Ningxia Xiaoqu (Folk Ballad)

Ningxia xiaoqu is a folk Quyi form native to Ningxia, performed in the local dialect with alternating song and speech, chiefly sung with some spoken passages. It entered the fourth national ICH list in 2014 under Quyi, project number V-126, and is one of Ningxia's most representative regional song traditions.

Its traditional staging most often has one singer beating a wooden clapper while standing to sing a short piece, with another on the sanxian, or two players seated for a longer work—one plucking the sanxian or holding the clapper, the other singing—with rich tunes, witty speech and subjects drawn from everyday town life and folk tales.

Ningxia xiaoqu is the only native Quyi form of Ningxia on the national ICH list, carrying the dialect art and urban folk culture of Yinchuan and its surrounds, and holding real value for the study of how northwest folk storytelling took shape and evolved.