floating parade of shawan

there are many “ se” (kinds of folk art) in guangzhou, for instance, piaose, qiaose, mase and qiuse, of which, shawan piaose is the most well known.

piaose of shawan, panyu district, guangzhou, is an old folk art with a long history, and it is said that shawan piaose was developed on the basis of yuangang piaose (yuangang was a village near shawan), which was introduced from jiangxi province in ming dynasty. as piaose was firstly spread from shawan town to other places, and people in shawan have passed it down in their family for over 300 years, a name of shawan piaose exists.

as a unique form of sculpting the characters in an opera, shawan piaose aggregates the theories of opera, acrobatics, decoration and mechanics together. this activity of folk art will be held every 3rd march of lunar calendar in shawan.

“piao” in chinese means “ flying in air”, “se” in chinese means “scenery”, two words together, “piaose” means “scenery flying in air”. in the show of piaose, its stage is 153 cm long, 77 cm wide, 64 cm high, and can be moved by 4-8 persons. the character sitting or standing on the stage is called “ ping”, the character high up in the air is called “ piao”.

the performers of “ping” and “piao” are all strictly selected: the character should be in good looks and with a moderate weight, the performers of “ ping” must be under 13 years old,  and the performers of “piao” must be under 3 years old. “ping” and “piao” are connected together by a disguised peduncles, and “piao” is skillfully fixed in the peduncles, although it seems very dangerous, it is actually very safe. shawan piaose has over 200 tradition scenarios, and each of them is from operas, novels, folk stories and fair tales, for example, “ story of moon goddess”, “ suwu shepherding sheep”, “nezha conquers the dragon king” etc. in recent years, there are some modern creations like “ elegant sceneries of our country”, “ kind couples”, “ rays of physical culture” and so on. when the parade starts, in the front of the processing are banners and royal umbrellas of fresh colors, in the back are the resounding musical instruments, piaose of different stories fly up high in the air. in 1983, a grand piaose performance was held in guangzhou, and the number of participants in performance reached more than 2,300, and there were 18 floats, 26 stories, 60 awaken lions, 9 sets of gongs and drums of eight sounds and a golden dragon, all the parade was over 2 kilometers long, and the whole performance experienced 3 hours, millions of guangzhou people were on the spot and appreciated its charm and magnificence.