Yangge

In the 1940s, the Chinese Communist Party launched the new yangge movement where the dance was adopted as a means of rallying village support.

Another version of the yangge is the village play, an anthology of which was published by Sidney D. Gamble in 1970, based on transcriptions made by Li Jinghan as part of the Ding Xian Experiment's surveys in the 1930s.

[7] The folk rite was performative and was often associated with New Year’s celebrations, incorporating spirited dance, garish costumes, and loud music.

[8] The songs that accompanied the folk rite were conversations between young men and women about love or congratulatory greetings, and the swinging movements of the dances were generally sexually suggestive.

In fact, the dance limited artistic freedom and improvisation with specific guidelines that the dance must adhere to including: prohibition of male performers to dress as women; elimination of any flirtatious or erotic moves; forbiddened the portrayal of ghosts, deities, Buddhist monks, and Daoist priests (elements that were common in rural yangge); no vulgarity or negative portrayals of the working class in the dances, and dancers were not permitted to wear excessive makeup.

The power of the struggle yangge came from the dance’s simplicity and visibility, aimed at reaching a larger and wider audience.

[7] Struggle yangge’s purpose was to tell a story about the success of the CCP developments, of how the Communists came to power, about the valor and strength of the People’s Liberation Army, the undying support of the Chinese people, the righteous leadership of the CCP, and the bright socialist future of China.

The last musical was The Great Yangge of Building the Motherland (建设祖国大秧歌), which depicts the construction of a new socialist country under the leadership of the CCP.

[11] The performers of Manchurian Yangge in Northeast China usually wear traditional Manchu clothes of the area.