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Lanzhou Taiping Drum Dance

The whole audience in the Bird's Nest to the Opening Ceremony of Beijing Olympic Games (2008) was greatly impressed by a less-than-three-minute drum performance that preluded the opening ceremony. The same show had been put on at the opening ceremony of the 1990 Beijing Asian Games, which led the ceremony to the climax. Ben Stevenson, O.B.E., artistic director emeritus of Houston Ballet, was so struck by this spectacular art form that he acclaimed it as “the No. 1 Drum in the World.”

The performance is called Lanzhou Taiping Drum Dance, a most popular folk art in China’s northwestern province of Gansu. The literal meaning of “taiping” is peace. And the drum dance is widely performed at almost all the major festive events in Lanzhou area and is supposed to be able to disperse evil spirits and invoke blessings. There are different stories concerning the origin of the drum dance, the most popular version being a Chinese Trojan Horse story in which General Xu Da of Ming Dynasty ordered his soldiers to carry big drums with their weapons hidden inside to enter the city of Lanzhou, and with that, finally captured the city.

The drum’s looks incorporate the most fundamental symbols of Chinese culture. It is painted bright red, which is the best-liked colour by the Chinese folk, and looks like a cylinder 70~80 cm in length and around 45 cm in diameter. Patterns of dragons are painted on its body and a taiji (two opposing elements known as yin and yang) diagram encircled by the bagua diagram (eight trigrams used in Taoist cosmology to represent the fundamental principles of reality) is painted on the drum head.

When playing, a team of performers, usually all men, beat the drums in a bold and powerful manner. While keeping beating the drum, they throw the drum overhead, shove them to the ground, or jump over them. The whole team are supposed to cooperate closely and change their individual positions to form different formations. The formation may look as if a dragon is chasing its own tail, or two rivaling armies pitted against each other, or a legion trying to break a siege, etc.

While mainstream Chinese dances feature a generally gentle, elegant, refined and effeminate style, Lanzhou taiping drum dance gives the audience a feeling of masculinity, strength, and confidence even if it was performed by a women team.

The Lanzhou Taiping Drum Dance has been listed by the State Council as a national level intangible heritage. The show gives a true taste of Chinese folk arts in its vast rural area, and is a must-see for the traveler to Gansu.

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