Taiyuan, Xinhua News Agency, February 25 (Reporter Zhao Yang, Chai Ting, Chen Zhihao) "The fire in Nanzhuang, the lamp in Taigu, and the back stick in Xugou love people. ”
This year, 48-year-old Lu Jiangang is a villager in Dongbeifang Village, Qingxu County, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, every Lantern Festival, carrying a stick is an indispensable folk performance in the local social fire activities, "This year my son is 26 years old, and my grandson is 4 years old. Lu Jiangang said that since his grandfather's generation, their family has a tradition of performing back sticks, and he often plays the role of "Mu Guiying in charge".
On February 25, Lu Jiangang (second from right) with his son (second from left) and grandson (second from right) wait in the performance phalanx to perform the back stick. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chai Ting.
Xugou back stick is a folk dance form that connects people with iron rods, people on the people, and the people who carry the sticks are performed according to the characters and storylines, because the back sticks do not speak or sing when performing, only with gongs and drums ** and dance movements to perform the feelings, so it is known as "silent opera" and "dance in the air".
The back stick is divided into single stick, double stick, three-person stick and other forms, the weight of the back stick is light to 25 pounds, the weight is up to 150 pounds, the time of the street parade performance is often as long as several hours, testing the physical strength, endurance and energy of the person carrying the stick.
On February 25, Lu Jiangang performed a back stick in the Lantern Festival fire event in Qingxu County, Shanxi Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Chai Ting.
On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, Qingxu County held a traditional social fire activity. When the reporter met Lu Jiangang, he was waiting to enter the performance phalanx, with a happy smile on his face. "I got up at half past three this morning to put on makeup, although the weather was very cold, I was very happy, and it was worth it to be tired! He said that for the local people, the performance is a symbol of joy and peace, and it is also a cultural inheritance in the bones.
Lu Jiangang's team consisted of forty or fifty people, and they began to prepare for this Lantern Festival performance just after the first day of the new year.
Qingxu has a tradition of pride in his own children's participation in carrying sticks, Lu Jiangang asked the children who had participated in the performance to give his grandson Lu Shengyu a demonstration, step by step to teach the movements, when the reporter saw Lu Shengyu at the performance site, he was already very skilled to swing with the rhythm.
This social fire performance attracted friends from all over the country and even abroad, so that the traditional folk culture has been exchanged. Chen Yalin, deputy county magistrate of Qingxu County, said that two friends from France said that they hoped that the back stick performance team would go to them to perform.