Shanghai-styled yangge draws on many influences. Photos: Courtesy of Zhou Xinguo

Dressed in bright red and green, and accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments, the dancers animatedly wave red silk handkerchiefs and ribbons to the delight of audiences.

This is a typical performance of yangge, a Chinese rural folk dance that traditionally celebrated the harvest. Since its origins during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), yangge has developed into a number of styles across the country. In China today, there are four main yangge schools: the Guzi yangge in Shandong Province, the Shaanxi yangge in Shaanxi Province, the Ground yangge in Hebei Province, and the Manchurian yangge in the northeast of China. These areas are all in the northern part of China.

Regional characteristics

However, during recent years, the popularity of yangge has spread to the south of the country and today in Shanghai, yangge has been localized once again into a unique form of the dance known as Shanghai-styled yangge.

"The yangge in Shanghai has many differences to the more traditional version in the north," Zhou Xinguo, the originator of Shanghai-styled yangge told the Global Times. "Obviously it reflects our regional characteristics and the particularity of Shanghai."

Zhou is also the director of a culture education center of Lujiazui Road, Pudong New Area. Ten years ago, after leading his yangge team in a nationwide competition held in Beijing, Zhou began to realize that it was necessary to create a Shanghai interpretation of the dance.

"At that time, there were hundreds of yangge teams from different parts of the nation taking part in the competition, but most of them were doing the same, or similar routines to the traditional ones with little in the way of new concepts or creativity," said Zhou. "And they all exhibited the bright local colors of northern China, and performed in a style that is bold, unconstrained and very passionate. However, as a major center to the south of the Yangtze River and as city of expats and Chinese immigrants, we thought Shanghai should have a yangge style all of its own," Zhou added.

Zhou pointed out that probably the most outstanding highlight of Shanghai-styled yangge is that the music has been adapted from local opera traditions in the Yangtze River Delta region. And as a nod to the city's "internationalization" the dance steps contain noticeable influences of Latin dancing and cha-cha.

"Huju Opera, pingtan and Yueju Opera: the music of Shanghai-styled yangge has been adapted from all of these traditions," said Zhou. "The common features of these musical styles can be described as graceful, restrained, fresh and gentle, as are all the typical musical styles of southern China."

New steps

Zhou said that based on the new music, the dance steps have altered considerably. "In traditional yangge, each dance move contains four beats or steps, like the 'box-step.' But in Shanghai-styled yangge, we also have three- and six-beat steps. However, we won't be getting rid of the core of traditional yangge, that is, the constant wriggling of the body, especially the waist. And any new moves we will add in, will also contain these wriggling movements," Zhou added.

Huang Ying, a 55-year-old Shanghai woman, has been with Zhou's yangge team of 12 members since it was first established in 2003. She told the Global Times that compared to the traditional yangge in northern China, she prefers the Shanghai-styled version because it looks more graceful and tender. "Even our costumes have foregone the very bright colors; our are more simple and elegant, just like a jasmine flower when it first opens," Huang said.

She added that since the troupe was set up, they have created five different versions of Shanghai-styled yangge, some of which have found popularity across the whole nation.

When the Shanghai-styled yangge was performed during the 2011 Shanghai International Arts Festival last month, Jia Zuoguang, the honorary president of the Chinese Dancers' Association commented: "the Shanghai-styled yangge has very distinctive features, which I believe, is good for both preserving and also popularizing this ancient traditional Chinese folk dance."

Shanghai-styled yangge also made an appearance at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008.

Zhou said that in Shanghai today, there are at least one hundred Shanghai-styled yangge teams performing in the city.