Dai Drama Ceremony Function

As a comprehensive art form of Dai group, Dai drama, which was called one of the "Yunnan four national drama" together with Bai Drama, Zhuang Drama and Yi Drama, is a kind of minority ethnic drama with regular tune and complete story, founding on the tune using in chanting sutras and magic dance, formed by absorbing the art form and characters of Dian drama and Shadow play.The study to Dai drama not only has a certain academic value, but also has practical significance. First of all, as a form of traditional drama in Dai group, Dai drama contains a variety of cultural meaning and social function, which is positive to explore the core of the Dai culture, and also to study the living style of the Dai group, the cultural changes, and other cultural phenomenon.Second, studying in Dai drama is typical to the research of local drama and the ethnic minorities'drama in China. It is helpful to get a glimpse of those similar local dramas by doing the fielding work of Dai group in Dehong from a point to plane.Third, standing on the cultural communicating point, Yingjiang, which is the cradle of Dai drama, was belong to "Gan Ya Xuanfusi" in Ming and Qing Dynasty. During "Three attacking to Luchuan" in Ming Dynasty and the "Gai Tu Gui Liu" in Qing Dynasty, Yingjiang has frequently communicated with Han group in mainland and Myanmar in abroad. Dai drama researching with observation in-depth will be useful to explore the tracks of the communication among different ethnic cultures, as well as giving the inspiration to make appropriate policy in border areas.Fourth, standing on the view of intangible cultural heritage protection, Dai drama reflects the social awareness, art features and aesthetic taste in a certain period, having the social value for generating national cohesion and promoting national consensus and recognition, with Dai cultural genes, spiritual qualities and national spirit accumulated by the long-term productive labor and life practice.Giving attention to emic and etic thinking, this paper uses the ethnology fieldwork and documentary research methods to interview people of different occupations, ages, and sexes in-depth. On the basis of the outline of the interviews, the author has made some necessary flexible adjustment in order to get a better survey results.The introduction part narrates briefly the meaning and purpose of this research, giving the related theory and results in retrospect and explaining the reason for selected topic.The first chapter introduces the general situation of the areas where Dai drama spread on, carding the context of Dai drama history generally. The second chapter explains the national characters of Dai drama by discussing and analyzing the ethnic, folk, religious and periodic features. The third chapter analyzes the functions of the ceremony process during performs of Dai drama, explained its social function on maintaining the balance of folk society, protecting and developing the ethnic culture while keeping social memory as well. Standing on the history and reality of Dai drama, the author gives some ideas and suggestions on its developing. The epilogue part is using to summarize the viewpoint of the author, on the basis of generalizing the whole paper.