The Historical Origin of Autumn Festival in Foshan

As an ancient folk culture of the Han nationality, in the Western Jin Dynasty, people tied wild bamboo shells into dragons to celebrate the harvest, which was called "children's play" and was the earliest and most primitive form of autumn scenery in Foshan.

In the 14th year of Ming Dynasty (1449), it was said that Huang Xiaoyang uprising attacked Foshan, which was the Mid-Autumn Festival. All the villages were dressed up as stories, and drums roared all night. The invaders thought they were prepared and didn't dare to attack, which was a beautiful thing later. From then on, it was named "Autumn Color" and became a custom.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Foshan's handicrafts, commerce and agriculture were very prosperous, and it had the reputation of "merchants all over the world" and "four national gatherings". Foshan autumn scenery, which integrates drama, music, dance, acrobatics and arts and crafts, has reached its peak and become a popular folk entertainment custom of Han nationality.

After the Opium War, Foshan's economy suffered from foreign invasion and internal worries, and went into decline. 1938 10, Foshan fell. Under the devastation of the Japanese invaders, there are only 70,000 people left in Foshan with a population of more than 300,000, and the people are starving everywhere. Autumn artists either died of famine or fled from other places, leaving less than 20 people, and the folk autumn customs in Foshan declined from then on.

After the founding of New China, under the guidance of the Party's policy of "letting a hundred flowers blossom, bringing forth the old and bringing forth the new", Foshan's autumn art gained a new life. 1956 During the Spring Festival, the first "Foshan Autumn Art Appreciation Meeting" was held after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and the autumn art of Foshan disappeared for more than 20 years reappeared. On May 4th 1956, the folk autumn art club was established, and the endangered autumn art in Foshan was excavated and sorted out in time, and the traditional production techniques were followed by others. After more than 40 years of development, Foshan autumn handicrafts with strong local characteristics have been exported to more than 20 countries, making positive contributions to enhancing Foshan's popularity and establishing a new image of Foshan's historical and cultural city. The autumn projects in Foshan are rich and colorful. Autumn color art includes autumn color craft and autumn color performance art, which can be divided into seven colors according to the forms of expression: light color, car color, horse color, floating color, ground color, watercolor and landscape. According to the technological characteristics and artistic expressions of autumn artworks, autumn colors can be divided into ten categories, such as binding, masonry, weaving, mounting, carving, music, dance, drama, acrobatics and makeup performance.

The colorful Qiu Guang in the game is called light color. Think of it as a float color frame, and those who dress up as men and perform story characters call it car color; Performers use horses instead of walking, and those who play hero stories are called horse colors; Perform various dances or stories with water as the artistic conception, such as dragon dance, colorful lotus boat, land boat, dry boat, purple hole flower boat and so on. , called water color; Playing stories with high-altitude skills of drifting or picking is called drifting colors (Foshan parades with long bamboo stalks in autumn, so it is also called picking colors); Those who perform zaju and live news dramas in walking clothes are called earth tone; Scenery is a variety of autumn handicrafts that reflect natural scenery or social life, such as fruits and vegetables, fish, food, flower bonsai, utensils and antiques, rocks, figures and other lifelike works of art. With the development of history, the rich connotation of autumn colors in Foshan has been constantly innovated and enriched, and it has developed to a mature stage in the Qing Dynasty. It is a unique cultural and entertainment custom activity for large-scale comprehensive people in Foshan to celebrate the harvest. The autumn competition in Foshan has always been organized spontaneously by the masses, with no official participation. Residents recommended enthusiastic people to set up an autumn preparation office to take charge of the operation. The order of the autumn parade is divided into 14:

1. signal lamp: It is composed of white, red and green bamboo bright yarn lanterns.

2. The road team:: consists of scattered fire, bamboo lanterns and suona.

3. Flying Horse: The female right general wears a phoenix-tailed female handsome helmet, presses the sword with her left hand, carries a pennant to dress up, rides a fine horse, and is responsible for liaison and notification.

4. Headlight color: including large headlights, handsome flags, banners, umbrellas, royal fans, etc. Generally, it can be used as a reference for the evaluation standard of the artistic level of this autumn competition, with rich and brilliant headlights as the mainstay and the level of headlights.

5. Lamp colors: including multicolored lanterns, fish lanterns, bird and beast lanterns, palace lanterns of various shapes, melon and fruit lanterns, eye-of-the-needle lanterns, and autumn special art lamps carefully made from scraps such as carved firewood, rushes, fish scales, straw, medulla tetrapanacis, beans of various colors or ordinary agricultural products.

6. Car color: the people call the car heart, and the story is made into a rectangular frame like a pavilion or garden, with colored lights. Performers stand in the car and interpret the stories of female drama characters in the way of disguised as men, such as "Zhao Jun goes out to the fortress" and "Spring in the Painting".

7. The display of autumn colors is really like raw autumn crafts, Lingnan melons and fruits, aquatic fish, shrimps and crabs. The performers walked on their shoulders and peddled along the way, vividly.

8. Horse color: Different from the flying horse, performers must dress up as women and ride paper horses to play story characters, such as Mulan joining the army and Mu taking command.

9. Autumn colors on the countertop: Use the countertop to display all kinds of bonsai, rocks, antique utensils and flowers, such as peach blossom, hanging bell, kapok, peony, chrysanthemum, Cantonese dim sum and other autumn handicrafts. The autumn colors on the head and countertops are fake.

10, water color: including dancing grass dragon, colorful dragon, three-section wooden dragon, land boat, lotus boat, boat porridge, bacon boat, etc. All props are carved handicrafts, as well as music and dance performances, gongs and drums sonorous, singing and dancing, fascinating.

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12, Fan Shi flying cymbal performance: The flying cymbal performance is lively and enthusiastic, dancing like a butterfly.

13. earth tone: It mainly plays stories and jokes about zaju, which is one of the oldest traditional forms of autumn colors in Foshan. Broadcast the local historical story "Welcome to the Champion Lang", the modern theme story "Wu Tuopu Junwei", the comedy drama "Bride gets on the sedan chair" and "Bad gambler sighs".

14, lion awakening, big head Buddha: it is an essential project to show autumn colors. As the tail of the autumn team, the bottom makes the game in a cheerful atmosphere.

The autumn parade stretches for several miles, and the flamingo trees and silver flowers are dazzling, and the audience is like a tide, exulting all night, forming a cultural event with the participation of the whole people. In the autumn competition, everyone in the audience can be a referee and give a bidding reward for their favorite handicrafts or performances. After the parade, the preparatory office will send people to collect bids along the way. The winning project with more bids should be displayed in front of the ancestral hall on the second day after the game for public comment to show fairness, commonly known as bidding.

From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, in addition to being held in Foshan, autumn competitions were also held in towns and villages around Foshan, such as Shiwan, Shi Lan, Shencun, Zhangcha, Pingzhou, Leigang, Diejiao, Imperial Kiln and Songgang. After the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), autumn art entered a new stage of development. Over the past 50 years, many far-reaching activities such as large-scale autumn competitions, autumn art exhibitions and autumn parades have been held and exhibited in Guangzhou, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Wuhan. Wherever they go, the audience is amazed at the exquisiteness and ingenuity of the traditional art of the Han nationality. Beijing Film Studio once produced Autumn in Foshan.

On the eve of the Millennium in 2000, the municipal government held the Foshan Autumn Festival, which is the largest historical city in Foshan with the largest number of participants since the founding of the People's Republic of China, to welcome the Foshan Autumn Parade in 2000. This grand folk cultural activity not only pushed the series of activities of Foshan people to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC), welcome Macao's return and welcome the arrival of the new century to a climax, but also pushed the flourishing cultural and artistic undertakings in the past ten years of reform and opening up to a new level. It breaks through the seven colors of traditional autumn colors in content and form, organically combines historical traditional culture with the spirit of the times, and develops the ancient Han folk activities into a grand celebration for Foshan people to welcome the new century, which fully embodies the spirit of Foshan people marching towards the new century with lofty sentiments and plays a role in inspiring the masses and spirits.

Foshan's autumn handicrafts have been exhibited in dozens of countries and regions such as Britain, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea, as well as Taiwan Province Province, Hongkong and Macau, or large colored dragons or lanterns have been made for them. 1987 to 2008, he went to Taiwan Province Province 17 times to hold a light and color exhibition, which showed the features of Foshan, a famous Chinese culture and historical and cultural city with a long history, from the aspect of traditional culture, and contributed to the further development of traditional art and cultural exchanges between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. Foshan's autumn performance art has also performed in more than a dozen countries and regions, including Singapore, Canada, the United States, Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan, Romania, Australia and South Korea. The opening of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and the Tsuen Wan Art Festival invited a number of autumn song and dance programs, such as Flying Golden Dragon, Happy Little Clam, Lotus Picking Boat, Umbrella Lantern for Spring Festival and so on. The performance of the14th International Children's Evening held in Turkey was highly praised and was regarded as a wonderful flower of Lingnan folk customs.

Foshan has always had the custom of blooming in autumn, which has brought development opportunities for the inheritance of autumn art. At the same time, the existence of Foshan Folk Art Research Association has laid a stable foundation for the inheritance and development of autumn art. Most of the autumn artists of Foshan's older generation have passed away. He Xin, the inheritor of autumn art, still insists on creating autumn art and teaching students to inherit skills. After eight years of teaching, the four apprentices have basically mastered the skills of making autumn handicrafts. The artistic materials of autumn colors are random, and the beauty of nostalgia is directly expressed through the readily available materials. "Autumn Art" is exquisitely produced, which is difficult to distinguish between true and false. It is never seductive, coarse but not rotten, earthy but not mediocre, simple in style, superb in art, true in feelings and warm in scenery, with touching artistic charm, which fully shows the artistic characteristics of "Autumn Art", such as nostalgic beauty, natural beauty of returning to nature, decorative beauty of both form and spirit, simple beauty of random materials, and dynamic beauty of combining performance and sightseeing.

Autumn scenery, Foshan, with strong local characteristics and local customs, is an artistic display of Foshan's economic, cultural and folk activities. It is also the materialization and visualization of the unique homesickness as a famous handicraft town and a modern rising star city in history. It is a hymn of laborers and a mirror of the times, which reflects Foshan people's perception of life. In the colorful autumn colors, we can see the development history of the Pearl River Delta, the trajectory of the rise of a famous industrial and commercial town, and appreciate the temperament of Foshan people and the unique features of Foshan.