44 BEIJING REVIEW APRIL 20, 2017 http://www.bjreview.com
CULTURE
Drumming up
Support for
A Legacy
As a young boy, Wang Chengqiang, like
all children, played with a drum. But it
was more than play. His grandmother,
who had learned the art from her elders when
she was a child, taught him the Taiping Drum
Dance, a lively folk dance in which the dancers
use drums as props.
The genre appeared in Beijing during the
Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and grew popular in
the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Taiping is asso-
ciated with peace and tranquility and the drum
is also called the Yingnian drum because it is
played during Chinese New Year celebrations.
An offshoot of the traditional art is the
Shijingshan Taiping Drum Dance, which devel-
oped in the capitalís Shijingshan District. A group
of people, often in a circle, move back and forth
to the beat created by hitting a small drum,
which they hold in their left hand, with a stickheld in the right, sometimes accompanying it
with short, catchy songs. Many of these verses
are based on traditional stories or classics. In
2006, the Shijingshan Taiping Drum Dance was
listed as a national intangible cultural heritage.
The 61-year-old Wang is an heir of the
vanishing art form. Today, he is dedicated
to popularizing the drum dance once more.
A diabetic with a stent in his heart, Wang
nevertheless practices every day, teaching the art
to both young and old, so that it is passed down
to the future generation and more people know
about the cultural tradition. Q(Photos by Wei Yao)3 4
Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar
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