Investigate The Dance Form Of The Yi People

“Yo-cu-bu”, meaning “singing and dancing during drinking” in Qiang ethnic's southern dialect, is an entertaining dance danced at wedding events, funerals and other festival celebrities and a kind of circling dance which has its origin in ancient Qiang time. This dance, accompanied with lyrics mainly in regard to sacrifice, contains imitating movements of nature worship and ancestor worship to express psychology of piety and appreciation of traditional and unique ancient culture passed along. The performing form of “yo-cu-bu” is the combination of dancing and singing. The number of dancers is not limited. During the dancing, dancers arch their arms or connect their arms together, led by the principal dancer to proceed in counter-clockwise direction. This dancing style of this dance is archaic and steady. During the dance, dancer's knees tremble downward at stressed beat and the whole body including head, hands, arms and legs turn in the same direction. Entering through Wen Chuan County and Li County where “yo-cu-bu” is popular, the writer chose four ancient counties--- Aer County, Qiangfeng County, Xiuxi County and Taoping County to process field research and keep records in details. Through plumbing Qiang culture behind “yo-cu-bu”, researching its dynamic features, style and rhythm, exploring its dancing form, combing materials collected in field trip and one's own aesthetic contemplation, this paper aims at extracting performing contents contained in its form and design choreography which closely relates to Qiang's history, culture, belief and its custom.This paper is composed of three chapters. In the first chapter, the panorama of the “yo-cu-bu” is introduced. In the second chapter, the origin of this dancing form is examined. In the last chapter, from the records and analysis of dynamic presentation of “yo-cu-bu”in Qiang counties, we have the conclusion that dance, as one kind of spiritual product in a particular time, is influenced by cultures in different periods of time with new contents come in and endowed with new significance. I believe it is of much importance to rouse people's recognition of their own culture because only by this way, we will not follow foreign cultures blindly, instead, we will protect, develop and inherit our own ethnic cultures spontaneously.