The Research On The Body Language And Culture Of Nuo Ceremony In Zhanjiang,Guangdong

Nuo, Carrying on and developing from ancient times till now in the historical changes and in the environment of wars, mixes and integrates with different cultures and forms a special Chinese cultural phenomenon. Nuo has linked with ceremony since Nuo was born. Therefore, Nuo means a kind of ceremony, which means sacrificial rites. Nuo dance and Nuo opera are kinds of performance when Nuo develops to some historical stage, from Entertaining towards God to human. Nuo dance in the Nuo ceremony has function of ghost driving. Nuo has root culture and fills with deep traditional Chinese culture. In a word, Nuo dance and Nuo opera are the vital parts and forms of Nuo ceremony,which is significant to the research to Nuo culture in the traditional Chinese culture. This research bases on the case of Nuo ceremony and explores its cultural implication,from the aspect of body language, expecting to make a conclusion to the essence and core value of Nuo culture and traditional culture in theory.The main body of the thesis includes five parts.Chapter One explains the remaining Nuo ceremony and forms of Nuo dance on the basis of material and data from the field investigation, analysing the biological environment of Leizhou Peninsula and the impact on Nuo with the historical and social development. This chapter indicates the main causes of the remaining of Nuo ceremony.Chapter Two indicates the construction of space where Nuo Ceremony performs in the time. This chapter indicates three aspects, the real construction of different materials (such as ancestral halls and temples) of Nuo ceremony and the change of Non-real space after Nuo’s sanctification; the cultural implication and symbolic space of the ranking of God’s levels, sacrificial offerings in the Nuo in the process of ceremony; the myths and legends of Nuo ceremony and the virtual image space created by the villagers----the space conversion of God(Shen),the cultural content and the symbolic space construction of different clothes, Abracadabra, Scripture etc in the ceremony.For the villagers who are the participants, the spectators, witness and promoters, how do they create the God(Shen)and the space of god(Shen) with the wizards and create the entertainment of the god and human and develop their passion to the summit and form a material space,symbolic space, image space and ceremony space built by god and men. It is the process when human becoming God, in which God would give the blessing to the reality and the social space.Chapter Three focuses on the body language in the Nuo ceremony. It analyses the body languages of masters, wizards, performers of Nuo dance, people who participate the worship from morpheme, narrating and context, using methods of linguistics. The Morpheme of Nuo ceremony includes hand jues, route and magical instruments, which reflects the communication with Gods. The body languages of Nuo Dance combines with the image space created by myths and legends and have the function of narrating under the specific circumstance:Kao Bing means the narrating of heroes, Zou Qing Jiang means narrating of God’s generals, Wu Er Zhen means narrating of operas. Meanwhile, when the masks, customs and magical instruments come with bodies, forming a symbolism, they make a cultural language environment which is hyper reality. When the strange and hysteretic masks combine with bodies, it makes a distance between daily bodies and reality.Chapter Four explores the cultural root of Nuo ceremony. As a kind of folk activity, Nuo has linked with religion and integrated with Confucianism. Nuo ceremony reflects Confucianism in the myths and ancestral instructions, letting participants accept the Confucian ideology in the process, which is another way to promote Confucianism in rural areas. On the other hand, Nuo has integrated Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and witchcraft in the historical development.Chapter Five anal sizes the meaning and value of the remaining of No, Nuo ceremony,Nuo dance and Nuo culture.Nuo, Nuo ceremony, Nuo dance don’t die away but remain to the modern society, which is different from other ancient ceremonies. Existing in the real life of people in other ways, Nuo shows its strong vitality whose essence forms the collective memory in the heritage from generation to generation in the specific culture year after year. It is the direct way for the villagers recognizing their ethnic groups while taking part in the Nuo ceremony. In the harmonious atmosphere of the ceremony, Nuo enhances the emotion of villagers and strengthens the unity of members of the villages or ethnic groups. The myths, legends and Propriety, Righteousness, Benevolence, Courage, Loyalty, Filial piety act. Moral ideas indicate the Chinese culture and value, influencing deeply on today’s Chinese culture at core.