Basket lanterns, also known as "chair lanterns", are popular in Fengnan District, Fengrun District and other Bohai Rim areas in eastern Hebei. The name comes from the fact that the mask is made of fish baskets and armchairs, and candles are burned inside the mask during the performance. There is no written record of its origin. Basket lanterns are a newly discovered folk Nuo dance in recent years, and are the remains of the activities of exorcising ghosts and epidemics in eastern Hebei. The basket lanterns in Fuzhuangzi Village, Fengnan District, still retain their ancient style and regional characteristics. They are one of the few folk Nuo dances in eastern Hebei and can be called the living fossil of the "rural Nuo" of ancient Yanzhao. The traditional basket lantern performance consists of six men playing five little ghosts and a judge (Zhong Kui) respectively. The dancers wear masks, no makeup, and casual clothes. The mask of the little ghost is made of a fish basket made of bamboo or sorghum strips as the frame, with holes for the eyes and nose, and the basket is covered with wool paper and painted. The judge's mask is made of a chair as the frame, and covered with painted paper. The two horizontal supports of the chair fall on the shoulders of the dancers, who hold the two legs of the chair with both hands to perform. In the twelfth month of the lunar calendar every year, the performers rehearse the basket lanterns, and perform them on the nights of the 14th to 16th day of the first lunar month. At that time, the performance team sets out from the Yaowang Temple, and the head of the meeting will sound the gong to lead the way, followed by the dancers, and then someone will release lotus lanterns, one at the door of each house and three at the street corner. On the night of the 16th day of the first lunar month, the "Five Ghosts Making Trouble in the Judgement" is performed, which means Zhong Kui drives away the plague ghosts. This is the last ritual of driving away the plague. After the performance, the mask will be burned. The whole performance process is full of religious mystery and the scene is solemn and serious. There is no specific dance vocabulary for the basket lantern performance, which is all actions in life. The performance depends entirely on the dancers' improvisation, but the performance must revolve around driving away ghosts and expelling the plague. The percussion instruments of the basket lantern are mainly drums, gongs, cymbals, and small cymbals, which play a role in setting the atmosphere. In recent years, local literary and art workers have made in-depth explorations into the Basket Lantern and widely absorbed the performance techniques of the Jidong Yangko, creating a square dance called "Basket Lantern". Using a combination of romantic and realist techniques, through four dance segments, namely, Sea Sacrifice, Sea Soul, Sea Fight, and Sea Joy, it vividly and warmly shows the scene of the children of Bohai rejoicing with the sea and celebrating the harvest, thus revealing the profound theme of the children of Bohai being hardworking, simple, kind, intelligent, united and hardworking. At present, with the development and changes of the times, the old artists of Basket Lantern have passed away one after another, and there is no successor, and the art is facing the dilemma of being lost. Information source: Hebei Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center Information source: Hebei Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center