|
Guoxie
(meaning "village" in Tibetan) is a group dance popular
in rural areas of Tibet. The participants dance hand in hand and
sing in rotation. The dance is often seen in villages, on open squares
and threshing grounds. At festivals people dance and sing from sunset
to sunrise. They mark the rhythm by stamping their feet.
Guoxie is performed to a 2/4 beat with the stress on the first beat.
The steps are steady and vigorous, characterized by a marked tempo
and a strong sense of people's labour and life. The underlying characteristic
of the dance is the expression of collective enthusiasm and joy.
This dance is found everywhere in Tibet, but the most renowned version
is found in the Shannan area. The form is largely as follows:
At festivals men and women stand hand in hand in two lines around
a big vat of highland-barley wine placed on open ground. The two
groups first sing and walk from left to right in a circle. When
they finish singing, the xieben, or organizer of the dance, leads
in shouting, "Xiu, xiu, xiu, xiu," and starts the dance
with rhythmic steps. This rhythmic shouting is called xiege in Tibetan,
or "beginning of the song," which is followed closely
by quick-tempo singing and dancing. The two lines of men and women
compete in their dancing. After repeated dancing the xieben leads
in shouting, "Xiu, xiu, xiu, xiu," or sings alone while
the others dance to his tempo. This part of the dance is called
xiexiu, or finale.
Xiege thus is both the beginning of the song and the initial dance
steps to shouts of "Xiu, xiu, xiu, xiu," or "Ci,
ci, ci, ci." The dancers' shouts are very similar to "One,
two, three-- everybody dance!" As many people participate in
Guoxie and it usually does not have any instrumental accompaniment,
it is hard to attain uniform dance movements. Xiege is designed
to arouse people's enthusiasm and get them moving together. Xiexiu,
the finale, is usually the climax of the dance. Xiege sparks the
participants' enthusiasm in their concluding climatic dance steps.
A solo popular in the Shannan area goes, "Ah, jia, hei! Nowhere
else on earth can match our beautiful homeland. No house is as comfortable
as my house. No other young people are as happy as we are, and no
other people are as lucky as we are." The people dance during
the solo, then shout in chorus, "Xiu, xiu, xiu, xiu,"
to conclude the dance.
|
