The historical origin of Jingxing Lahua

Lahua is a dance created by a village girl named Lahua according to her love life experience and named after her. This kind of meaning is very strong in Zhuang Wang's The Burden of the Flower Vendor, and his Flower Vendor Ballad is consistent with its content.

This theory is most popular in Hengjian area. Legend has it that there is a man named Yang Mingju in this village. He served as the county magistrate of Xihua County in Henan Province during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty. When Ren Man passed by Luoyang, a peony resort, he brought back several clusters of peonies and took Kao Hua to worship heaven in laojunmiao, the village. Since then, every flowering season will always attract many men and women to watch. In order to commemorate the happy event of peony taking root in Jingxing, some folk artists choreographed it into a dance. Because of the inconvenient transportation at that time, peony could only be transported by manpower in the distance of nearly a thousand miles, so it was named Lahua. In this way, there are costumes with flowers on the back, head, face and shoulders everywhere, as well as dance steps closely related to pulling forward, falling down and leaving the feet. Up to now, artists hold peony flowers and have the saying of pulling flowers.

After ten years and nine droughts in Jingxing, the people were forced to leave their homes with their children, singing in the street, complaining about grievances and begging for alms. Over time, a qualitative form of begging-famine was formed. Now some legends and anecdotes in the wilderness can still be collected from some old artists. Because flowers and drought are local homonyms, they are called pulling flowers. Jingxing County, Shijiazhuang City is located in the depths of Taihang Mountain at the junction of western Hebei Province and Shanxi Province, and it is also known as one of the nine major traffic jams in the world with Jingxing. As early as the pre-Qin period, this was the main road connecting the East and the West in Yan and Jin Dynasties, so it also formed a special floating cultural area. Jingxing people have loved culture and art for generations, and various art forms have been spread and circulated. Flower-pulling art is the best among many folk arts, and it is also the favorite folk dance of Jingxing people. There is a saying that Jingxing flowers are twisted everywhere.

Jingxing Lahua originated from folk festivals, temple fairs, celebrations and festivals, and has a long history. As early as the Tang Dynasty, it was recorded in Yuanhe County Records, which was written in eight years. When and where Lahua was born and formed is not recorded in history, and there is no written test, but there are different opinions, either Song and Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, or native, or imported from other places. There is no conclusive evidence, but it can only be said to be a legend. As early as the pre-Qin period, there was a hundred-mile post road in Jingxing, which connected Yanjin and became the sixth of the nine major traffic jams in the world. This unique place of thoroughfare fortress has also become the living zone of folk swimming culture in past dynasties. In particular, in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang carried out the policy of stationing wasteland and guarding the border, and 1373 and 1388, two large-scale immigrants from southern Shanxi, Jinzhong and southeastern Shanxi with dense population and few wars, added more than 100 Jin surname villages and dozens of Jin surnames to Jingxing. Naturally, some foreign folk art forms followed and blossomed everywhere in Jingxing. Li, a descendant of Zhuang Wang Lahua in Merchant's Bear and one of the representative figures of Dilahua, was an immigrant in this period, and it was also clearly pointed out in Legend of the Origin of Zhuang Wang Lahua. Another example is mentioned in the dance history of China: Lu Yao of Amin Dynasty once saw various folk dances in Hongtong County, Shaanxi Province. Such as the "umbrella dance" with a small umbrella and the "flower board dance" with a sandalwood board. Folk dance activities are out of sight now, but umbrellas and boards are indispensable props in pulling flowers. Another example is the posture hawker described by Wu Xilin in Qing Dynasty, which is the main role of hawker. Widely spread in the mining area and the surrounding Jingxing village, it has been deeply loved by the people since ancient times for its deep and quaint charm, vigorous and desolate artistic characteristics and expressive artistic dance. After the founding of New China, the cultural center of the mining area (then known as the Second Cultural Center of Shijiazhuang) collected and arranged this folk art.1In March, 956, with the help of the cultural center of the mining area, the flower-pulling team from the southeast village represented Hebei Province in the second national folk music and dance exhibition held in Beijing. "La Hua" won unanimous praise from the judges and won the second prize of excellent program with its unique vigorous and beautiful artistic style, that is, warm and desolate. After the performance, he was cordially received by Zhu De, Dong and other central leaders. Since then, Lahua has gone out of the mountains and Taihang mountains, with far-reaching influence. During the Cultural Revolution, folk art was imprisoned. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, folk art was revived. Hengjian, Jiazhuang, Beizhai, Zhangjiajing and other villages have their own flower pulling teams to participate in the annual first month flower show and folk traditional temple fairs. At the same time, "flower-pulling" has entered the campus as a folk art, and many schools have set up flower-pulling performance teams for primary school students.

Based on the above complaints, Lahua originated in the mining area and also rose in the mining area. The main representative of Di Lahua is Nan Zheng Lahua's Liuhe Tongchun. Outside Liuhe, there is no distinction between saints (on Zhuangzi and Wuqi). A book: Liuhe, heaven and earth. It can be seen that Liuhe Square is the same as Heaven and Earth Square. There are some similar folk arts in other places. For example, Li Dou wrote in "Yangzhou Picturesque": The day before beginning of spring, the prefect welcomed the Spring Festival in the east of the city, and let the famous prostitute play the role of social fire. There are six roles: the woman who dreams of spring, the sister who dreams of spring, the official who lives in spring, and the soap servant. No matter from the role or content, Liu Hechun has great familiarity with it.

There are various indications that the formation and development of Lahua is the crystallization of the mutual integration of swimming culture and Dashan culture. In the process of integration, he not only inherited the characteristics of other dances, but also developed a unique dance style according to Jingxing's unique regional characteristics and customs, which is beyond doubt.