Drum Culture of Shanghe County

Shanghe Drum Yangge is a treasure of Chinese folk dance art. It ranks first among the three major Yangge dances in Shandong and is one of the four great folk dances of the Han nationality in northern China.

Farmer teams performing the Drum Yangge took part in the National Folk Music and Dance Festival in 1955 and 1980, winning Excellent Awards on both occasions. In 1989, it claimed three top prizes including Best Performance, Best Formation and Best Organisation at the Chengdu Autumn Chinese Dance Festival. In 1992, it was awarded the Special Prize at the Shenyang International Folk Dance Festival. In 1996, the Ministry of Culture named Shanghe County the "Hometown of Folk Art". In 2005, it qualified for the Mountain Flower Award, the highest honour in China’s literary and artistic circles. In January 2006, after rigorous evaluation by the Ministry of Culture, Shanghe Drum Yangge was inscribed on the first batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Lists.

The county boasts more than 30 folk art forms represented by Drum Yangge, Flower Whip Drum Dance and Flower Stick Dance. Among the county’s population of 580,000, as many as 100,000 people can put on costumes and take part in performances. Three regional schools have gradually taken shape:

With constant integration among different schools, every village has developed its unique version of Yangge. The saying goes, "Each village has its own style", creating a dazzling array of performances.

The whole show of Shanghe Drum Yangge resembles a large-scale military battle formation with strict role arrangements. The Yangge leader issues orders that are followed without delay; scouts carry out three rounds of reconnaissance and reports; lines of performers march in neat formation with graceful postures and imposing momentum.

Once the big drums are in position, five types of performers—umbrella holders, drummers, stick wielders, female dancers and clowns—give full play to their skills to the passionate drumbeats. Drawing inspiration from ancient battle arrays, imperial processions, traditional architecture, labour activities, daily utensils, auspicious patterns as well as flora and fauna, local artists have developed more than one hundred dance formations over generations, such as Two Dragons Emerging from Water, Snorting Horses Stamping Hooves, Interlocking Eight Trigrams, Ambush from All Sides, Golden Thread Butterflies, and Li Zicheng Marching into the Capital.

The formation shifts constantly following the leader’s baton. The performance alternates between civil scenes, martial scenes and mixed scenes with complex movements of advance, retreat and interweaving. The layout is circular outside and square inside, balanced and symmetrical with unpredictable changes. Sometimes performers move like twisting flood dragons; sometimes they engage in close combat; sometimes they soar like eagles; sometimes they flow freely like floating clouds and running water.

The grand finale features the Stairway to Heaven and Eight Street Marches. Drums thunder like raging storms as eight columns form square formations. Spinning umbrellas surge like huge waves, drumbeats rumble like ten thousand galloping horses, stick dances are fierce and powerful, and female dancers move with heroic bearing. The whole scene is magnificent, stirring and overwhelming, earning the dance the reputation of "a representative male folk dance of the Han nationality".

On the basis of carrying forward traditional culture, the hardworking and simple people of Shanghe will surely create folk dances that blend contemporary vitality with strong local characteristics. This ancient art will bloom more brilliantly in modern cultural life and add new splendour to the garden of Chinese arts.