Sangzhi Bai Ethnic Staff-Drum Dance

The Sangzhi staff-drum dance is a traditional drum dance of the Bai people of Sangzhi, built around a distinctive staff-shaped drum. Handed down over generations in Sangzhi's Bai villages, it is recognized as national-level intangible cultural heritage.

Dancers hold the staff-drum and dance as they strike it, the beat matched to posture and footwork in vigorous movements. It is performed at festivals and communal gatherings, with a stirring, high-spirited mood.

As national-level ICH, the staff-drum dance reflects the distinctive migration history and cultural memory of the Sangzhi Bai, and is an important emblem of this Bai community's identity.

At festivals and folk performances in the Bai villages of Sangzhi, visitors can watch the staff-drums keeping time amid answering group dance.