Puning Yingge, a Chaozhou intangible cultural heritage full of New Year flavor

In recent years, Chaozhou Yingge has become popular on the internet, attracting many tourists from other places to come and watch. This time we checked in at Puning, Guangdong, and we also watched the Yingge performance up close. Yingge, as a traditional dance of Puning, Guangdong, is also listed as a 'national intangible cultural heritage'. This unique folk traditional dance is inspired by the story of the heroes of Liangshan dressing up and attacking Daming Mansion. It has a history of more than 300 years and is a symbol of righteousness and peace, loved and respected by the local people, and widely spread among the people. Puning Yingge is a magnificent and masculine group dance, mostly performed by young and middle-aged men. The performers have unique shapes, the team changes a lot, the sets are varied, the dance scene is grand, the momentum is magnificent, showing the characteristics of fierceness, majesty, bravery, and boldness, fully embodying the valuable character and spirit of the Chinese nation's bravery, strength, unity and courage to move forward. In order to inherit the intangible cultural heritage of Puning Yingge and vigorously promote the spirit of Yingge's courage to move forward and dare to fight. Puning promotes the development of ancient village tourism, displays the rich historical and cultural landscape and unique folk customs of the countryside, deeply explores and displays the value of traditional cultural heritage, and recently launched a series of cultural activities based on 'Chinese War Dance·Celebrating Everywhere' - Puning Yingge. At the opening ceremony of the event held in Guolong Village, Puning, two Yingge teams from Nigou and Guangnan brought a wonderful Yingge performance. The performers painted different facial makeup, modeled on the image of Liangshan heroes, wore warrior clothes, tight-fitting shorts, danced with short sticks in their hands under the accompaniment of gongs, drums and conch horns, and danced with a strong sense of rhythm, which was exciting and passionate. Yingge dance is divided into slow, medium, and fast rhythms. The Yingge dance in Nigou Village is medium. Literally, this is a matter of rhythm. Relatively speaking, the fast-paced Yingge can better set the atmosphere and drive emotions. Every Lunar New Year and folk festivals, the local Yingge performance will reach its peak. Each performance is crowded with people, the scene is full of gongs and drums, dragons and phoenixes dancing, festive and lively, especially with the flavor of the New Year. The Guolong Village we checked in is a famous overseas Chinese village and also a cultural village. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it has attached great importance to education and culture. From the 15th year of Daoguang to the Guangxu years, it has produced the miracle of 'four Jinshi in one door, five out of six sons'. Guolong Village has a long history and profound heritage, with many tangible and intangible cultural heritages, such as Chaozhou opera, Chaozhou big gongs and drums, calligraphy and painting, lantern riddles and other characteristic cultural forms and folk performance techniques. The village now preserves 32 ancestral halls and many ancient buildings and historical relics. The more prominent ones include Jinshi Mansion, Zhuangyuan Stele, Tianhou Ancient Temple, Xieyu Pi Pavilion, Zhuang Shiping's former residence, etc., which are very worth seeing.