Yi People's Dage

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Yi Dage

Applicant: Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County, Yunnan Province

Project No.: 667

Project No.: Ⅲ - 70

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: traditional dance

Region: Yunnan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County, Yunnan Province

Protection unit: Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County Cultural Center

A brief introduction to Yi People's Dage

Applicant: Weishan Yi and Hui Autonomous County, Yunnan Province

Dage, also known as "Dage", is the most widely distributed, influential and popular folk dance in Weishan County, Yunnan Province. According to the records of Jingdong Zhili hall in Jiaqing of Qing Dynasty, "Dage" was widely spread at that time. Except for some strict time and place regulations, people would dance all night during Spring Festival, lunar new year (the 15th day of the first lunar month), Torch Festival, wedding and gathering.

Most of the Yi people sing in the evening. At the beginning, they light a bonfire in the center of the dance hall. People take the fire as the center of the circle, and naturally form a circle or several circles. Stepping on the ground is a festival for dancing and singing. If you play songs during the day, you don't need to light a fire. Lusheng and flute are indispensable musical instruments for singing. When the activity is going on, one or several people in the circle play Lusheng, which is called "Song head"; another person plays flute, and one or two people dance with knives and sticks. In addition to Lusheng and flute, some places also use Sanxian and Yueqin as the foil instruments. In Weishan area, most of the daggers in Xishan area are men's half circle and women's half circle, so that they gather around and carry out activities; while in Dongshan area, there are many men's and women's pairs, so that dozens of pairs dance counter clockwise, singing and dancing, gradually forming a circle, showing their beautiful dancing posture and loud voice. The dance moves with the rhythm of waist and legs. The formation does not change much. The number of people can only be in pairs, hands clasping and shoulders overlapping.

There are many tunes of Dage tunes, such as happy occasion Dage tunes, festival Dage tunes, worry Dage tunes, good temple fair Dage tunes, ordinary Dage tunes, etc. The melody is beautiful, the style is unique, the melody is smooth, the interval beat is not big, most of them are up and down sentence or four sentence paragraph structure. A tune can be used according to the changes and needs of the dancer's mood, fast or slow, repeatedly, and can add self style. The lyrics can be divided into four sentence patterns, six sentence patterns, eight sentence patterns, ten sentence patterns, twelve sentence patterns, odd number patterns and so on. The sentence patterns include five character, six character, seven character and long and short sentence patterns.

Dage plays an important role in the social life of Weishan area. It is an indispensable part in the local Yi traditional festivals, weddings and funerals, floating beams and columns and other major activities. The integration of song, dance and music has accumulated the ancient historical and cultural connotation of Yi nationality, which has the research value of sociology, folklore and so on. Under the impact of modern culture, Dage, an ancient folk cultural activity, is facing the danger of extinction and needs to be protected.