Western-Hunan Miao Drum Dance

The Western-Hunan Miao drum dance is a traditional Miao dance circulating through the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, including Fenghuang County; listed as code Ⅲ-30, it entered the first national ICH list in 2006. Its roots reach back to the ritual and war drums of the Miao ancestors, a living heritage in which the people speak feeling through the drum and tell stories through the dance.

The Miao drum dance has many forms—the flower drum, reunion drum, monkey drum, solo and duet drums, four-sided drum—in which the dancer strikes while leaping and spinning, the movement both forceful and supple, the beats deep, joyful, primal and raw, played at festivals, rites and the autumn-gathering, with the women's flower drum especially prized around Fenghuang.

The Miao drum dance unites music, dance, martial art and ritual in one, recording the history of Miao migration, farming and belief, the core vessel of the people's memory and identity and irreplaceable for the study of the music and dance of southern peoples.