Dongshang Gongs and Drums
Dongshang Village, Dongying District, Dongying City is located 6 kilometers southwest of Shengyuan Sub-district Office, Dongying District, 2.5 kilometers south of Naner Road, adjacent to Wenjia Village in the east, Xishang Village in the west, Zhaojia Village in the north, and Guangpugou in the south. Dongshang Gonggu (formerly known as "Nine Dragons Turning Over") originated here. In the 15th year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty, Dongshang Village was economically developed. Art lovers organized eight people, arranged two people to learn dragon dance, two people to learn rolling dragon dance, two people to learn dragon ball dance, and two people to learn gong and drum accompaniment. Taking advantage of the popular dragon dance in various places during the Spring Festival and Lantern Festival for three years, they went to Zhoucun, Weixian (now Weifang), and Cangzhou respectively, absorbed the essence of dragon lanterns in the three places, and after meticulous arrangement and tempering, they created the well-known and unique folk art of "Nine Dragons Turning Over". During the Spring Festival every year, Dongshang Village organizes young people to rehearse and perform "Nine Dragons Turning Over" to liven up the lives of the masses, and perform in surrounding villages. In 1942, the dragon lantern was burned by the Japanese. Because the skill of "Nine Dragons Turning Over" requires a certain level of martial arts, the rolling method of dragon dance and the skill of "Nine Dragons Turning Over" have been lost. However, the folk percussion music accompanying "Nine Dragons Turning Over" has been passed down to this day, and has become an indispensable entertainment activity for modern farmers in Dongshang Village to exercise after dinner. At the same time, weddings and various opening ceremonies in the surrounding villages and villages are also indispensable for the "Nine Dragons Turning Over" percussion music of the current Dongshang Village folk gong and drum team. The folk percussion music accompanying "Nine Dragons Turning Over" was passed down from the eighth-generation ancestor of the Shang family in the 15th year of Daoguang in the Qing Dynasty: Shang Yuemou, Shang Anran, and Shang Yungong to the 11th generation of the Shang family, Shang Shanfeng and Shang Ruixing. Later, it was passed on to Shang Binghua, Dongshang Village, Shengyuan Street, Dongying District. "Nine Dragons Turning Over" has nine complex and varied rhythmic patterns, which are played in a cycle, interlaced with fast and slow, and have endless changes. When it is cheerful and radical, it is played with tight gongs and drums, and when it is stretched and melodious, it is played slowly and slowly; when it is sonorous and powerful, it is moving, and when it is tactful and lyrical, it is delicate and profound. The distinct regional color and strong local flavor have created the pure, simple and generous performance style of "Nine Dragons Turning Over". Free participation, free venting, self-entertainment and self-evolution have formed the distinctive peasant art characteristics of "Nine Dragons Turning Over". The drumsticks are heavy but not clumsy, light but powerful, like jade beads falling on a plate, with clear strengths and weaknesses, retaining the original flavor and the majestic artistic style of the Yellow River Basin. In 2015, "Nine Dragons Turning Over" was officially named "Dongying Gongs and Drums" in the fourth batch of municipal intangible cultural heritage lists announced by the Dongying Municipal Government. After nearly four hundred years of history, this percussion score with a clear theme, rigorous structure and outstanding local characteristics can be preserved intact from generation to generation, which is inseparable from the diligence of each inheritor and the tireless pursuit of Han folk art. The mutual promotion of Dongshang Gongs and Drums and percussion music in surrounding areas has brought vitality to the cultural life of rural people and injected vitality.