Red Net Moment News Correspondent Deng Shengxiang reports from Rucheng
During the day, watch the story meeting on the street, enjoy the dragon dance at the head of the village at night, and watch Qi opera in the village hall. During the Spring Festival and the strong flavor of the New Year, the rich and diverse folk activities in Rucheng County, Hunan Province continued to appear, wave after wave, constantly rendering the atmosphere of peace and joy, and continuing to dress up the festival life of the masses.
As a famous historical and cultural city in Hunan Province, Rucheng County is rich in traditional culture and colorful folk customs. In terms of intangible cultural heritage items alone, there are 15 municipal-level intangible cultural heritage items such as the national intangible cultural heritage project Rucheng incense fire dragon, Rucheng costume stories, Rucheng mountain songs, She folk songs, temple fairs, etc., as well as 33 county-level projects such as lion dance, spring cow dance, and paper lantern dragon. In the Spring Festival of the Year of the Dragon, major intangible cultural heritage activities were staged one after another, bringing an unprecedented grand cultural feast to the masses.
Dance the incense fire dragon and celebrate the New Year with joy.
Dragons dance together for the New Year
Drums and flowers, long incense dragons are full of fire, dancing vividly, circling mightily, wandering around villages, lanes and ponds, the bright light is dazzling and penetrates the night, attracting thousands of people to follow and sprinkle laughter and laughter along the way.
On the first day of the Lunar New Year, the dragon danced hotly; On the second day of the Lunar New Year, the incense fire dragon double dragon + flying fire phoenix complement each other; On the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, 21 villages danced flat dragons and round dragons together; On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, more than 10 villages continued the fiery scene of dragon dance. During the Spring Festival in Rucheng County, a total of 58 villages carried out dragon dances, and the incense fire dragon ushered in an unprecedented grand performance, which has attracted more than 200,000 people**, becoming the most popular annual celebration this year.
Bright incense fire dragon, the countryside never sleeps.
Rucheng incense fire dragon is a kind of traditional dragon dance, originated from the traditional sacrifice during the Hongdao period of Tang Gaozong, worship the dragon to stop the rain, worship the dragon to stop the water, and spread endlessly in various villages and towns in Rucheng County. The night dance around the Spring Festival has a history of thousands of years and has been included in the list of China's national intangible cultural heritage. Whenever the dragon dance is carried out, not only the crowd crowds to follow the dragon dance, but also the residents along the way go out one after another, setting off fireworks and firecrackers to show "connecting the dragon and getting rich", praying for a smooth New Year and peace for the country.
According to reports, the Rucheng incense fire dragon is different from the common dragon dance in other regions, the production is very exquisite, the form and the spirit are both, the image is mainly derived from the murals and sculptures about the dragon in the local temple, there are round dragons, flat dragons, and special sulfur dragons. When preparing for the dragon dance, the villagers usually begin to prepare straw, bamboo, incense and other incense dragons at the beginning of the lunar month, and the incense dragon of more than 30 meters often takes more than a dozen people a month to make, and it also takes more than 40,000 special long incense sticks of 60 cm to be used.
Surrounded by mountains, Doosan Village, Luyang Town, the traffic conditions were extremely inconvenient in the past, resulting in a relatively single industry in the village. In the past two years, along with the construction of several major roads into the village, the village has developed 8 large-scale breeding industries, planting more than 2,000 acres of vegetables, and more than 10 professional vegetable growers for Hong Kong have emerged, providing more than 160 jobs every year.
People are in good spirits at happy events, and the dragon dance is a happy year. "Last year, the per capita annual income of Doosan Village increased from 0.0 in 2013850,000 yuan, climbed to 2080,000 yuan. For this reason, the village this spring incense fire dragon is 6 meters longer than the last time, although the production cost has increased by more than 30,000 yuan, but the villagers are more enthusiastic and active.
Colorful story meeting, all the big party. Photo by Zhu Guihua.
Dress up for a story that amazes the festive season.
Firecrackers and drums rang out. On the morning of the tenth day of the first lunar month, the streets and places such as Luyang Avenue, Heping Road, Binhe East Road, and Ailian Square in Rucheng County were crowded and lively. The two teams of Yidao Village and Yunshan Village in Luyang Town gathered together to carry out a concentrated exhibition of intangible cultural heritage projects with stories.
Mu Guiying is in charge, Bai's steals grass, the concubine is drunk, Chang'e runs to the moon, and the eight immortals cross the sea. The 18 stories are beautiful and wonderful, together with 4 cloth dragons, a pair of heroes, 2 floats and 4 Hanfu squares, forming a team of thousands of people, lined up into a long line of more than 300 meters, and the mighty wandering performance, attracting tens of thousands of people to gather, chatting and cheering are intertwined with laughter, making the scene a sea of incomparable joy.
At the scene, each story pavilion was carried by the strong villagers, and the young actors standing on it played classic stories such as traditional culture and ancient dramas vividly and vividly through exquisite appearances, colorful costumes and vivid and lovely expressions, which was pleasing to the eye and amazed.
As a large-scale folk entertainment activity during the Spring Festival, Rucheng's "pretending story" began in the Ming Dynasty and has a history of more than 270 years. The activity is mainly carried out by innocent children through makeup, dressing, modeling, with props and scenes, and the story characters are dressed up into a showcase to carry out a parade, for the first person to interpret and appreciate the connotation, and also present performances such as Bulong, drum music, and Hanfu.
Dress up for a storytelling session and celebrate the festive season.
The pretending stories come from the people, serve the public, are concise and clear, easy to understand, healthy, beneficial and peaceful, and are deeply liked by the masses." According to He Zhilan, the party secretary of Yunshan Village, each "story" weighs more than 100 kilograms, all of which are welded firmly with steel bars, and are fixed with wide cloth strips to ensure safety after the children sit down, and then lifted by 4 to 8 young and middle-aged laborers to parade and display.
As the organizers of the story club, Yunshan Village and Yidao Village have been preparing for the joint event since November last year, and have made great efforts in costume selection, props allocation and personnel arrangement. "Although the flavor of the year continues to evolve, the 'pretending story' always has the flavor of a century-old heritage, and all the hard work is worth it. The grand scene of the whole city pouring and thousands of empty alleys made He Zhilan feel very happy and happy.
It is understood that the event attracted more than 100,000 local people and foreign tourists. After Mr. Wang, a tourist from Guangzhou, Guangdong, made a special trip with his family, he couldn't suppress his excitement and exclaimed again and again, "The first time I saw it, I thought it was too amazing, too good-looking, and too shocking." ”
On the village stage, it is lively to watch a big play.
The new rhyme of ancient opera adds to the flavor of the year
Stepping on the drums, all kinds of characters appeared in costumes, or holding money, or stepping on stilts, in the ups and downs of the storyline, the high-pitched and loud singing tone resounded throughout the audience, winning bursts of warm applause and cheers. On the ninth night of the first lunar month, the auditorium of Zutian Village, Tuqiao Town, was full of seats and joy, and a large-scale costume Qi drama "Fifteen Guan" was being staged, attracting nearly 1,000 local villagers and foreign tourists.
Qi opera is also called "Qiyang opera" and "Chunan opera", which is named because it originated in Qiyang County, Hunan Province. It is a traditional local drama in Hunan Province and a national intangible cultural heritage. After Qi opera was introduced to Rucheng many years ago, it was inherited and developed in Tuqiao Town, Zutian Village and other places. Ashida Village set up an amateur folk Qi opera troupe, as early as 1964 was awarded the title of "Hunan Province Top 100 Amateur Folk Troupe", in the eighties of the last century, the creation and interpretation of "fifteen runs", "life and death card" and other plays were very prosperous, every time there is a festival or when the village does a happy event or good deeds, it will be invited to perform in the past, as if it has become the most indulgent and enthusiastic cultural feast of the villagers at that time.
Ancient opera has a new rhyme, and culture touches people's hearts.
In recent years, focusing on the essence of literature and art of punishing evil and promoting good, Ashida Qi Troupe has adhered to the purpose of advancing with the times and serving the overall situation, integrated into the themes of human settlements improvement and rural revitalization, and created modern repertoire such as "Change" and "Strange Fate" close to life. While delivering spiritual food to the masses, the rejuvenation has inspired people's love and attention to Qi Opera.
The repertoire of "Fifteen Runs" lasted two and a half hours and was divided into eight performances, with a fascinating storyline and live performances. In order to do a good job in this performance, Chen Xiaoping, as the head and director of the troupe, led the team to carefully make arrangements for drama, makeup, gongs and drums, erhu, etc., and used the evening time to rehearse for more than a month every day, often busy until late at night. "The villagers are enthusiastic about participating in the performance, and there is hope and rush for the inheritance of Qi Opera. Chen Xiaoping introduced that among the more than 40 participating villagers, 80% of them are young and middle-aged, including many college students who are at home during the holidays.
The applause rang out, the shutter flashed, and the performance of the day also attracted a large number of photography enthusiasts and new talents. "Rucheng Qi drama is very good, very good-looking, it really gave me a big surprise. Ms. Chen Yi, a self-leading expert from Changsha, enthusiastically did a live broadcast. "The eight performances were very serious, all of them were wonderful, and I was really happy to come here today. Xie Jinshu, a Guangdong photographer who came to shoot the rural Qi opera culture, said unsatisfied.