Jinnan Drum Dance as a Representative Folk Dance of Shanxi Province

Abstract

Jinnan Drum Dance is widely recognised as a representative folk dance within the Shanxi folk dance system, distinguished by resonant drumming, vigorous postures, and an embodied aesthetic rooted in the cultural logic of agricultural civilisation. Despite its listing as provincial intangible cultural heritage, its living transmission is increasingly threatened by globalisation and modernisation, including a shrinking base of inheritors and a growing tendency to privilege spectacle and external form over cultural meaning. At the same time, digital technologies and new media have enabled innovative remediations of the traditional performance system. Such transformations can expand modes of circulation and audience reach, yet they also risk symbolically deconstructing and reassembling cultural elements in ways that blur genealogies of practice and produce cultural alienation. Responding to these tensions, this study argues that safeguarding representative folk dances in Shanxi requires research that moves beyond morphological description toward an interpretive paradigm grounded in cultural meaning. Using dance ethnography as the primary methodology, the research integrates analysis of performance fields shaped by Jinnan’s geographical space with attention to the seasonal festival calendar, ecological conditions, and implicit cultural rules that structure local practice. Data were generated through field investigation in southern Shanxi, in-depth interviews with inheritors, folk artists, cultural workers, and community members, and systematic literature review. The study provides culturally situated documentation of Jinnan Drum Dance and proposes a meaning-centred approach to understanding, protecting, and sustaining Shanxi’s folk dance heritage.