Lantern Festival Yangko performance brilliantly staged (Photo by Reporter Deng Zhihong)
Brilliant dancing performance staged in new area in the flourishing Year of Dragon. On February 24, the fifteenth day of the first month in the lunar calendar, the 41st "New Year in Yan'an" and 2024 Spring Festival Cultural Tourism Activities - Lantern Festival Yangko Performance was staged brilliantly.
The early spring in Yan’an was still cold, the Yan'an New District just after snow showed a silver world, making people as if in a fairy tale world. At 11 o'clock in the morning, citizens and tourists from all directions converged to the main viewing platform of Dongfanghong Avenue and the Yangko performance along the Zichang Road, where were surrounded by crowds, laughing and waiting for the arrival of the Yangko parade.
"I took my child to wait in Zichang Road at about 10 o'clock this morning. We haven’t seen Yangko for years, and we are so excited to see the long-forgotten Yangko today, as the lively atmosphere we know so well is back finally,” said the citizen He Rui excitedly.
During the conversation, the first Yangko parade - Yan'an Taste · Furen Lane Yangko parade was coming, while aunties dressed in brightly coloured costumes walked with light steps, all dancing energetically by waving colourful fans and dance-used umbrellas. At the end of the parade, a clown matchmaker played by the 74-year-old Fang Xilin looked radiant and festive, who took the Yangko steps, attracting shots from a number of citizens.
There were also three clowns like Fang Xilin playing wives, old men and kids in the Xincheng Luyi Yangko parade, all of whom are 70 years old and above. They take Yangko as an amateur hobby after retirement, and make exaggerated and funny, witty and humorous movements and dance steps that achieve the beauty in the farce and harmony without vulgarity, which brings infinite joy to the public.
"The head and tail of the parade shall be emphasized in Yangko parade, and our duty as clowns is to follow the team at the end and use exaggerated and humorous dance movements to bring out the beauty from the farce, so that we can bring joy to everyone." Zheng Fenglan, a clown actor, was very happy to see the audience taking photos and waving.
Cheerful gong sound, brisk drum sound, crisp cymbal sound and melodious suona sound. On the same day, seven performance phalanxes composed of actors from the Baota District Xincheng Street Office and its nearby administrative villages came on stage successively, bringing scenes from the daily lives of community residents onto the stage of the Yongko performance, to bring a wonderful grand Yangko performance.
Actors of these seven Yangko phalanxes are mostly older residents of the communities, and have long been active in the major community phalanxes, interpreting the “old people have something to rely on, to do, and to enjoy” in their own way. They drive more middle-aged and elderly people into the rich cultural life with practical actions, so as to help the middle-aged and elderly groups to enhance the sense of gain and happiness.
There were also some business and enterprise Yangko parades, integrating their tenets of service into the performance. With the classic revolutionary music, the Yangko parade members brought out the bustling scene of happy life and the spirit of vigorous upward through dance, among which a powerful force for building a shared social governance pattern was gathered.
Then, it was the Yangko parade of “Flourishing Year of Dragon & Dancing in New Area” of New Area Management Committee that followed the Xincheng Street Office. The performance consisted of four phalanxes, among which nearly 400 young employees of the New Area Management Committee wore colourful headgear, dressed in red tops and green trousers, belted with colourful ribbons on the waist, with a robust pace, dancing in cheerful music, and had brought a series of splendid performances, including long dancing, drums play, flying umbrellas & fans dancing, gongs & drums play, and so on.
For the Loong Dancing phalanx, four golden dragons flew up and down under the collaboration of the dragon dancer, changing with a variety of postures, such as twisting, swinging, back, jumping, shaking, etc.; For the Yangko celebration phalanx, flying umbrellas were waved in a thousand of ways, fans were played to show a blooming era. The man's mighty bravado and woman’s natural and simple beauty in Northern Shaanxi were expressed cleverly by these young men and women Yangko team members...
After around three-hour brilliant performance by a thousand Yangko performers for the whole citizens, the Yangko performance came to an end with a lively and spirited performance of Ansai waist drums.
"I look forward to an even better and bigger Yangko show next year, which is the real taste of new year that belongs to us Yan'an people," said the citizen Feng after appreciating the grand performance.