Lanzhou Bitter Water Taiping Drum is a unique culture and art that the Han nationality inspires the world. The wooden drum body is painted with dragons and lions, and the cowhide drum surface is painted with Tai Chi. The drum body weighs more than ten kilograms. Dozens or even hundreds of drummers, the lineup is vigorous, the flags are majestic, the gongs and drums are loud, the drums are flying, and the ups and downs are orderly. When performing, the left hand buckles the ring to control the drum body, and the right hand holds the whip to hit the drum surface. The posture is rich and changeable, and the rhythm is slow and sudden. The drum array is open and advanced, and the drums are vigorous and vigorous, filling the world and imposing, just like the Yellow River.
Lanzhou Taiping Drum has its own characteristics. First of all, its shape is different from other drums. The drum is 80 to 85 cm long and 37 cm in diameter. It is based on a cylinder and has a huge volume. Instead of using a drumstick, beat the drum surface with hemp twisted into a drum stick (or whip). When drumming, the drums are deep and vigorous, and the dynamic law of drummers is that people dance drums, drums lead people, and people and drums are one. There are many ways to play drums, such as up, down, jump, turn, ride, flash, show, soar and move, which fully embodies the mutual blending and vertical and horizontal clutch between drummers and drums. It can be said that its style of play is unique.
Action style
Lanzhou Taiping drum dance is a group dance. From the beginning of the performance, it gave people a warm atmosphere of leaping dragons and tigers and celebrating the whole world. I saw gongs and drums flying in the sky. Many drummers jump back and forth, turn left and right, jump and beat, lift and beat, ups and downs are orderly, and they cooperate tacitly, just like Malik galloping and spring thunder rolling. There are many performances of Taiping Drum, such as Welcome in a Big Sedan, Children of the Yellow River, and Fighting in a Challenge. There are 24 to 48 people in the drum team, with more than 108 people. Drummers beat gongs to accompany them under the command of the team leader, and the formation changed constantly. For a while, it is "two armies against each other", "golden dragon mating" and "double breakthrough", and for a while it is "wheel rotation", "jumping", "squatting", "turning over" and "bank fighting", and so on.
The basic dance steps of boys in Lanzhou Taiping Drum Performance are: flash, show, soar, move, turn, turn, jump and jump. They jumped a foot forward, wagged their tails, then stepped back eight feet and turned over. Left oblique like a dragon playing with water, right oblique like a tiger swallowing sheep; Thirteen progressive whips are flying in the air, which is thrilling.
After finishing, processing and perfecting by several generations of folk artists and artists, Lanzhou Taiping Drum has gradually formed three basic styles of playing: high drum, middle drum and low drum. On this basis, the techniques of drama scaffolder and martial arts were introduced, which strengthened the change of rhythm. The single rhythm of Taiping Drum evolved into different styles of play, such as light, heavy, slow and urgent, and the formation changed more smoothly. The arrangement of new techniques of drums, gongs and cymbals makes Lanzhou Taiping Drum more musical, artistic, dancing and personalized, and has a reasonable development on the basis of inheritance.
High drum pattern, medium drum technique, low drum depth. After the gongs and drums are played, the drummer circles around, and the first, second and third floors are turned over, which symbolizes the prosperity of our cause. When drummers hit the surf of the Yellow River, they threw the drums into the air in turn, one layer fell and the other rose, and the waves rolled hand in hand, showing the irresistible momentum of the Yellow River from different angles. Other formations include: eagle hitting the sky, thunder thundering, two armies fighting, four gates, three yang opening Thailand, iron arm encirclement, ten thousand and so on.
Lanzhou Taiping drum is divided into three types: low drum, middle drum and high drum.
Low roller
The drum belt is longer, and the drum is placed on the foot. When marching, the left foot bulges with the back. When performing, the drums are basically attached to the ground. When the drum flashes back and forth from left to right, the right leg straddles the drum, and the left calf and the inside of the foot clamp the drum to rotate. You can also exchange legs to do this action.
Zhonggu
Put the drum under the drummer's knee. When the drum completely loses its support point, the drummer is the hardest to hit. Drummers should complete drumming in a series of actions, and also add performance skills such as rolling drums with both hands, drumming on the top of their heads and appearing on the stage. This is very strict with the drummer's body rhythm, hand dancing and drum coordination.
(of writing) of an ancient/simple but elegant style
The drum body is placed on the drummer's crotch. When performing, the drum is held in the left hand, and the belt is swung by the self-weight and inertia of the drum, forming a spectacular scene of people flying over the drum. Commonly used games include "kite turning over", "kicking with two feet", "sweeping the chamber leg", "swallow jumping" and "tiger going down the mountain". With its high-spirited momentum, grand scenes and superb skills, the high drum has become an essential material for the formation of the Yellow River Waves, Wheat Waves Rolling, Iron Wall Encircling, Three Sheep Opening Thailand and Wan. In addition, Taiping Drum pays great attention to the layout of the array in performance. The drum team is led by a golden dragon flag, with several small flags hanging, and bronze instruments such as gongs and cymbals respond with applause. Dozens to hundreds of drummers lined up to follow, and the drum team changed its formation under the command of Jinlong Banner. Each array has its own fixed and clear array, which is interspersed for low, medium and high drums.
After great changes, Lanzhou Taiping Drum has a set of stylized norms in specific playing methods and formations, and has become a treasure of Han folk art in Lanzhou.
trait
In addition to the above distinctive features, Lanzhou Taiping Drum also has an important feature: it has the imagination and creative space for artistic creation. Through inheritance and innovation, Taiping Drum has a strong sense of the times and artistic appreciation.
folk art
Taiping drum is a folk art of Han nationality, which has been deeply excavated, sorted out and innovated by Gansu dance circles. On the basis of Taiping Drum, the low, medium and high play styles are organically integrated, giving up the monotonous pattern of using one play style in the traditional play style, making the movements of Taiping Drum more diversified. First of all, in the conversion of action and action, we should boldly innovate and speed up the conversion rhythm to make it more reasonable and scientific. This correspondingly increases the difficulty of the movement, but the movement is smoother. This makes the changes of Taiping drum play tend to be rich, and the single dull rhythm has been changed. In addition, with music as the background, music and the rhythm of drums are integrated, and the rhythm of Taiping drum is also slow and powerful. The most important thing is to add dance movements to the drummer's basic performance movements, and artistically express the thoughts and feelings of people with exaggerated techniques. Through the above artistic innovations, the artistic appreciation of Taiping Drum has been greatly improved, and it has become one of the important manifestations of square dance art and stage encouragement.
Cultural characteristics
The history of Taiping Drum can be traced back to the distant past. Lanzhou Museum has a collection of painted pottery drums of Majiayao culture unearthed in Leshan Ping, Lanzhou. Historians call it the "originator" of drums. Similar to today's Taiping Drum, there may be some historical origin between the two works.
The body of Taiping Drum is painted red and painted with dragon or golden lion. Both ends are made of cowhide, and Tai Chi is decorated with "Eight Diagrams". This series of production methods fully show that playing the Taiping drum changes "gossip" into touching yin and yang, "looking up is to look at the sky, looking down is to look at the underground law, looking at the patterns of birds and animals, prospering the earth and taking pictures of everything far away". The concept of the integration of heaven, earth, people and drums has become the "mental image" feature of Taiping drum.
Shehuo custom
For hundreds of years, Lanzhou Taiping Drum has gradually evolved into a unique folk culture and art form of the Han nationality in the west. The shape of the Taiping drum is no longer a simple barrel shape. The drum body is round, more than one meter long, about 50 cm in diameter, and a drum weighs about eight or nine kilograms. The black or red drum body is painted with a lion rolling hydrangea or two dragons playing beads, and the drum surface is covered with dark and intense cowhide, and the drum surface is painted with mysterious gossip and Tai Chi pictures. The drummer has a whip in his left hand and a gavel in his right. This instrument is called Shuang Bian locally. During the performance, Qi Fei was beaten with a whip, and his movements were vigorous and natural. The drumming action of Taiping drum is integrated into the traditional martial arts of Han nationality, with a large range and strong strength. It is very difficult to perform when the drum is lifted to the head and thrown to the ground. Generally, the drum team takes the tooth flag as the command, beating drums and drums and dancing. The three ups and downs are orderly and the scene is spectacular. What's more, in the earth-shattering drums, hundreds of drummers are busy but not chaotic, and the formations are constantly changing, discharging various formations, such as "one-word long snake array", "Liuhe array" and "Bagua array", which is dizzying.
In the rural areas in the suburbs of Lanzhou, there is a custom of having a social fire every Spring Festival. From the third day of the first month to the sixteenth day of the first month, the Taiping Drum Team has been playing an important role. On the third day of the first month, the Taiping Drum Team began to beat gongs and drums, and went door to door in the village, called street sweeping, in order to clean up the dirty air of every household. Then, under the leadership of the drum team, the villagers went to the nearby temples to worship the land gods (such as mountain gods and land gods), which is equivalent to the temple fair in the Central Plains. At this time, the Taiping drum was earth-shattering, with the purpose of exorcising evil spirits and praying for good weather and abundant crops in the coming year. Conditional villages will stage two plays every day during the Spring Festival, one in the morning and one in the evening. Before the play begins, a Taiping drum is usually played to entertain. After the play is over, we should also play the Taiping drum. During the Spring Festival, Taiping Drum will also send community fires to each other between villages. At this time, the Taiping drum has become a bridge connecting rural friendship and feelings.
On the 16th day of the first lunar month, the social fire draws to a close, and the last activity is to send athel Loren. At this time, the villagers tied up a huge scarecrow and took it as a plague god, beating gongs and drums to send the plague god outside the village to burn it to ensure the safety and smoothness of the coming year. At this point, the whole activity of creating a social fire is over.
After the fire ended, the villagers repaired the damaged Taiping drum and sealed it until the fire reignited next year. No one is allowed to touch the Taiping drum at ordinary times. Lanzhou Taiping Drum not only adds a festive atmosphere to the festival, but also embodies the spirit of northwest people's struggle with nature on the Loess Plateau and their hope for peace, prosperity, prosperity and national security.