Nanxian dihuagu

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: dihuagu, Nanxian County

Applicant: Nanxian County, Hunan Province

Project No.: 1088

Project No.: Ⅲ - 99

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: traditional dance

Region: Hunan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Nanxian County, Hunan Province

Protection unit: Nanxian Cultural Center

A brief introduction to Nanxian dihuagu

Applicant: Nanxian County, Hunan Province

Nanxian county is located in the north corner of Hunan Province, on the border of Hunan and Hubei provinces. Rivers and canals crisscross in the county, lakes and ponds are densely distributed. It is the charm of this water town that constitutes a unique geographical environment for the growth and inheritance of folk culture. The unique folk dance dihuagu is derived from this land.

Nanxian dihuagu originated in the third year of Jiaqing in Qing Dynasty (1796). It evolved from folk folk songs, ditiao and labor songs. With its simple and rough action, lively and high pitched music, lively and free performance, rich flavor of life and unique artistic style, it is deeply rooted in the people. Nanxian dihuagu has many forms, such as duizi dihuagu, Zhuma dihuagu, Weilong dihuagu and so on. Duizi dihuagu is also called "danhuagu". Once the two men dress up as ugly, they play "Taozi" and "zhuanwozi" according to the meaning of "December Wanglang", "mopping stool", "October watching sister", "picking tea", "flower arrangement", "fan tune" and "song of sending money". They are good at using fans and handkerchiefs to express people's emotions and personalities. Zhuma dihuagu is a form of performance evolved on the basis of Duzi dihuagu. The added protagonist is a warrior, holding a horsewhip, wearing a variety of colors of fabrics or paper bamboo horse on the shoulder or waist, and performing alternately with the ugly and Dan of dihuagu. Some of them are also equipped with somersault grooms. The scene is powerful and the performance is delicate. The performance program of weilongdihuagudan and Chou is slightly different from the former two forms. There are "sending money" in the door and "leaving the East" in the door. There are "Xizhu", "Qijing", "Panzhu", "dingbutterfly" and "shuiluohan" in the set or "Wugufengdeng" in the set, which exaggerates the happy and auspicious atmosphere.

After the Enlightenment period of the Qing Dynasty, the development period after the founding of new China and the heyday after the 1980s, the dihuagu opera in Nanxian County played an important role in the enlightenment stage of Hunan Huagu opera. With the rapid changes of economy and society, the cultural ecology has undergone dramatic changes. The dihuagu in Nanxian county has lost its former glory and is on the verge of being lost from generation to generation.