Chapter 9 Chapter IX Sui and Tang Dance Customs
Folk dance is an important part of folk customs.Chinese folk dances are often closely linked with Chinese festival customs and belief customs.Many traditional festivals are actually folk dance festivals.During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, folk dance customs had been formed and passed on to future generations.
The Lantern Festival is a traditional Chinese festival to welcome the Spring Festival. According to legend, it began in the Han Dynasty.
In the early years of the Sui Dynasty, the war between the Southern and Northern Dynasties had just ended.The Lantern Festival restored a peaceful scene.Every city is brightly lit and drummed.Men, women and children flooded the streets.There are constant parades on the street, and people are singing and dancing.The animal face dance became a prominent program, accompanied by acrobats performing wonderful feats.
In the second year after Emperor Sui Yang ascended the throne, in order to show off to the foreigners who came to the court, he mobilized folk operas and Sanyue to perform in Luoyang, the eastern capital.The singing and dancing troupe dressed as aquariums paraded along the street, and a "big whale" sprayed water mist, and suddenly turned into a yellow dragon with a length of seven or eight feet.There is a wonderful rope performance. A 10-foot-long rope is tied between the two pillars. Two girls dance to each other on the rope, and they can pass each other.There is also a pole-toe dance, in which dancers on two poles can exchange positions with each other.All kinds of programs are ingenious and moving.Since then, this grand mass performance has been held in the capital every first lunar month.The theater stretches for eight miles, and the number of performers reaches 30,000.
The artistic performance of the Luoyang Lantern Festival in the Sui Dynasty directly inherited the tradition of "Hundred Operas" in the Qin and Han Dynasties.Many documents have recorded the scene of the Lantern Festival in Luoyang and other prefectures and counties outside Beijing. "Sui Shu·Liu Or [yu Yu] Biography" records an article by Liu Or "Please Forbid the Corner to Arrive at Xi Shu". Street Saimo, where friends play and play together. Drums beat the sky and torches shine on the ground. People wear animal masks, men wear women's clothes. Advocate excellent acrobatics, strange shapes and shapes. Take dirty man for joy, and use vulgarity for laughter. The inside and the outside are seen together, and there was never avoiding each other. The high shed crosses the road, and the wide screen is lingering with clouds. The clothes [xuanxuan] are beautiful and the makeup is full, and the horses and horses are full. The custom of "regardless of high or low, mixed men and women" is very bad, so I asked the emperor to "promulgate the world and prohibit it immediately".However, the emperor of the Sui Dynasty did not prohibit this custom, and it intensified.It was the Lantern Festival in the Sui Dynasty that showed the highest level of colorful dance and entertainment in that year.Xue Daoheng wrote a poem "Heping Gishi Shanxin Theater Turning Rhythm", describing the Luoyang Lantern Festival in the Sui Dynasty: "Everywhere is a gathering, before all the operas are exhausted." The laughter is endless, and the songs are still playing. Riding on a silver saddle. Leaping swords vertically and horizontally, squandering and jumping balls again. Resonant dances of beasts, swaying five animals. Suanni [suang ni sour mud] makes spotty feet, giant elephants hang down their proboscises. Qingyang kneels and jumps again, and white horses circle around. Suddenly I saw Luo Fu rising, and I saw Yudao coming. The peaks and mountains are both Cuiwei, and the forests are also green. The elk are leaning down, and the monkeys or apes are squatting." It can be seen that the performances at that time included at least circus, acrobatics, jumping balls, jumping swords, and fish. Lanterns, dragon lanterns, lion dances, deer dances, elephant dances, sheep dances, monkey dances, masquerade dances, etc.
The custom of singing, dancing and entertainment during the Lantern Festival became even stronger in the Tang Dynasty.In the first year of Emperor Gaozu Wude in the early Tang Dynasty (618 A.D.), in order to perform the show of "men wear women's clothes", Taichang Temple borrowed 500 sets of women's costumes from the people for the makeup of "fake women" during the Lantern Festival.Other shows are also conceivable.
The custom of singing and dancing in the Lantern Festival has been passed down to this day.
In the folk festival entertainment of the Tang Dynasty, there was an important song and dance activity called "Tage".People hold hands, step on the ground, sing and dance.The songs sung are the same tune, with impromptu lyrics and endless repetition.Folk tage is often played day and night, all night long.
This kind of singing and dancing in response to songs and stepping on the ground originated very early.The dance pattern on the Majiayao painted pottery basin unearthed in Shangsunjiazhai, Datong, Qinghai has the same pattern as the "Tage" of later generations. "Ge Tian's Joy" contained in "Lu Shi Chunqiu" contains eight sections of singing and dancing with oxtails and throwing feet, which also has the meaning of "stepping on songs". The song and dance of "singing with hands together, stepping on the ground as a festival" has been seen in literature since the Han Dynasty. "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: Biography of Dongyi" said: "Mayuetian actually... gathers together to sing and dance. Dozens of dancers accompany each other, and stepping on the ground is a festival." Ge Hong's "Xijing Miscellaneous Notes" said: "October 5th, we enter the spirit together. The female temple...song "Shangling" is a song, and the song "Crimson Phoenix Comes" is the festival of the "Shang Ling". Sing [die spy] and sing".In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the trend of "stepping songs" flourished. In official histories such as "Old Book of Tang" and "New Book of Tang", there are many records about "Tage".The poem "Tage Xing" written by Tang Dynasty poet Liu Yuxi is even more popular:
Sometimes the court also came forward to organize a large-scale Tage.During the Lantern Festival in the Tang Dynasty, lantern festivals were often organized outside the Anfu Gate of the palace in the capital, and thousands of people participated in the Tage.The court ladies also had the opportunity to come out to participate in the so-called "three hundred wives with their sleeves danced, and the sound of lyrics in the sky for a while".
The popular custom of "stepping on songs" in the Sui and Tang Dynasties also continued. "Xuanhe Shupu" records Song Dynasty "Southern customs, mid-autumn night, women hold each other and sing songs, in the shadow of the whirling moon, it is the most prosperous." Lu You's "Notes of Lao Xue'an" said: "Men and women gather to sing songs, and during the farming break, to one or two Hundreds of people are called Cao, holding hands and singing songs.” Ma Yuan, a painter in the Southern Song Dynasty, also painted a picture of "Touching Songs", which shows six wild old people dancing on the mountain vagina, with realistic shapes and strong wildness.
The custom of "Tage" went through the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, and is still flourishing in the southern minority areas.
On festive days such as the establishment of a prince and the change of the year name, the emperor allows the people to gather for drinking and having fun, which is called "giving wine [pu servant]".In the Tang Dynasty, the gift of wine was the most frequent in the era of Wu Zetian, and the most extravagant in the era of Tang Xuanzong.Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty once had a feast at the Wufeng Building in Luoyang, and ordered local officials within 300 miles to lead singing and dancing artists to participate in the performance.Chang'an's big wine is often in front of the Qinzheng Building, when hundreds of court ladies perform the "Three Great Dances".There are also animal dance performances such as elephants and rhinos.The "Sanle" sent by various prefectures and counties includes mountain carts, dry boats, horses, cockfights, playing balls, playing swords, and playing horns.
Dajiu singing and dancing has also become a tradition.
The Tang Empire had frequent diplomacy, and there were many foreigners and ethnic minorities in Chang'an, Luoyang and other places.They also brought the customs and habits of their own nation to China.Therefore, there is a kind of "Pohanhu Opera" that has been popular for many years.
"Pohan Hu Opera" is held every year during the "begging for cold" in the twelfth lunar month.People wear animal masks or god-head ghost masks, shirtless, singing and dancing, chasing each other and splashing water for fun.
This is the custom in Qiuci, Kangguo, Gaochang and other places.It is said that splashing water with rhythmic music in winter and spring can eliminate disasters and diseases.This kind of activity had been introduced to the Central Plains during the Southern and Northern Dynasties, it began to flourish during Wu Zetian, and it formed a grand scale in the capital and major cities during Tang Zhongzong's time.During the Kaiyuan period, due to the intervention of the emperor, it gradually disappeared.
Due to the widespread spread of Buddhism and Taoism, Buddhist temples and Taoist temples appeared widely during the Northern and Southern Dynasties.Yang Xuanzhi of the Northern Wei Dynasty said in "Luoyang Jialanji" that there were 1,367 Buddhist temples in Luoyang at that time.At that time, there was already a custom of setting up music in Buddhist temples.The temple has become not only a place of worship, but also a playground for the public.Every religious festival, the temple organizes mass entertainment, and dancing is one of the important activities.
The Chinese have created many gods, and every god's birthday, there are temple fairs in temples, singing, dancing and other entertainment programs to show off their abilities.
"Luoyang Jialan Ji" said that every eighth day of the Buddha Bathing Festival in Luoyang Changqiu Temple in the Northern Wei Dynasty, there was a parade of Buddha statues of Sakyamuni.The team is led by a lion that wards off evil spirits, and there are wonderful acrobatic magic performances such as swallowing knives and spitting fire.People in the parade are all dressed in fancy clothes.As soon as the Buddha statue stopped, the audience gathered around it, and people were often trampled to death.Zhaoyi nunnery organizes "female music" every "six fast" day. "Singing sounds around the beam, and dancing sleeves turn slowly. The silk pipes are light and harmonious."
In the temples of the Tang Dynasty, in addition to inheriting the entertainment traditions of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, "theatres" also appeared.
Various popular folk entertainment programs were concentrated in the temples of the Tang Dynasty.Such as crane dance, flower dance, etc., are often performed in the temple.There is also a famous dance in the temples of the Tang Dynasty, called "Sifang Bodhisattva Man Dance".This dance was created by Tang Yizong.Tang Yizong believed in Buddhism and spent a lot of money to build an Anguo Temple.When the temple was completed, Yi taught his court actress Li Keji to adapt this female group dance.During the performance, each dancer was dressed as beautiful as a Bodhisattva, and a dance team of hundreds of people danced for the appreciation of the Buddha and Bodhisattva.Gradually, it became a folk custom to perform "Sifang Bodhisattva Man Dance" in the temple.From the dances performed for Buddhas and Bodhisattvas depicted in the Dunhuang murals, we can imagine the scene of singing and dancing in temples in the Tang Dynasty.
In order to thank the "god" for the happiness and pray for the prosperity of the domestic animals, the good weather and the good days when the epidemics (li) are not severe, the common people organize the "shen race".On such days, while arranging grand prayer ceremonies, there are often singing and dancing activities.Folk shamans (xixi) are often wonderful performers of Saishen's singing and dancing.
Wang Wei, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, has a song "Welcome to the God" in "Song of the Yushan Goddess":