An Investigation On Maogusi Dance Of The Tujia Minority In Shuangfeng Village

Maogusi Dance is a traditional Tujia ethnic minority dance with a long history,which mainly spreads in Yongshun,Longshan,Baojing,Guzhang and their surrounding areas in Xiangxi Tujia & Miao Autonomous Prefectures in west Hunan.This traditional folk dance has its characters,dialogues,plots and some procedures for performance.Dancers wear costume made by reeds during the shows,giving this dance a primitive and unsophisticated appearance.Its content covers a wide range of aspects of daily life, which include traditional fishing,hunting,farming,wedding,studying and many more. Maogusi Dance is of great art,culture,religious,custom and historical importance.It is truly an astonishing culture treasure of the Tujia People.For the purpose of this dissertation,Shuangfeng village--a natural village located in Yongshun county of Xiangxi Tujia & Miao Autonomous Prefectures--has been chosen as our research object.By studying this village extensively,we expect to explore and demonstrate how rich and varied Maogusi Dance is.This dissertation consists of introduction and four other chapters.The introduction chapter mainly introduces our research object,methodology,motivation,and related existing literature.The first two chapters following the introduction chapter describe Shuangfeng Village and its Maogusi Dance related situations,covering detailed records and analysis of its performance procedures and typical choreme.In the next chapter,we attempt to move from descriptions,which are the focus of the previous chapters,down to culture significance discussions by using related data and research methodology.In this chapter,disputes over the history of the Tujia People,the emergence of Maogusi Dance and reproductive worship are discussed as well.Finally,the culture functions of Maogusi Dance will be described in the last chapter.These functions include worshipping ancestors,exorcising evil spirits,begging for good fortune,education,as well as some other functions that are gradually added to this art during culture changes,such as entertainment and culture identification.