Nuo Dance of Jiangxi: From the Community Dance to Ritual Significance in Catherine Bell’s Model

The study focuses on the ritual phenomena in the traditional local Chinese community dance Nuo in Jiangxi, China. Catherine Bell’s (1953-2008) model for ritual theory and ritual Practices is applied to this study, as she starts her career from a study of Chinese local Taoist religion and ritual studies. Nuo Dance is a popular form of primitive community dance in Jiangxi Province, China, as its religious ritual features are significant.


Introduction
This paper discusses ritual dance, as well as special events in community movements and dancing. The study will focus on the ritual phenomena in the traditional local Chinese community dance Nuo in Jiangxi, China. Catherine Bell's (1953Bell's ( -2008) model for ritual theory and ritual Practices will be applied to this study, as she starts her career from a study of Chinese local Taoist religion and ritual studies [1].
The major question of this study will address how the dance Nuo is used as a ritual in local Chinese traditional customs, rather than simply the art of performance like the modern dance. From the early days of human society to the primitive tribal culture that continue to today, dance is not only a natural revelation of extreme joy and sorrow, but also a part of the witchcraft and religious ritual, which is another early factor in the social development of the dance. Primitive

Literature Review
Scholars who study Chinese religious beliefs mostly use folk beliefs, rituals, and symbols as identities of certain social groups [5]. Bell [3] places rituals in a very important position, almost independent of religion. Bell [4] prefers to use the word Ritual alone rather than religion. She believes that ritual is a better word in Chinese context, and religion is a modern Western term and often useless for many Asian or local community religions [4]. In her ritual theory and practice, she claims that her interests in rituals began with her doctoral dissertation on Chinese Taoist research, and she proposes key methodologies that helps advance the issue in the field. Bell's [6] works on Chinese Taoist ritual ceremonies and the more widespread indigenous religions in China have opened up new lines of study.
Bell [3] believes that China has not formed a formatted religion for a long time of history, but it attaches great importance to rituals. Local religions exhibit complex interactions at any level of ritual life, including the local level of rural religion and rituals, where dancing is an integral part. This level covers but transcends family and pedigree practice. Catherine Bell [7] believes that these dis- Bell's ritual study is developed from Victor Turner [8], who divides the ritual into two categories, the life-crisis rituals and rituals of affliction. The former refers to the transitional ceremony of life, and the latter is a ritual to reduce the impact of the holy penalties. These two categories emphasize the nature of ritual community and Turner's views on the social cultural function of rites. In talking about the ritual process, Turner [8] inspects the Zambia Ndembu ceremony and the development of his concept Communitas. He uses it as a purely interpersonal relationship that transcends any structural form. Since 1969, Turner has demonstrated how to use ritual behavior and symbolic analysis as the key to understanding the social structure and process [9].
Starting from Turner's divisions, Bell distinguishes six types of rituals related to community-based traditions and beliefs: rites of transition, calendar, exchange and sharing, ritual of disaster reduction, banquets, fasting and festival ceremonies, and political ceremonies. According to Bell, in these six kinds of frameworks, the customary cognitive model of ritual is generally maintained, that is, the relationship with belief and religious tradition, which basically embodies the core values of anthropological ritual [10].
Catherine Bell [4] refuses to narrow down ritual with any definition. Instead, her purpose is to reveal how definitions emerge and evolve and to help us become more familiar with the interplay of tradition, exigency, and self-expression that goes into constructing this complex social medium. According to LaMothe [11], Bell provides an historical survey of ritual theories in her book about rituals. Key to her definition is that ritual is a complex socio-cultural medium that is chosen to invoke ordered relationships between human and non-immediate sources of power, authority, and value via an expression of gestures and words.
In her view about dances, Bell [3] notes that in primitive tribes, the original purpose of dancing is not to be seen or applauded by the audience, but a ritual to the gods. Some even perform ritual under secret conditions. In this sense, Nuo dance emerged as a form of comfort and pray, can resonate with the heaven and earth. Among the Nuo dances and their masks, there are both respect for the gods of the Heaven, contempt for the ghosts of hell, admiration for the ancestors, deification of the legend of generals and ministers, deception of the fainting emperors, and various factors. They mix up miscellaneous feelings together [12].
The debate around social participation is discussed around the current ideological and political background. Dance is usually a recurring feature in ritual practice. Modules can also help us understand human nature through performance and mediation, and the threshold of what concept may mean [3].

Basic Module Application
This thesis uses Bell's ritual theory and ritual practice model, and takes the community dance Nuo as an example to conduct a preliminary discussion of the practice module, and place the dance in the category of religious rituals. Due to This module provides a broader approach to discussing dance in the spiritual and cultural context. As Bell [4] notes, dance is often a recurring feature of ritual practice. This module also helps to understand tribal culture through performances and ceremonies. Although Bell [6] conducts research on Taoist rituals in China, and there is a close connection between erotic dance and Taoism, Bell and other scholars do not conduct more in-depth research on the meaning of Nuo dance. Module debate is a matter of morality and ritual. It also uses the theory and methods of anthropology, sociology, community dance, and performance studies [13], to analyze the symbolism of the masks of dancers and their props or masks. Strictly speaking, this is not a pure dance technique paper, but a study aimed at studying how the local community uses traditional community dance to achieve religious rituals.

Definition of Nuo Dance
Nuo Dance is the main performances of Jiangxi Nuo, known as Chinese dance living fossil. Which musical accompaniment is generally simple, drums, gongs and percussion. The performance of NuoNuo dance group called Nuo class members generally have eight to more than ten people, often have strict rules.
Appear often in NuoNuo dance during the ceremony climax and performance stage, around which the program is rich, has double effects of sacrifice and entertainment.
When it comes to Nuo, we have to talk about the witch. Nuo can be regarded the human spirit production, to embark on the course of development [7].
As Bell [3] observes rightly, China has the most developed and complex ritual system at different levels to communicate with heaven and earth. Chinese traditional ritual culture is a top-bottom ranking and strict system of etiquette. The emperor represents the Heaven and the common people stand for the Earth. There is a certain connection between the form of the lower level folk religion and the more organized national and royal level, but the difference and chasm are huge. The highest level of official religious ritual is the Emperor's ritual ceremonial offering to the Heaven, which is an effective way to prove its legitimacy and divine endowment. The village squire is also keen on witchcraft ceremonies, is also the way to influence. Official and folk religions learn from each other in many ways, and local religions also absorb many official ceremonies. In practice, the official ceremony system based on the order of heaven and earth can create spaces for the mean ghosts for the rural areas at the bottom of Gods' halls [6].
At the same time, Bell [7] notes that the official system ceaselessly tried to control the ritual practice in which the countryside was communicated with the heaven, because communication with heaven was the patent of the emperor, and the people of the countryside could only communicate with the ghosts in the underground hell, and in the masks of the dance, most of them were ugly and dirty looking. The local worship rites, including the media they used, and the level of the gods or demons, might violate the proper hierarchy of communication with God. The presumption is that the rural witchcraft ceremony if unchecked, could threaten the emperors' privileges to reach the Heaven. In a comprehensive analysis of the ritual life of China in the early nineteenth Century, Bell [3] find that all forms of ritual practice occupied every corner of the social structure, periodically overlapping or polarizing (Bell, 1997). It is ironic that the more societies fall apart, and far more prosperous folk witchcraft rituals and dance [14].

Nuo Mask
The Nuo exorcise dance is a popular sacrificial dance in the Yangtze River Basin since ancient times in China. The exorcism dance, originated from the ancient sacrificial rites, for thanksgiving prayer to fathers, Exorcism of evil spirits, full of strong religious color. From the perspective of art genesis, it combines music, dance and poetry together to form an integrated art form. The prototype of dance is Nuo sacrifice rites. Among its many props, Nuo mask is one of the important characteristics of art [15] (Figure 1).
Nuo dance masks are their typical props, as a special form of ritual expression, and also an important feature of Nuo dance from other dramas. For the exorcise mask, the name of the exorcise mask, the choice of material, the size ruling, the color of the paint, the utilitarianism and the way of wearing it, because of the difference of region, nationality, culture and aesthetics, it is varied and colorful. Open Journal of Social Sciences The material of the mask is metal, jade, shell, animal tooth, bronze, wood, bark, nut shell, gourd, fur, bamboo strips, pulp and pottery. Most of Nuo masks are the characters of human and animal combinations with different colors to show tokens like shrew, ferocious, powerful, amiable, gentle, beautiful, loyal, and slippery, to stand for the God of the mountain, the road, the commander and so on. These deformed, stylized and imaginative images make people feel shocked [16].
Nuo mask is the product of totem worship and primitive religious worship to gods. The Nuo dance programs in Jiangxi, including Wuyuan and Nanfeng regions, are mostly based on myths and folklore stories. In the performing dancing, they still retain the unique style of simplicity, rough, concise, exaggerated.
Most of the movements are going on crutches, knees, sinks, chest and abdomen.
The music accompaniment is composed of three parts, percussion, melody and singing. The old villagers treat Nuo masks as spirits themselves, must hold worship ceremonies for opening the cabinet, wearing, performing, and sealing. They choose the best timing and auspicious occasion to have the ceremony, otherwise, it is thought to bring bad luck. In the process of this instrument, Nuo master will play drums, and preside over the ceremony. Dancers wear masks, disguise themselves as an imaginary, ferocious exorcise, with a strong rhythmic drumstick and a frenzied dance to exorcise [7] (Figure 2).

The Main Characteristics of Nuo Dance
There is a nexus in the Nuo dance: the hair is angry, the head shaking, the shoulders trembling, the hands and feet dancing along one side, the speed and the rhythm urgent, and every move must step on the drum. It is summed up mainly in the four visual features, namely, the masks, stride steps, music rhythms, and facial decoration. It is believed that the exorcise masks directly shortens the distance between man and God in the performance of exorcise dance, makes the spiritual believers get great comfort and consolation in the mind, thus fitting the Bell's ritual category of appeasing and appealing [4].
Nuo dance is a unique style, eye-catching appearance dance team. The exorcism dance performance form has two kinds: one is a person as the goddess of mercy in the way, followed by six men with six distinctive costume dances while drumming, they respectively represent two masks, Fu Lushou joy, all six im- Bell [4] has not conducted any study on Nuo dance specifically, why people dance with masks or not, where is the difference between masks and dancing?
According to her plan, she supposes to find better tools in the future to know what people are doing when they bow, burn incense to the gods, wear masks and dance in the square, or explain the meaning of the rituals. However, all these dance behaviors are the way to deal with the external environment and the power and strength they perceive. They use different interpretations and different ranges. Modern people should not lightly refute or think of backward and unnecessary programs [18].

Conclusion
Through the above analysis, it is obvious; Nuo dance has more ritual significance than performing art value in modern terms. In the past, the study of the Nuodance and drama of exorcism is basically intended to collect its folk culture and intangible cultural heritage, and ignore the religious significance of its religious rites. Nuo dance of Jiangxi, China, is more representative of the ritual ceremony in the form. Through the application of Bell's ritual theory to the investigation of Nuo dance, this paper finds that Nuo has a certain religious ritual meaning and has a strong connotation of community activities, especially it is of great significance to the cohesion of rural community identity.

Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.