Nuo Dance (Zhanjiang Nuo Dance)

Zhanjiang's nuo dance grows from ancient totem-worship ritual over fourteen hundred years old, a distinctive "thunder nuo" born of the peninsula's reverence for heaven and thunder, centred on the Thunder Chief and the five directional thunder generals. In 2008 it was added to the second national ICH list as an extension of nuo dance, under code Ⅲ-7.

Performed in Leizhou's Songzhu and Nanxing around the first lunar month or Lantern Festival, dancers wear wooden masks and carry weapons as the five thunder generals, driving out evil to drum and gong, with regional forms such as "marching the generals," archaic and bold.

Hailed as a "living fossil" of Chinese dance, Zhanjiang's nuo dance holds unique historical and cultural value for studying the evolution of nuo and local folk belief.