Jingxing Lahua Dance

Jingxing lahua arose and spread within Jingxing County of Shijiazhuang, tracing to the Ming and Qing dynasties and first seen in the street-and-square flower gatherings of festivals, temple fairs, rites and worship, and is ranked among Hebei's three great folk dances. Its music is a tradition of its own, carrying the flavour of Hebei wind music together with colours of temple and court music, "vigorous but not coarse, soft but not cloying." It entered the first national ICH list in 2006.

Lahua turns chiefly on the shoulders: dancers roll their shoulders up and down with a balance of strength and softness, joined by twisting, leaning, bending and stretching of the body into a reserved, graceful rhythm. Traditional pieces such as "Six Harmonies of Spring," "Selling Thread," "Watching the Fifth Watch" and "Going East of the Pass" express the life and feeling of mountain people.

Jingxing lahua carries the folk belief and aesthetic of Jingxing in the Taihang mountains, an important sample for the study of northern folk dance and flower-fair culture, and a vessel of local memory and identity for the people of Jingxing.