Intellectual Inheritance of Ritual Folk Dance in JingzuSandao, China

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study about the folk dance on Ha Festival and the inheritance processes of ritual folk dance in JingzuSandao. This study is a qualitative research through collecting data from documents and field investigation, byusing methods of observation and in-depth interviews, then analyzing data and presenting the results in the descriptive analysis.

The study shows that: 1) Folk dance is apart of religious ceremony on Ha Festival; 2) All the folk dance performers are the married women of Jing nationality or the women who have married men of Jing nationality; 3) The dancing posture of folk dance may be originatedfrom nature or the Fisherman’s posture; 4) The dance props are incenses, plastic flowers, andchicken feathers or bird feathers, which may be the sacred animals for the Jing nationality; 5) The musical instruments of folk dance are the big drum, small drum, big gong and small gong. The rhythm from these musical Instruments makes the dance style more beautiful; 6) The contents of the songs which aresung on the ritual of Ha Festival, are about the way of life, beliefs, spirits and the traditions of Jing nationality.

There are three ways to inherit folk dance: by telling directly, through the ritual and the means of promotion. There are four factors that affect the inheritance of folk dance: The participants are not supported by the family, the participants rarely have time to attend training, the training department does not have a car to pick up participants, the shows paid for the local participants areless than the participants from Vietnam.