Lanzhou Taiping Drum

The Lanzhou Taiping drum has several origin stories, the leading view being that it took shape in the Ming-era military colonies around Lanzhou, where soldiers drummed to lift martial spirit and celebrate victory before the form passed into village shehuo festivals, with more than six hundred years of history. The drum formations perform across the Lanzhou countryside each Spring Festival and Lantern Festival, and it is one of Gansu's most representative drum dances. It entered the first national ICH list in 2006.

The Lanzhou Taiping drum has a cylindrical body some seventy to seventy-five centimetres tall, a head of forty-five to fifty centimetres and a weight of nineteen to twenty-two kilograms, double-headed with cowhide and painted with motifs such as "two dragons playing with a pearl." The drummer slings the long strap over the shoulder and within the formation beats, throws and angles the drum in endlessly changing patterns, the grand array fusing the weight of a military line with the gaiety of a village fest.

Hailed as the "No. 1 Drum Under Heaven," the Lanzhou Taiping drum carries the memory of northwest military colonies and agrarian life since the Ming, sitting at the heart of Lanzhou's shehuo and festival folklore, with outstanding historical, artistic and folkloric value.

During the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival the Taiping drum may be seen in the shehuo performances of Gaolan, Yongdeng and the villages around Lanzhou.