59-year-old Xie Zhaoliang raised his legs sideways, raised the prop dragon ball in his hand, and the two dragon heads behind him tilted their heads to chase with his movements, and the nearly 18-meter-long dragon body swayed with the trend. Although he is close to the age of sixties, Xie Zhaoliang's movements are still light. Stepping on the rhythm of gongs and drums, he led the two dragons to complete the move of "Two Dragons Playing with Pearls", which is a classic program of the "Tongzhou Canal Dragon Lantern Festival".
On February 14, the fifth day of the first lunar month, at the Canal Cultural Square, Xie Zhaoliang, who was holding the prop Dragon Ball, and the team members were performing a dragon dance.
On February 14, the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, Xie Zhaoliang, the intangible inheritor of the "Tongzhou Canal Dragon Lantern Festival", took 30 team members to the Canal Cultural Square in Tongzhou District for a dragon dance performance. They are all from Zhangzhuang Village, a town in Tongzhou District, and their average age is over 60 years old.
Watching his father's dragon dance since he was a child, taking over the dragon dance team in middle age, and now walking into the school to teach the children dragon dance, Xie Zhaoliang only relies on a simple sense of responsibility, "The older generation passed on the intangible cultural heritage skills, and it would be a pity if they were lost in our generation." ”
On February 19, at the Grand Canal Dragon Lantern Cultural Museum, the Canal Dragon Lantern behind Xie Zhaoliang is not only an exhibit, but also a variety of performances.
Protecting traditional culture.
The story of the Xie family and the dragon dance starts with Xie Zhaoliang's great-grandfather Xie Wanchun. At that time, it was still in the Qing Dynasty, according to the written records left behind, the canal dragon lantern festival characteristic of Zhangzhuang Village can be traced back to the 14th year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty (1834 AD), with a history of 190 years.
Since Xie Wanchun, the children of the Xie family have always been the backbone of the dragon dance. There will be occasional interruptions in the middle of the dragon lantern. After the reform and opening up, Xie Zhaoliang's father Xie Wenrong united more than a dozen old people to restore the dragon dance skills in 4 months with the memory of the past.
On February 19, in Zhangzhuang Village, Tongzhou District, Xie Zhaoliang was flipping through the information. Many dragon dance routines require a combination of historical records and self-innovation to complete the choreography.
Nowadays, all the dragon skeletons in the dragon dance team are made by Xie Wenrong himself at home, and it takes a year to make a dragon head at the earliest. If you have a skeleton, you have to have specific actions. The dragon turns over, singles out the dragon handle, the dragon splits, and the dragon fights the ......They put together thirteen sets of performance moves.
On February 19, in Zhangzhuang Village, Tongzhou District, Xie Zhaoliang showed the dragon head skeleton made by his father.
For a good dragon dance performance, the dragon's mouth is almost inseparable from the dragon ball. A dragon head is 30 pounds, and the team members who dance the dragon head should have good physical strength; Dragon Ball takes the lead in planning the route, which requires the brain power of the Dragon Ball dancers.
On the morning of February 19, on the bank of the North Canal, Xie Zhaoliang was exercising in a dragon dance routine.
In the past, it was only the dragon lantern festival in the village, and the dragon dance in the Spring Festival was festive, and the dragon dance in the disaster year prayed for peace. In 2005, the Dragon Lantern Festival of Zhangzhuang Village was listed as an "intangible cultural heritage" project of Beijing and officially named the "Tongzhou Canal Dragon Lantern Festival".
The Tongzhou Canal Dragon has its own characteristics: a square head, antlers, a pig's nose, round eyes, and a long beard; The body of the dragon is canal blue, and the tail of the dragon is a goldfishtail. In addition, the Tongzhou Canal Dragon is a male and female dragon, and there are not many dragon dance performances in the form of double dragons in China.
Let the next generation fall in love with dragon dance.
The dragon dance is very physically demanding. In several performances during the Spring Festival, Xie Zhaoliang only wore an autumn coat and pants in his dragon dance costume, and after the one-hour dragon dance performance, he was already sweating profusely.
Most of the 30 members of the team have been old friends with Xie Zhaoliang for twenty or thirty years. When I was a child, my parents danced the dragon in the village, and as children, they watched from the audience.
On February 14th, at the Canal Cultural Square, the audience joined the performance during the warm-up.
On February 14, at the Canal Cultural Square, Xie Zhaoliang guided the audience to retreat during the performance to ensure the safety of the audience.
When the older generation can't dance, the younger ones have to take over. Xie Zhaoliang has done carpentry and contracted engineering. In 2015, after his father, who was over eighty years old, couldn't dance, Xie Zhaoliang disbanded the carpentry team and devoted himself to dragon dancing. Because he was born as a carpenter, he often carried more than 100 catties of wood, and his physical strength was good, and he was very easy to get started, and he danced from the dragon's head to the dragon's tail.
On February 14, at the Canal Cultural Square, the gongs and drums were noisy, and Xie Zhaoliang discussed the content of the performance with old friends.
On February 14, at the Canal Cultural Square, Xie Zhaoliang loudly introduced the history of the canal dragon lantern before the performance began.
Xie Zhaoliang's youngest son Xie Zhaowei joined the dragon dance team in 2022, when he was 32 years old. At first, I could only run with the team members, but now I can operate simple movements.
On March 1, 2023, the "Tongzhou Canal Dragon Lantern Festival" entered the campus for the first time. Every Wednesday afternoon, a dragon dance class is held at Hou Huangzhuang Primary School in Tongzhou District.
On February 14, at the Canal Cultural Square, children took a group photo with the Canal Dragon.
On February 14th, at the Canal Cultural Square, during the performance, the team members were very cooperative in the face of the audience's group photo needs, and they hoped to promote the canal dragon lantern through interaction.
In order to make it easier for the children to dance, Xie Zhaoliang maintained the length of the dragon's body, but reduced the weight of the dragon's head, and the whole dragon weighed only 10 kilograms. Some children were very interested, and they asked about the history of dragon dance in class; Some children are very aura and can run down after teaching them once or twice.
Xie Zhaoliang sees hope in the children, "The future of dragon dance is in them." ”
On February 14, at the Canal Cultural Square, after the performance, the team members waited for the bus.
Photographer Beijing News reporter Wang Zicheng.
Written by Beijing News reporter Guo Yimeng.
Editors: Liu Jing, Liu Qian, Zhang Xiangjuan.
Proofreading by Liu Yue and Yang Xuli.