The Circle, Song and Teaching of Benzilan Guozhuang

Benzilan Guozhuang is one part of the broader Diqing Guozhuang tradition. A Deqin County feature describes its steps and singing moving from measured, slower passages toward a quicker finish. It also distinguishes the local style from performances in other Diqing places, including Jiantang. The point is not to rank one form above another, but to recognize that a shared name can contain local rhythms and movement vocabularies.

The same account places the dance in weddings, archery festivals and the Las mountain rite. Its songs are structured through parallel phrasing and metaphor, while improvised lines can shift with the occasion and the people singing. The dance is therefore not only a set choreography: it moves between formal gatherings, ritual occasions and social participation in the town and its villages.

In 2025, a prefecture report located a Guozhuang learning centre on the second floor of Benzilan Town’s Ethnic Unity and Progress Service Centre. It described traditional dress, a circle of dancers ranging from older adults to children, and a teaching program led by local inheritors. One profile followed provincial-level inheritor Thiri Lham, who teaches children and sends instruction videos through WeChat. The report also described seasonal youth classes and continuing adult lessons.

The teaching has a practical structure. A required set of basic xiazhu steps and classic songs gives learners a shared foundation; public performances and school activities give them places to use it. A seven-year-old profiled in the same report had learned more than twenty songs and multiple xiazhu sequences. Such accounts make transmission visible as work: a teacher’s time, repeated practice, and a repertoire that children can carry from class to a village performance.

The dance’s public settings have changed over time. A county account notes that Benzilan Guozhuang entered China’s national intangible-cultural-heritage list in 2006. A later feature describes school activities, community performances and new arrangements that retain traditional movement patterns while adjusting formation or tempo. In one example, a dispersed dance was organized into a tighter pattern so that younger participants could follow it more easily.