| Baima people, which was recognized as Tibetan during the National Ethnic Recognition Program in1950s, covers a group of less than20,000population and lives among mountains and canyons cross Sichuan and Gansu provinces. According to their geographic position, several process of migration histories, and the alienation from central and local dominations, their culture expresses its own distinctive feature, as well as affection from Tibetan, Han and other ethnic groups, showing an active and mixing, hybridity and retaining traditional character of their own. Therefore, from1970s until recently, the ethnic issue of them is still in continuous academic discussions with different opinions. Meanwhile, along with the controversies from outer viewpoint, their own recognition of themselves never stops as well.Dancing, using body as a medium, is the main way of inherited cultural traditions of ethnic groups, while the abundant, different dance formed from cultural rules and logic. Meanwhile, as a significant form of art, it also appears as a way of self-expression, reflecting the interaction of ethnic group with the outer world. Baima people has already established a set of self-interpretation system of their own culture during the long history, which embodied in the form of dancing, confirming their self-expression, in order to construct the boundary of ethnic and cultural identity through physical presentation and interpretation of meanings. Every particular performance of dancing, with the body as a medium, not also represents collective ethnic concept, but also full of scenes with initiative individual recreation. Dancing, being embodied in rich different morphological behind different contexts, shows the flexibility of the inherent stability of the rules. Therefore, within the process of dancing, covering stability and changes, structure and dynamic, culture of Baima is high lightened and shaped.Based on fieldwork of the dancing and other cultural practice of Baima people, particularly the contemporary situation within Wen County, this dissertation is focused on the issue how Baima people represents themselves and boundary of their group through dancing, as well as the culture recreation process under related theories of anthropology/ethnology and dancing research. Through the informative ethnography, analysis on dancing practice in different scenes of Baima people, this dissertation supplies structural expression and scenery recreation indicating cognitive structure and individual agency, internal differences and external boundary. Finally, this final coexistence case of dancing practice with stability and change, structure and agency, inheritance and construction case would bring new opinion on research, teaching and creation of dancing.This article is composed of three parts by introduction, six chapters, and conclusion. The introduction describes theoretical positions of the text, the significance of the Baima dance research. In main part, the first chapter begins with a debate of Baima People, showing a controversial coexists with the demands of ethnic groups. The second chapter depicts on natural environment and life of Baima People, focused on their verbal memory and daily life, providing a whole cultural background in understanding the Baima Dancing. On the basis of interviews and observation from the fieldwork, the third chapter reveals the local understanding of Baima dancing with their attitude of cognition and emotion. The fourth chapter presents dance activities during New Year of Baima village, focusing on local interpretation of dance in specific scenes of various villages in Wen County, with panoramic scanning and integrity of Baima dancing practice, vividly showing the structural and dynamic role of dance in living scenes. Fifth chapter gives full analysis and interpretation of body language from Baima dancing practice, particularly in Huoquan Dance, Chige Zhou and Ma Zhou, through external morphological ways and inherent symbolism. The sixth chapter discusses ethnic boundaries and cultural identity embodied in Baima Dancing. Reflecting more strongly inside each Baima village through dancing, but the system of shared collective meaning in Baima could also be said fission morphological characteristics in each village dance to construct ethnic groups with polymerization of significance structure from internal borders; Meanwhile, in the process of interaction with outer world, by selecting and embodied, dancing becomes the main way of shaping and highlighting the cultural identity of the Baima with great significance.Above all, this dissertation ended with three related conclusions: First, dancing is part of one ethnic culture, people express and share collective concepts, emotions through body language, as a collective expression. Secondly, the dancing as a body medium of cultural practices, the process is full of initiative and creative practice of subject, every physical presentation create and display in specific scenes, as dynamic rendering. Finally, in contemporary social context, dancing is highly lightened during ethnic interaction with the features shaping the self-image, and presentation of the dancing body contains a strong ethnic appeal of ethnic boundary with the externalization of the cultural identity. |
