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Balance of Grace and Strength: Chinese Folk Dancing in South Louisiana By Guiyuan Wang (王桂园) Folk Dances of China / Chinese Folk Dancers in South Louisiana
The Fun Although people enjoy folk dancing for different reasons, it is universally recognized as a fun activity. First of all, dancing is good exercise and also easy for people to get into. The body language of Chinese folk classical dances and ethnic dances is made up of all kinds of stretching, twisting, crouching, kneeling, lying down, bending over, splits, and moves indescribable with words. Dancers, including myself, may sometimes complain how we “suffer” while making difficult movements, keeping certain poses for too long, trying to move joints not often used, or stretching the muscles a little too much. But after the intense workout, everybody feels great and the previous strains are forgotten. Folk dancing is an avenue of self-expression and relatively easy to learn. Every performance gives the participants the opportunity to dance according to their ability. A person has to be gifted to sing traditional Chinese folk songs really well, whereas folk dancing provides a wonderful alternative. If one is diligent enough, one can become a good folk dancer. Having been in the Sunshine Dance Group for about three years, I have seen the progress of all the dancers, including those who never danced before joining the team. For the Chinese folk dancers, every dancing experience is refreshing both physically and spiritually. The beautiful music creates an atmosphere that helps the dancers put pressures aside. Marilyn Li (李孟蓉) is a good example. As a medical geneticist and pediatrician, she deals with stressful, life-threatening situations, and she has found that not only is dancing a good way to relieve stress but also the music brings her peace. Folk dancing is an outstanding way to preserve cultural heritage as well. Among the 13 dancers documented for this project, 12 are Han Chinese and one has Manchu ancestry. Regionally the dancers are from all over China including Anhui Province (central eastern China), Hubei Province (central China), Shandong Province (central eastern China), Guangxi Province (central southern China), Xinjiang Province (northwestern China), Gansu Province (central northwestern China), the City of Beijing (eastern China), Jiangsu Province (central eastern China), and the Island of Taiwan. Among these, Xinjiang and Guangxi are especially known for their multiple ethnicities. The full names of Xinjiang and Guangxi are Xinjiang Autonomous Region of Uygur people and Guangxi Autonomous Region of Zhuang people. My hometown, Gansu province, is another ethnically diverse province with a lot of Tibetans, Yugur, and Hui people.
All the dancers understand that the diversity of Chinese cultures is also the source of their vitality. Some dancers may especially love certain dances from an artistic perspective. For instance, Ting Nicole Landry (张婷) likes bolder folk dances from northern China, and Hsiaopo Cheng (陈晓波) likes the light-heartedness of the folk dances from Yunnan Province, such as Dai dances from southwestern China and Korean dances from Northeastern China. I personally like Tibetan ethnic dances very much because I came from Gansu Province, the south of which is a Tibetan culture area. I am excited to perform the Tibetan ethnic dance “Zhuo Mo (堂嫫)” for the Baton Rouge Chinese Cultural Night in October. Although the dancers have different regional and ethnic backgrounds, their passion, desire, and actual efforts of preserving the cultures of all the minor ethnic groups and different regions of China are all the same. Learning about the region or the ethnicity of the people is the first step of heritage preservation. Through the dances, a person experiences the life styles, customs, languages/dialects, and even the natural settings of the people. For instance, traditionally Tibetan people carry big buckets on their waists. That is why some moves in Tibetan dances are made with the dancer’s upper body bent in that particular way. In ethnic dances from Xinjiang, shaking the head often means a happy feeling. Dai people, who mainly live in Yunnan province (southwestern China), have a nationally known dance about the beauty of peacocks. The moves of the bird are artistically simulated by the dancer, and the dainty dance reflects Dai people’s aesthetics and how it is related to their environment. “Heaven (天堂)” a Mongolian dance, draws a dynamic picture of the unfettered nomadic life on the vast Hulun Buir Grassland and Horqin Grassland in northern China. Every new dance is an exciting experience and valuable lesson. The original “Peach Blossom (桃夭)”, a classical dance in the same genre of the Han classical dances more than two thousand years ago, is full of symbols. In the dance, the emotions of young Han Chinese girls longing for marriage are expressed by the light-footed moves in a refined and elegant way. The happiness of their future marriage life is symbolized as the blooming peach flowers and the red color of the costumes is a typical pleasant color in Han Chinese culture for marriage.
Folk dance also builds friendships. Within one group, the strong sense of belonging to the same team bonds the dancers together. There may be arguments and disagreements about how a dance should be practiced, or how a costume is tailored, or how a performance is scheduled, but the issues are always settled on behalf of the whole group. As a member of the Sunshine Dance Group, I always see how much the dancers truly care about each other like friends or even family members. In addition, the presentation of Chinese folk dances through multiple avenues has established great friendship between Chinese folk dancers and the audiences and dancers from other countries.
The Difficulties The Chinese communities in Louisiana are relatively small, making it difficult to find enough dancers even in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Xiaomei Seal (黄小梅), the team leader of Sunshine Dance Group complains that the Baton Rouge Chinese community is not big enough and it is hard to organize a team of adequate dancers. Xiaomei’s dancer friend in China has a team of 50 to 60 dancers, while here the Sunshine Dance Group of less than 20 dancers is possibly the biggest one in Louisiana. The same problem exists in New Orleans as well. Marilyn Li (李孟蓉) performed a solo dance for a local television show for celebrating the Chinese New Year 2009 in New Orleans (COX Cable 77, Orleans Parish), "Asian American Highlights" hosted by Tina Soong, a journalist who has focused on Asian American community news for the Times-Picayune for about 20 years. Another time Marilyn was invited by the Chinese Student and Scholar Association of University of New Orleans to prepare a dance performance. In both cases, Marilyn originally planned to perform a group dance. But there are not very many Chinese students in either Tulane University or the University of New Orleans for Marilyn to find somebody who could dance with her. It is even harder to find Chinese folk dancers in other cities or towns in south Louisiana. I could not get in touch with any Chinese folk dancers in Lafayette. Ting Nicole Landry (张婷) was the only dancer located in Houma. She has to go to New Orleans to participate in a dance group because there are no fellow dancers in Houma. Her husband says that it is frustrating that he can do nothing about it. Chinese folk dancing usually requires team work. Even for the solo dances, the success is often established on the support of a team behind the curtain. Therefore, it is very difficult for individual dancers to continue alone. The biggest difficulty, however, is that the dancers have to take care of everything themselves. There are no professional dance teachers nearby to teach new dances. The dancers can not afford to own or rent permanent dancing studios, so they have to move around very often for practice space. Also it is almost impossible to get costumes, or materials to make costumes in Louisiana. In China, a dancer can learn new dances from TV, DVDs, dancing studios, and art schools. Among them, professional teachers of studios and schools are the most efficient. In the U.S., Chinese dance schools are located only in a few states where the Chinese communities are sizable, such as the states of New York, Texas, and California. The dance schools closest to Louisiana are in Houston. Dancers of the Sunshine Dance Group in Baton Rouge have consulted the J & L Dance School, one of the three schools in Houston, only twice in four years. It is not practical to do it more often. Usually we rely on DVDs brought from China and more often the Internet is our “teacher” to learn new dances. Obviously this limitation makes learning new dances more difficult for us. Time and place for dance practice are two problems facing groups here. In China, amateur dance groups are usually made up of dancers who are either retired or working as colleagues. Therefore, their schedules are easier to coordinate. As noted above, in China it is common for amateur dancers to use public spaces for practicing. If it is a dance team of coworkers they can use the ballroom or other large rooms arranged by the organizer of the performance. But this is not the case for Chinese folk dancers here. The dancers usually have very different jobs and schedules and may have to travel some distance to practice. In addition, the dancers do not have an established place to practice. In Baton Rouge or New Orleans, few public spaces are available for folk dancing. Renting a place is expensive and therefore not feasible. The dancers have to take every opportunity when some place is available, so moving around is not uncommon. Both the dance teams of the Academy of Chinese Studies in New Orleans and Baton Rouge Sunshine Group often use the public facilities of local universities. Rehearsal has to be during the hours when they are not used by the university personnel. Both teams have had the experiences of practicing at somebody’s house when there were no other places available.
The space problem partially creates the schedule problem. Much personal time has to be sacrificed to make the best use of the available place. The dance classes of the Academy of Chinese Studies in New Orleans are squeezed in between the break time between other classes. When performances are coming, parents and children go to the school earlier and leave later to have more practice time. The folk dancers in Baton Rouge practice once every week on weekends. Sometimes, weekday nights are the only time to use the practice rooms of Louisiana State University. Some dancers’ jobs don’t allow them to leave until 7 p.m. so they have to rush to the practice place without eating. In China, costumes are bought, rented, or tailored from dance studios or stores. Louisiana has no such resources. Ninety-five percent of the costumes and props, such as traditional Chinese fans and handkerchiefs, are bought by the dancers or their friends and families in China. Xiaomei Seal (黄小梅) and her family pay the most money for the costumes and properties of the Sunshine Dance Group. Xiaomei’s husband Ben makes some stage props for the group. For example, he did a wonderful job in making some traditional Chinese benches for a children’s dance and simplified imitation of a traditional musical instrument pipa (琵琶). Ben is a native Louisianan and was not familiar with either the bench or the instrument. With great patience and hands of a craftsman, the benches he made are authentically traditional Chinese. With different wood parts supporting and locking each other for great security without a nail, the bench shares the same structural mechanics as traditional Chinese architecture.
The Academy of Chinese Studies in New Orleans pays the most money and at times parents or teachers donate costumes or stage properties. The remaining five percent of costumes and props are made by dancers or dancers’ friends who taught themselves. Jenny Hsia Chen (夏自珍), a dancer of the Baton Rouge Chinese Sunshine Group, has become an amateur tailor and does a lot of tailoring work for the group. Other dancers do what they can to help. Some keep an eye out for good fabrics and materials. Others join in the tailoring part and make simple costumes. Individual dancers usually use their personal costume collections or borrow costumes from other dancer friends.
Next - The Special Meanings / Conclusion
Guiyuan Wang (王桂园) is a cultural anthropologist and archaeologist with Coastal Environments, Inc. and member of the Baton Rouge Chinese Sunshine Dance Group. She did this research as part of the New Populations Project in 2009. |
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