Yangge was originally a form of singing, and later appeared in the form of dance and drama. Now these three forms are popular all over the country. The word yangko has broad and narrow meanings. Broadly speaking, it refers to all kinds of dances and songs in "Going Out", "Going Out" and "Shehuo", such as swan song, Gao Xiao, bamboo horse, straw boat, flower mirror and tea lamp, which are collectively called yangko. Meaningful state refers to yangko (land yangko) and high jump yangko. Although Yangko is popular all over the country, northern Shaanxi, Hebei, Northeast China, Shandong and other places are the most fertile and popular.
A brief introduction is as follows:
Yingbei Yangko is popular in Jiaxian, Suide, Mizhi and other places in northern Shaanxi. In the past, every Spring Festival, the local people would organize yangko teams to "make yangko", also known as "make yangko", and there was the custom of yangko teams to pay New Year greetings to the masses. A yangko team has as few as a dozen or twenty people, and as many as seventy or eighty people. The leader is named "Umbrella Head" and is the conductor of the Yangko Team. Generally, they are experienced old bosses who play yangko. He is holding an umbrella (symbolizing fine weather) and singing while dancing. He sang improvisation. Behind the umbrella is a peddler with a peddler drum. Others dress up as men, women and children, clowns and other characters, but most of them are young farmers. When the umbrella head leads the whole yangko team to open the ceremony in the square, the "venue" is twisted first, and some of them are called "going through the motions". In the "meeting place", the umbrella heads danced and walked out of various patterns. An excellent umbrella head can not only bring out a yangko team with hundreds of people from hundreds of figures, but also make the venue look packed and lively. After the big field, there is a small field, also known as the kicking field, which is divided into two-person field, three-person field and eight-person field according to the number of people. Except that the "three-person meeting place" is a man and two women, everything else is equally divided. In addition to the "twisting step" and "striding step" that both men and women have, women also have "dressing up", "looking at flowers", "softening the waist" and "spreading the wings of the phoenix". Men have "two feet", "three feet don't land" and "split". After a small venue, sometimes a little play with lively plot and singing and dancing will be staged, which is generally called "Yangko Opera". After the mini-play, there was a collective turning point. Ended in a warm atmosphere. Some researchers have summarized the action characteristics of northern Shaanxi Yangko as "twisting", "swinging" and "walking". The formula is: "Northern Shaanxi Yangko twists and turns away, with lively and free emotions, cheerful rhythm, many changes and movements like wind and waves."
Diyangzi is popular in Hebei, Beijing, Liaoning and other regions, covering a wide range, but each region has its own characteristics, which are similar. Among them, Hebei Yangko is the most representative. Hebei Diyangko is popular in Tangshan, Changli and Luanxian, and it is the main form of agricultural performance in the annual "going out party" (large-scale mass entertainment activities including various folk art performances) held in this area. It is characterized by some wonderful, humorous and vivid scenes, with distinctive characters and vivid story lines, which are mainly expressed by dance movements. It can be said that it is a folk Hili dance drama, and its representative works are: Wang Erxiao Catching Feet, Jun Zhuzi Receiving, etc. China and Guo Jian's Dance Works.
Shandong Yangko Shandong is one of the birthplaces of the Chinese nation. Qilu culture, which was created and developed more than two thousand years ago, occupies an important position in Chinese national culture. Shandong folk dances are also very rich, among which drums and yangko have the greatest influence. Drum yangko is the most representative folk dance in Shandong, which embodies the simple, rough, frank and open style of ancient Qilu. There are four kinds of characters in drum yangko, namely "umbrella", "drum", "stick" and "flower". Umbrella can be divided into "flower umbrella" and "ugly umbrella". Flower umbrella is responsible for conducting the band and mastering the dance rhythm; Ugly umbrellas command the formation changes of yangko teams, and all of them dance with umbrellas in their left hands. "Drum" is a small flat drum held in the left hand and drummed in the right hand, jumping and knocking at the same time. "Great" means that dancers hold a wooden stick in each hand and hit each other while dancing. Hua is a dancer dressed as a girl, with a long handkerchief in her left hand and a colorful silk flower in her right hand. In addition to the four roles of L, there are people who run "miscellaneous corners", dress up as old men and women, and perform funny performances behind the Yangko team. Drum yangko is also famous for its rich and varied walking methods (formation changes). There are dozens of formations with beautiful composition and ingenious and compact changes.
In Shandong, besides drum yangko, there are Haiyang yangko and Jiaozhou yangko. The style of Haiyang Yangko is simple and rough, and the performance form is flexible and free. Among them, the dance images of doctors and flower drums are the most prominent, and the use of umbrellas and drums also has its own characteristics. The dance images in Jiaozhou Yangko are characterized by female images (Xiao Yuan, Fan Nv, Cui Hua), giving people a tough, stretched and neat aesthetic feeling. The professional dance teacher summarized the dynamic law of Jiaozhou Yangko as "the organic combination of twisting feet, waist, forearm around the figure of eight (moving), hand pushing and wrist turning." The old artist used "lifting weights, falling lightly, drifting;" Move and twist your waist "to describe its dynamic law and style. (See, Zhang Shiling, He, Introduction to Han Folk Dance.