divided into adagio, mid-board, and allegro. This year's Yingsong team, which took the lead in becoming popular, has a similar characteristic - fast.
The tradition of the Guangnan Yingge team is the middle board, and they know that the allegro, or medium allegro, is more in line with the taste of modern people. However, when it came time to rebuild, "there was no different opinion" on whether or not to revert to the middle plate.
In Chen Zefan's view, Zhongban Yingge has its own unique value. "The rhythm of the Chinese English song is between Allegro and Adagio, and the requirements for the integrity of the routine formation will be higher, and the requirements for the completion of the movements integrated into it will also be higher. ”
Innovation is necessary, but we can't blindly change traditions and characteristics because we cater to our love. Chen Danping said.
During the training, some young people also suggested that it would be better to look better if the pace was faster. Chen Zefan admitted: "This is the collision of old and new ideas, and we now need to pursue a balance from it." ”
However, he said: "We still insist on the rhythm of the Chinese English song, because no matter what kind of rhythm of the English song and dance, there is something worth appreciating and there is a necessity for its existence." If there is only one rhythm of English song and dance, then it cannot express the diversity of English song and dance. ”
It is not only the value of the medium plate that is gradually recognized and seen.
Almost every member of the Yingge team interviewed can tell a story about the origin of Yingsong and the heroes of the Water Margin. Lin Qinjian was only a simple learner of English singing and dancing at the beginning, but after gradually going deeper, he discovered the spirit. He asked his seniors about the history of Yingge and found information on his own. Over the years, this 29-year-old young man has been invited to exchange and teach in colleges and universities around the world, and every time he is "first" to talk about what the English song is and where the spirit is, and "second" to show his actions.
The origin of English song and dance is still being researched, there are Wu dance theory, Yangge theory, "timely rain" theory, etc., but it can be determined that it is from the long-term integration and evolution of various cultures in the land of Chaoshan. In Lin Qinjian's view, English song and dance is not only a form of performance, but also a carrier of the spirit of Chaoshan and even Chinese culture, such as tolerance, unity, and hard work. "Through the display of body movements and the metaphor of movement in dance, it can reflect the change of culture, the continuity of culture, the spread of culture and the generation of culture. ”
This year's Yingge is out of the circle, reflecting the people's admiration for heroes and the pride of national cohesion. Chen Shaobing said.
He believes that the time of the outbreak of Yingge is accidental, but the value is inevitable. "As an intangible cultural heritage, English song and dance has connotative value, and when we recognize its value, its cultural connotation will definitely burst out, which is the inevitable evolution of culture. ”
It is like a resonance at the same frequency, on the one hand, the value that is preserved, perfected, and excavated, and on the other hand, the expectation that is heating up year by year. Some fans drove more than 1,000 kilometers from Zhejiang to take a photo with Chen Zhihui. The daily training of the Ximen Women's Singing Team has an anchor who has made a special trip, because hundreds of people are crowded in the live broadcast room, "to see by name".
When more and more traditional culture stands on the stage, the camera is reversed, and there are more and more audiences under the stage.
As a scholar who has long been concerned about the phenomenon of "cultural self-consciousness", Professor He Guimei of the Department of Chinese at Peking University once said in an interview that since the beginning of the 21st century, one of the most significant changes in China's social and cultural psychology is that people are increasingly able to return to and identify with Chinese cultural traditions more and more calmly. In the first decade of the 21st century, this was a relatively spontaneous state. Around 2012, the state began to more consciously guide the re-integration of traditional culture into the reconstruction of contemporary China.
Of course, more "self-realization" is still on the way.
At the beginning of the last century, British singing and dancing were brought into Thailand through Chaoshan immigrants and took root. Wang Jianhong, the coach of Guangnan Village, was invited to Thailand to teach English songs. Talking about it in detail, Chen Zefan has regrets. "Thailand is doing deeper research now than we do. They can study the connection between Yingge and the Water Margin, and they will watch several versions of "The Water Margin", and study what each character does and what image he is. There are university professors, college students, and lawyers, and they are more willing to study this thing. Can we do the same?”
Thinking about the future.
Almost no one doubts that in the Spring Festival of 2024, there will be a grand event of English songs here.
However, Chen Zefan thinks more about what to do after that
Many villages are similar to the situation in our village, intermittently, jump during the New Year, and there is no opportunity to perform at other times, and I feel bored while practicing. Folklore lasts only a few days a year, and it can't be sustained after that. In addition, brain drain is a common problem faced by the development of Yingge in recent years, Chen Zefan does not want to take this old path again, he hopes to take advantage of the east wind of the fire to make the team continue.
He is faced with the situation of long-standing confrontation in the protection and inheritance of intangible cultural heritage - how to attract fresh blood in today's drastic changes in the cultural ecology?How can the popularity gathered by "fire" continue?
The Yingge team should form a new virtuous circle, not just relying on the annual wandering spirit. We must spread it and go out. In his opinion, in the new environment, incentives such as a sense of honor and economic benefits are very important. "At present, there are a lot of homogeneous actions and teams, and they must be distinctive and famous. ”
Some relatively mature teams, the cycle is forming. Through solid basic skills, innovative content and communication methods, fame and invitations have come to join these teams, which are regarded as an honor by young people, even if they are not paid, they still continue to live. There are also teams that have begun to consciously build brands, design logos, and register trademarks.
The interviewed experts believe that the protection and inheritance of an intangible cultural heritage item requires the love of the people, the perseverance and efforts of the inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, and the attention and guidance of the competent authorities.
In March this year, Chaoyang District of Shantou City launched the normalization of British singing and dancing performances, so that ordinary people can enjoy British singing and dancing in addition to major festivals, and at the same time give more opportunities for the British singing team to perform. Puning is also actively building the Yingge brand industry and exploring the development mechanism of "tourism + Yingge".
On December 23, at the Puning Campus Cultural Achievement Exhibition, the Guangnan Children's English Song Team of Guangnan Primary School completed its first official makeup performance since its establishment. The team was established this year and has more than 50 members. With the promotion of English singing and dancing into the campus in Puning and Shantou, according to incomplete statistics, there are dozens of such campus singing teams, which really "start from the baby".
After the fire, there was also chaos. Chen Shaobing received a report that some people who are not skilled in learning and art perform and teach under the banner of promoting intangible cultural heritage, "the more they teach, the more confused they become". Lin Fangwu noticed that some teams couldn't see who it was because of their face paintings, and their movements were patched together, without their own things, and "their souls were lost". A number of inheritors called for ** to strengthen guidance.
Intangible cultural heritage must be upright and innovative, not immutable, but how to keep upright and innovate is a problem that inheritors should consider. Chen Shaobing said that the Shantou Cultural Center is preparing to hold seminars, training courses, and publish books to allow more practitioners of English singing and dancing to learn the core cultural values of British songs.
Chen Shaobing believes that after Ying Song and Dance has been popular for a while, there will be a period of precipitation, and everyone will think.
One of the conditions for Yingge's popularity this year is the accumulation of many years before. Those teams that were on fire were really skilled and could play at that time. Chen Zefan discussed with several coaches to select excellent players, build a boutique team, and restore the frequency of practice to every day.
You have to accumulate all the time and practice hard all the time. It's a long-term thing. He said.