Shijiazhuang City's 2022 "Cultural and Natural Heritage Day" and "Colorful Shijiazhuang Intangible Cultural Heritage Shopping Festival" activities are launched! This event focuses on key objects such as intangible cultural heritage workshops and time-honored brands, combining online and offline, through various new media platforms such as websites, WeChat, Weibo, Douyin, Kuaishou, etc., in the form of short videos, live broadcasts, exhibitions, etc. Display all kinds of high-quality intangible cultural heritage resources in Shijiazhuang.

The "cloud" performance of the essence of intangible cultural heritage will take you to "cloud" to explore the intangible cultural heritage skills and understand the intangible cultural heritage projects in Shijiazhuang City. This time, I will take everyone to discover the representative project of Shijiazhuang municipal intangible cultural heritage - Hantong Flower Pole Dance.

According to the "Zhengding County Chronicle", the location of the flower pole dance is Hantong Village, whose name commemorates the arrival of Han Tong, the general of the later Zhou Dynasty. The predecessor of flower pole dance was known as Bawang Whip, Dalianxiang, Daluzi, etc. "Hantong Village Chronicles" records that the Hantong flower pole has been continuously extended since it took root in the form of "beating down" during the Tongzhi period of the Qing Dynasty. After the reform and opening up, Han Tongcun visited old artists and rescued a set of flower pole performance movements, which brought this historical culture to life, and finally named it "flower pole dance".

"Flower pole dance" is a group dance, but it has its own distinctive characteristics. The flower pole performers hold flower poles about one meter in length with copper bells and ribbons tied at both ends. The main dance vocabulary is "swinging arms", "waving waist", "tiptoe", "turning across" and "turning head". As the foundation, accompanied by the pull flower of the arm, the flower pole is waving, forming a unique artistic style with a healthy dance, stretching and cheerfulness, and a combination of rigidity and softness. The scale of the performance can be single, multi-person, dozens or even hundreds of people. When marching in line, the formation may be gathered or scattered, horizontal or vertical, square or round. The dance routine is divided into thirteen sections, each movement has 4 or 8 beats, and the dance steps include straight step, backward step, cross step, horse step, square step, cross step, twist step, lunge and so on. In the melodious music and graceful dance, dancers hit the neck, shoulders, arms, elbows, waist, knees, soles and other parts of the body with flower rods. The instruments used include drums, gongs, cymbals, chi, sheng, xiao, banhu, erhu, and yueqin. The performers are dressed in traditional costumes, with colorful headgear tied up with their hair up, and red cloth shoes or black leather shoes. The main props flower poles are made of bamboo poles, about 1 meter long, and 8 copper coins are installed in grooves 10 cm away from both ends (now changed to 2 copper bells each), and colored cloth strips are tied at both ends. Bamboo poles are packaged into beautiful flower sticks.