Be Expressed In Folk Art

Representation has always been a sensitive indicator that demonstrates not only the changes or production of some new terms, but the changes or adaptation of culture. That is why I am to explore Shanghe Drum Yangge Dance, a folk art, in view of its representation. In such a way, the real meaning hidden behind the representation is to be exposed, so is the relationship between the politics, economics, ideology and the changes or evolution of culture.The object of my research originates from, or to be exact, is based on my own field work. Shanghe Drum Yangge Dance, as a local folk art, had been quite popular and widely circulated among the rural community in the north-west of Shandong Province, such as in Shanghe County and other neighboring counties. During the special event of the Spring Festival (from the Spring Festival to Lantern Festival), the local people take the initiative to organize such an folk activity, which is made up of many individual performances, such as umbrella, drum and stick playing, dances, ballad singing and storytelling, acrobatics, clown's role play etc., and what's more, the activity strictly follows some ritual procedures and organization patterns. According to the local ordinary folks, a team of such a folk art performance consists of at least 40-50 people, and sometimes a team of more than a few hundreds of people is rare. A variety of performances, as so-called "baixi", would be put on. The most peculiar point concerned with such a folk art is the "the rules of etiquette". After the visits to the relatives, it is the time for a village to organize the folk activity. After practicing some rehearsals, the team, dressed in colored silk clothing and decorated with red silk festoons, would put on the first formal performance in front of the temple of the village to show their greatest respect for the community god. Then some performances for their own villagers begin. And later on, it is the time for the folk team to pay some visits to the neighboring villages to offer some performances. There are some special rules to follow in view of the sequence or the order of the visits. The visiting sequence and the application of the rules of etiquette are both based on the relationship of the two villages. The skills of art performance don't matter too much, and it is the perfect practice of rules of etiquette that plays the vital role in the maintaining the proper relationship between the two villages.Since the end of the Qing Dynasty, the national dominating ideology has greatly influenced the representation of this rural folk culture, such as authoritatively renaming, imagining, reforming and reconstructing it as to the procedures, the patterns of organization, the movement and rhythm, the image and the theme etc.. Then this folk art has been putting on different names and images, from a folk custom in name of nao-wan and pao-shi-wu for the local people to celebrate the Spring Festival, to show respect for the God and ancestors, and to enjoy themselves, to a local "old-fashioned" customs represented by the local scholars in the times of the Public of China, and to "folk art" as an effective tool to mobilize the masses and a symbol of liberation as well, and to "Guzi Yangge" addressed by some experts, and and to "the representative of male dance art of northern Han ethnic groups", and finally to "national intangible cultural heritage". The uses of the new terms supply the experts and the statesmen of the government with some effective tools to express their view of the world and their way of thinking, which drives away the other ways of thinking or the ways of expressing ideas. In other words, the use of new terms elbows the scope of the use of old terms out, making the old terms illegal, dependent and easily-forgettable and quickening the speed of culture changes. It is clear that the meaning of a folk art has been changed sequentially in the process of being represented by the others with authority.The research focuses on how different people with different ideology describe, represent and rename this folk art or this symbol of representation in the globally political and economic system and the cultural imperialism and nation-state historical context, how different groups take advantage of this symbol to make profit, and what changes has happened to this folk art in the presentation. At the same time, the focus is also placed on how the social relations, the distribution patters and local political patters change with the reforms in rural life and the system of folk customs at the great social crisis or event. This research is directed to explore what changes this folk art has undergone at the critical social turning point, with the sharp conflicts between the traditional and modern culture, the local and foreign cultures. What's more, the relationship between the changes of this folk art and that of the community belief, between the changes of the economy and that of the social life is also studied. In other words, how this folk art would demonstrate itself during the long historical process of being represented is explored.The dissertation is to make a discourse analysis of all oral legends, social memory, social activities, various written references, the interactions between different discourses and the productive system of social knowledge from the field work to show the changes of different representations of the folk art in name of "Game Play" and "Lantern Festival Running", then "old-fashioned customs", and "Yangge", and "Shanghe Drum Yangge Dance" , and " the representative of male dance art of northern Han ethnicl group", and finally "national intangible heritage". And the focus is placed on analyzing the cause for the changes of the folk art in the historical and cultural context, and then to interpret the internal formation and the aim of different texts, and to analyze the different usages and implication of the production of the texts are both emphasized. The aim is to explore the process of the marginalization of the local folk culture, the interaction of national modern discourse with the local folk knowledge in the national and international context. And all of this is to be discussed in view of knowledge sociology. The methodology of this research is concerned with the field-work of this folk art, and what's more, all academic works, literary works, news reports, political reviews, and county annals etc. concerned this folk art are all to be analyzed as discourse text in some given social and historical context. That is to say, a text is here interpreted as various discourses representations, writing and editing, practices and activities for some special purpose in some special context. Then the focus of discourse analysis of this folk art is not on the plain description of it, but the re-representation of the representations of it, to find out the cultural ideology and the structure of power hidden in all the representations.The paper falls into 7 parts. The introduction of "A Folk Art as Represented and Some Theoretical Approaches Concerned" is to offer a brief introduction to the definition of research object, the original motivation or cause for this research, some basic research on this object and the methodological methods to be applied in the research. Chapter 1 is entitled by "Folk Arts Represented as Folk Customs for Gods' Blessing in Spring Festival". In this part, the research of some oral histories is applied to demonstrate the local performance of folk art and the metaphorical and logical significance in the ritual performance, which shows the peculiarity of native way of interpreting and representing the folk life in the time-space view of the rural community. Chapter 2 entitle by "The Local Rural Experience Encounters the Exterior Knowledge" is to demonstrate that the traditionally local experience encountering the exterior knowledge has caused some great changes in folk arts as to the name, the form, the significance and the image, and that the performance of power is also exposed during the process, esp. at turning point of social culture's critical change sinse the end of Qing Dynasty, to the beginning of the Republic of China, to the Resistance War against Japanese, and to the beginning the People's Republic of China. Chapter 3 "The Rebirth of the Tradition and some Representations in Response" mainly states the fact that the rebirth of some traditional and multiple cultures in the 1980's lasts not very long and it is soon marginalized by the urbanization, commercialization and the spread of mass media. Chapter 4 "Folk Art and the Remaking of the Tradition" states that the local government makes a great effort to remaking of the folk culture for the invention of the local cultural band in the international and national context of protecting folk cultures and intangible relics. What's more, the struggle for the symbol of folk culture is depicted and a logical discourse analysis of the variety of cultural practices is also made. In Chapter 5 "The Empty Homeland and Some New Local Experience", a case study is made to demonstrate the situation of the empty subjects of rural culture and some new experience in the market economy, and some argument is directed to the efficiency of the so-called culture protection movement. Finally, in the conclusion "Behind the Representations", it is argued for the significance in the research of the representation of folk arts in view of historical anthropology, and some reflections on the relationship between traditional culture protection and the intellectuals' responsibilities in view of the construction of knowledge are also made.In summary, since the end of Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Public of China, the folk art nao-wan or pao-shi-wu has been driven into the scope of temporary discourse and become an object of the academic subject of "folk art", then it has been facing up with being examined and chosen up. Some part of it is intentionally overlooked, while some is emphasized to be represented in some new discourse context. That is why I am to do some research of this folk art in view of its representations with the aim to explore the interrelationship between ideology and cultural changes hidden behind some representations or speech interpretations. And some reflections on what "folk art" as a discourse means are made in view of the historical anthropology. The dissertation is a research into the representation of a folk art, to demonstrate the fact that discourse representation as a sensitive indicator of culture and ideology shows not only the changes of terms, but the complicated changes and transformation of social culture, and that the naming of any object is closely related with political and economical context. Then what I study is not a folk art itself, but what is addressed or represented as "a folk art", or the history of the representations of "folk art", which is something, represented as "folk art" by different economical or political groups in different discourse contexts in different historical periods. To be exact, the object of my research is the so-called "folk art" in the scope of discourse knowledge. The research is not to demonstrate whether some discourse is real or not, but the social and historical context for the possibility for the production of the discourses about "folk art"; and it is also to review what kind of roles some intellectuals have been playing in the construction of "folk art" as a subject and some reflections are to be theoretically made; finally, the dissertation attempts to observe and analyze the rules to follow concerned with some knowledge reproduction and discourse practices in some given historical and cultural context. In such a way, a demonstration is to be made as to what ideas, content have been overlooked and suppressed intentionally or unintentionally in some discourses or representation. Then the aim is to be achieved as to the interpretation of a folk art as represented or the history of the folk art as a discourse. So the dissertation is a kind of representation of of representations.