Chapter 31 The third quarter dancing meteor, pimp

Dancing meteor is a traditional acrobatics.The form of performance is to use a long colored rope to tie things at both ends, and the artist dances up and down, performing actions such as "cheating horses", "backing flowers", "throwing high", flying up and down, and the skills are amazing.There are three kinds of dancing meteors: silk meteors, water meteors and fire meteors. The Silk Meteor originated from the sword dance of the people in the Tang Dynasty. Its performance is to use a long silk ribbon and tie colored balls at both ends. The artist holds it up and down and dances like a long stick.Gui Fu in the Qing Dynasty recorded in "Zapu" that a friend of his once saw a woman in Gansu who tied the two ends with "more than ten feet of colored silk, and danced with both hands, like a shooting star."The performance of the water meteor is to use a long colored rope, with a circle tied at both ends, and a glass bowl is placed in the circle, filled with water, and the artist dances with the colored rope, performing flipping, rolling, kicking, etc. Actions such as throwing, throwing, and catching are not only beautiful in posture, but also make the bowl watertight.When the artists danced quickly, they saw a cold light and the sound of "huhu".The performance form of the fire meteor is to use a long rope, with iron wires tied at both ends, and burning charcoal inside. The artist holds the rope and dances, causing sparks to fly, like a thousand-point shooting star, or a golden snake dancing wildly. The scene is very moving, as stated in "Miscellaneous Odes of the Capital" by Anonymous in the Qing Dynasty:

It reflects the grand occasion of opera and acrobatic performances in Kyoto at that time.The traditional moves of water and fire meteor performances include "Two Dragons Playing with a Pearl", "Floating the Ocean and Crossing the Sea", "Su Qin Carrying a Sword", "Zhang Fei's Horse" and so on.When dancing, artists not only use their hands, sometimes their feet, sometimes their heads, sometimes with a rope in their mouths, and sometimes lying on their backs on the ground and rolling, which is very difficult and skillful. Pimping is a very sporty acrobatics. According to the records in Supplementary Capital Records:

"Seeking toughness in softness" is the prominent feature and difficulty of pimp performances.The form of performance is that the artist holds a few soft belts hanging in the air with both hands. On the slender and erratic soft belts, in the rhythm of "patting", they turn up and down suddenly, forming a "right hanging" pattern. "Cross", "Cold Duck Floats", "Nine Buckles" and other modeling movements give people a feeling of roughness, fitness and agility.This acrobatic art form was later absorbed by Zhejiang Shao Opera and evolved into "Seventy-two Hanging".In the early 1960s, some acrobats, on the basis of traditional pimps and Shao opera "Seventy-two Hanging", also adopted some movements of "rings" in gymnastics, and created fresh, lively and lyrical "rings". "Silk Hanging" program, performing highly physical and difficult technical movements, such as "cross hanging", "rear horizontal support", "double arm support into an inverted cross", etc., so that pimp acrobatics are perfected day by day and developed to a higher level .