By Jun Zou
Folk Arts and Fine Arts
Music and Dance
Feng Shui
Traditional Festivals and Foods, Family Values, Conclusion
Music and Dance
Several organizations in the Chinese community regularly present Chinese dance and music in Baton Rouge. Some events feature professional and semi-professional musicians and dancers from China as entertainment for the larger Baton Rouge community, while others, like the Spring Festival, provide opportunities for local artists to perform. In Spring 2006, under the leadership of Mei Su, the Chinese Friendship Association supported the creation of the Traditional Chinese Dance Group consisting of local Chinese women and some LSU Chinese students. Xiaomai Seal, the group leader, leads the dance practice weekly in order to perform at traditional Chinese holidays and other local international events. She arranges for tailors in China to make the costumes.
At the 2007 Spring Festival, many local dancers performed. Xiaomei Seal and Chuncun Yanga, from mainland China, performed Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai, which is based on a Chinese legend about a tragic romance. Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai are the Chinese equivalents to Romeo and Juliet.
A local group of dancers from mainland China performed "Back to Parental Home" which is based on the Chinese folk song, "Back to Parental Home" about the happy mood that married women have when they go back to their parental home during Spring Festival period (a folk tradition in China).
Couple Dance
"Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai"
(by Xiaomei Seal, Chuncun Yang) |
Group Dance
"Back to Parental Home"
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Yunbing Ma, an LSU student from China, played the Chinese lute, a four-stringed lute with a pear-shaped body that is called Pipa. The name combines the Mandarin words "pi" and "pa," which are the two movements used to play this music instrument. Since Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), Pipa has been one of the most popular Chinese music instruments, and maintained its appeal in solo as well as chamber genres. Traditionally Pipa is mainly a solo instrument.
LSU students Yuan Zhang and Lushan Sun performed another couple dance, Flying Goddess/Dun Huang. This dance is based on the frescoes in the Dun Huang Grottoes along the ancient Silk Road in China. These frescoes form the world's longest painted corridor, with a total of 45,000 square meters of painted murals and have been the inspiration for other art forms including music and dance.
Chinese Lute Solo
"The Torch Festival Night"
(by Yunbing Ma) |
Couple Dance
"Flying Goddess/Dun Huang"
(by Yuan Zhang, Lushan Sun) |
Another group performed the Yang Ge, a style of celebration dance in northern China's countryside that expresses happiness. All the performers are originally from mainland China and now living in Baton Rouge.
Yang Ge Dance Cheer Spring |
Lion Dance Performance |
Baton Rouge is home to some musicians who play Chinese classical music. Some are foreign students at LSU, while others are permanent residents. As an example, Dr. Lubing Luo plays and composes Chinese flute music both at home and in public. Chinese folk flute solos were written to tell ancient stories or tales from various tribes of China. Earliest flute music can be traced back to around the 12th century. They were played mostly on wooden or bamboo flutes. Coming from Guangdong province in China and working as a research chemist at a local company, Dr. Lubing Luo learned both Chinese and western music theory, and has been studying and practicing Chinese flute since he was in high school in China. "I am now very interested in making an effort to integrate these two forms (Chinese and western) of music," Dr. Luo said. Below are his flutes. The four on the left are rhythm flutes and the one on the right is a melody flute.
Mr. Lubing Luo's Chinese Wooden Flutes
(Four rhythm and one melody (right) flutes)
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Next - Feng Shui
Jun Zou teaches interior design at Louisiana State University and has been in the United States since 2003. One of her research specialties is the Chinese aesthetic in interior design. She did this research as part of the New Populations Project.
