The Historical Origin of Zhuang Nationality's Shigong Opera

"Master Dance" of Zhuang nationality is a sacrificial dance of Meishan School, which spreads in Wuming, Yongning and Du 'an counties of Guangxi. It has a long history, rich dance vocabulary and strong national characteristics, and is an important part of Zhuang folk dance.

In areas where Zhuang people live in concentrated communities in Guangxi, besides Taoism and Buddhism, there is also a primitive religion called Meishan Religion (or "Sanyuan Religion" and "Teacher Education"), which is a polytheistic belief with Tang Daoxiang, Ge and Zhou as ancestors. It is a sect composed of local witchcraft, Taoism and ancient Nuo ceremonies. According to the traditional custom of Zhuang nationality, the teacher of "Meishan Sect" (called "Gongxi" in Zhuang language, that is, wizard) should be invited to preside over the grand sacrifice ceremony. The names of this ceremony vary from place to place, including Daquan, Zuozhai, Gushi (transliteration in Zhuang language, meaning to be a teacher), Diaomang Temple (transliteration in Zhuang language, meaning to jump the temple god), suspension spring (homonym for jumping the teacher) and singer. In the sacrificial ceremony, in addition to witchcraft activities such as chanting, divination, inviting gods and exorcising ghosts, Princess Shi dances with a mask and sings legends of various gods. All kinds of dances performed by teachers' offices are called "teacher dances" by the masses.

Folk artists have different opinions about when the "master dance" originated. One said that it originated from the Zhou Dynasty, and there are some lyrics in its songbook, such as "the singer handed down from generation to generation in the Zhou Dynasty", "the real Wang Sangui's name, Zhou Xingjing's remonstrance, resignation as the orthodox religion, and five lines of secret texts". One said that it originated from the era of the Yellow Emperor, saying that the Yellow Emperor defeated Chiyou with Meishan ciphertext; It is also said that Tang, Ge and Zhou played drums and danced for the emperor's mother to exorcise evil spirits, and the emperor named it Sanyuan, so the "ternary religion" was widely circulated; Another theory originated in the Han Dynasty. When Genan marched to barbarian king in ten caves, followers of Meishan followed the expedition, and later lived in Baishan to preach, resulting in the appearance of mentoring. All the above are oral legends, and there is no reliable written basis, but to some extent, it also shows that the origin of "Gonggong Dance" is very old. It has a certain relationship with the ancient witch dance and Nuo dance in Lingnan (Guangdong and Guangxi were called Lingnan in ancient times).

Nuo dance, as an ancient ritual and folk custom to exorcise ghosts and epidemics, was popular in the court and rural areas in northern Central Plains as early as the Zhou Dynasty. In ancient times, Nuo ceremony was to drive away ghosts and plagues. On the day before New Year's Eve, when the old man was buried, Fang wore a mask as a Nuo, his costume was Xuanshang, and his props were Ge, Dun and Dong. These are exactly the same as the sacrificial contents and costume props of Shi Gong in the ceremonies of "beating" and "making fasting". At the end of the ceremony, the master wore a red robe, wore a mask and held a ghost-exorcism stick (or sword) to exorcise ghosts from house to house, which was exactly the same as Fang Xiang's idea of demanding houses to drive away the epidemic. Comparing the famous "Guilin Nuo Dance" in Song Dynasty with the "Master Gong Dance" of Zhuang nationality, it is found that there are more similarities between them. Except for offering sacrifices to ancestors, exorcising ghosts, and exorcising epidemics, which are basically the same as the performance forms of masked dancing, they all belong to Meishan religious system, and they all have the saying of thirty-six gods and seventy-two phases. In the percussion accompaniment, the bee drum is the main instrument, all of which are made by five musicians. It can be seen that the "master dance" of Zhuang nationality is also closely related to Nuo dance.

To sum up, "master dance" may have originated from ancient witch dance in Lingnan. In its long development process, it absorbed the performance form of Nuo dance. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, Taoism and Buddhism were introduced to Guangxi one after another and touched the influence of Taoism. In order to attract the audience, teachers and artists also absorbed a large number of traditional folk arts and sports forms, and gradually evolved into a unique semi-religious and semi-literary performance form.