The Dance Of Eagles: An Ethnography Of Music And Dance In The Pamirs

The issue of identity is a research hotspot of continuous concern in the academic circles at home and abroad.For a multi-ethnic country,especially in Xinjiang,where the geopolitical and cultural background is extremely complex,how to properly understand and deal with the relationship between ethnic identity and national identity is an urgent problem to be solved at present in contemporary China.For a long time,the academic circle often pays more attention to the identity expression of several ethnic majorities in Xinjiang,and lacks in-depth research on ethnic minorities with smaller population.This dissertation focused on Tajik,a Minzu of fewer population lived in the mountainous Pamirs plateau in the western of China,with pursuing the main clues of how Tajik folk music and dance reshaped into "eagle dance",and how from the mimicry "eagle dance" consolidated into the"eagle dance" guarding the national border spirit,and analyzing the forms and ways of different levels of identity expression of the ethnic groups of fewer population in Xinjiang's scene of regional and geographical interaction.From the perspective of methodology,the research of this dissertation is more inclined to be an intellectual ethnography of ethnic art.Focus from the geographical space to the cultural and social space,to the music and dance expression is organized into a larger national framework,and the process of production and reproduction to explore local culture,especially the cultural practitioners in carrying toward the inheritance of traditional knowledge,accurate poverty alleviation,guarding the frontier boundary,rural reconstruction such as flexible is how to deal with multiple tasks.In the end,this dissertation aims to answer some anthropological theoretical questions,such as how are cultural features often regarded as ethnic and national symbols produced and reproduced in different contexts?how do geographical,social,spiritual and cultural spaces integrate into the production and reproduction of music and dance culture?in the face of a diverse world,how do people shape their ethnic images and express multi-level identity through art in different scenes?how does culture stretch,reshape and express itself in the change situation?And focuses on the productivity of local knowledge and how the multi-level identities with emotion can coexist.The first chapter,from a view of travel,embarks from the urban region along the China-Pakistan friendship road southwest,immediate sensory feelings which is used to describe the geographical feature and climate environment,and the visual is visible along the landmark landscape and cultural legacy leads to different age Pamirs "black and white stone","Son of the Sun from Han","Kurchak's resist the enemy",historical legends,mythology,and local interpretations.Then in the second chapter from the most important life Tajik places,"big house" or Langar with five pillars and overhead skylight in the functional space division,in the most lively Tajik wedding ceremonies and Tajik Shagan Bahar,Tajik New Year festival,describes how the folk dance activities throughout the space and present a Tajik houses ethics order,as well as home,village and Ellis social organization relations,and then present therichness and diversity of Tajik music and dance culture through multi-point experiential observations.The third chapter traces the important role of the Azara family in the formation and development of modern Chinese Tajik music and dance style.In contrast to the old social discrimination against folk artists in mainland China,excellent folk music and dance artists enjoy high prestige in Tajik society.Post Bandir village is located on the east-west Yarkant-Tashkurgan ancient road,which provides the Azara family with more convenient access to music and dance culture exchange,and the folk songs contributed by this family have become the classic of Tajik ritual activities.The fourth chapter traces the cultural construction,mass art service and intangible cultural heritage protection of the cultural troupe and cultural center in Tashkurgan County along with the reconstruction process of Tajik eagle dance.Concepts and geographical advantages contribute to the continuous development and reconstruction of social and cultural spaces,local meanings and ethnic identity of music and dance,which in turn is closely related to the macro-governance of the nation presence and the intervention of social life.In response to the demands of The Times,several generations of literary and art workers at the grass-roots literary and art groups located in the frontier border areas of China have participated in the dance,from choreographing the folk eagle dance to the stage with simple artistic practice to endowing the dance with cultural symbolic significance with cultural consciousness.After China joined the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage,the protection of intangible cultural heritage became a state action.The fifth chapter focuses on the reconstruction of eagle dance under the background of intangible cultural heritage protection.Benefiting from the country's special policy of developing cultural undertakings in the frontier border areas,Tajik eagle dance has successfully entered the first batch of representative works of national intangible cultural heritage protection list.In a series of cultural activities,"Eagle Dance" has become the cultural typical of the Tajiks,and has become the general name of the Tajik music and dance."Iceberg Eagle"has also become the symbol of the Tajiks.It is worth noting that the inheritors and folk artists of the Eagle Dance also play an important role in the inheritance of music and dance.They express different understandings and understandings of the Eagle Dance and its related things and processes based on their own experiences.Chapter 6 reconstructs the eagle dance in a broader context.With the promotion of cultural exchange and tourism development,the local government and the people are experiencing the game of self-consistent and mutual communication.Folklore villages with multi-mode culture display are established in response to the needs.In recent years,targeted poverty alleviation and frontier border defense have aroused the Tajiks's strong sense of community with a shared future,and the country's responsibility of frontier border protection coincides with the "umbilical cord blood pledge" of the Chinses Tajik.In the external performance and internal inheritance,the eagle dance has been sublified into the "Eagle Dance",symbolizing the brave and tough spirit of guarding the frontier border,condensing into the firm will of safeguarding national unity,and metaphorizing the dedication of those who stick to the national frontier border to defend their home and country.Notable is,the eagle dance tradition and the folk artists also play an important role in deriving inheritance,they expressed to eagle dance based on their personal experiences,and the things related to eagle dance have different understanding and awareness.Through this ethnographic research,I realized that identity and cultural expression are inseparable,and the cultural expression of ethnic groups will point to different levels of identity in the process of expanding cultural communications and exchanges.People produce and extend the cultural meanings in the situational space.With local interpretation as the symbols,the various forces involved in the process of cultural production and multimodal expression of Tajik music and dance,as well as the relationship between them,have an obvious impact on the identity at different levels such as home,village,local,ethnic group,Minzu and nation-state.Along with the reshaping of the Eagle Dance culture,these different levels of identities form a close relationship and can co-exist harmoniously,thus becoming a part of the process of consolidating the consciousness of the Chinese nation as a community.Because of its uncertainty and irregularity,dance composed of body movement is often ignored or even despised in cultural anthropology,especially before the reflection on the crisis of ethnographic representation.Although the concepts involved in dance are not necessarily obvious,the physical movement of people is a culture in itself.Identity can be expressed verbally or through the body.Human world is sympathetic and multimodal of semiotics,dance which is closely linked with the body feeling is intertwined with other senses cultural knowledge"synesthesia" phenomenon,mere body dynamic cannot fully express its meaning,or unable to express its full meaning,need to combine with other sensory perception,especially complements the music of the auditory system.People's various sensory perceptions and their interrelations should be understood as a cultural structure.In the past anthropological discussions,space,music,dance and identity are mostly unrelated objects of analysis,which is related to the specialization of the research field concerned by anthropological practice,and also related to the difficult fixability of art itself.In this study,in addition to exploring how identity is constructed,I pay more attention to how music and dance participate in the construction of social facts and cultural significance,and how it serves as a pathway between cognition and practice,identity and expression,and cultural production and reproduction.Anthropological research focusing on music and dance expression seeks to broaden the path of identity research and explore how cultural expression participates in the production and reproduction of identity,ethnic identity and national identity.In the shaping of local and ethnic characteristics,the image of music and dance is closely linked with the special personal,group and geographical narratives such as the geographical location and sense of place,historical memory,myth and legend of the Pamir Plateau,which has become an important way and approach for the construction,expression,reinforcement and adjustment of identity.This dissertation focuses on the study of culture and identity of minority Minzu of fewer population.Contemporary China frontier minority ceremony and the practices of traditional cultural performance,to understand the formation and development process of the Chinese nation and community consciousness,provides a detailed and clear case will identity expression associated with the particular space and place,and explore the affected by the national present social and political process of ethnic imagery style of remodeling and local culture change process.From this perspective,exploring how music and dance can promote the cohesion and influence of ethnic groups and their cultures in specific scenes of temporal and spatial transformation will bring some new knowledge and understanding.