Jingkou stilts, a traditional dance item in the first batch of representative items of municipal intangible cultural heritage in Huai'an. History and evolution Jingkou stilts are a traditional folk entertainment program. The core area of its spread is Jingkou Town, Chuzhou District, and the radiation area is the surrounding towns such as Liujun and Cheqiao. It was taught to the people of Dongzuo in Jingkou by a Shandong native nicknamed "Wang Kuzi" when he came to Jingkou to teach in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China. There is a local saying: "The rakes of Jingkou (town), the knives of Liujun (town), and there is a group of flower drum stilts in Dongzuo", and its influence not only involves a hundred miles around, but also spreads to Gaoyou, Xinghua, Nanjing, and Zhenjiang. Before liberation, the flower drum stilts were performed in the Jingkou area every October 1st, 15th and May 18th "Dutianhui". In the spring of 1945, in order to send off the children to join the army to fight against Japan, under the leadership of the old artist Zhang Chenghao, the flower drum stilts were performed all over the Lixiahe area. During the "Cultural Revolution", the flower drum stilts were banned. After 1983, the flower-drum stilts in Dongzuo Village, Jingkou Town, became popular again. During the Spring Festival of that year, they were performed from the first day of the first lunar month to the fifteenth day, and were deeply loved by the general public. In 1984, the Dongzuo flower-drum stilts team participated in the Jiangsu Provincial Folk Dance Rehearsal as one of the Huai'an City teams and was rewarded by the Provincial Department of Culture. In 2002, Lianxiang, the Dongzuo stilts of Jingkou, represented Chuzhou District in the "Folk Folk Art" performance of the first Huaiyang Cuisine Food Culture Festival in Huai'an City; in 2003, the dance "Stilts Catching Butterflies" jointly performed by the Jingkou Stilts Team and the Chuzhou District Cultural Center participated in the "Three People" special performance of the 2nd Huaiyang Cuisine Food Culture Festival in Huai'an City and won the Outstanding Performance Award. At present, there are about 200 people in Dongzuo who can play flower-drum stilts, and about 100 people who can perform on stilts. The current main inheritor of Jingkou stilts is Yang Hongyu. Content and characteristics Jingkou "flower-drum stilts" originated from the folk and are full of local flavor. The performance contents of "Huagu Stilts" are mostly folk stories that are popular among the people. The characters in "Huagu Stilts" all stand on "stilts". First, the "head stick" (black donkey) leads the way, followed by the "donkey driver" (locally called "Yaolu"), "Huagu old man", "Huagu wife" and characters from programs such as "Covering Fish", "Fishing, Woodcutting, Farming, Reading", "White Wolf Getting Married", "Catching Butterflies", "Wusong Beating the Inn", and "Big Repairing Jars". Jingkou stilts are divided into two types according to the height from the feet to the ground: Wenqiao is good at marching in a line and showing performances of various strange people and monsters; Wuqiao is good at fighting, tumbling and jumping, giving people a strange, beautiful and dangerous artistic enjoyment. Jingkou stilts have many traditional difficult movements, and are mixed with the performance characteristics of folk arts such as Fengyang Huagu and Lianxiang. The classic program of Jingkou stilt dance is "Catching Butterflies", which is performed in the form of a two-person dance. One man and one woman are dressed in colorful costumes and step on 2-foot-high flower stilts. The man plays the role of a naughty boy and holds a folding fan; the woman plays the role of a butterfly girl and holds a long pole with colorful butterflies hanging on it. They use difficult movements such as splits in the air, sliding forks, front flips, back rolls, and spins, and perform butterfly catching performances in different postures such as swooping, light swooping, fast swooping, slow swooping, swooping in the air, and swooping on flowers. The performances are interspersed with plots such as "attracting butterflies", "looking for butterflies", and "circling butterflies". The performances are clearly layered and well-paced. In the Qing Dynasty, the male performers (naughty boys) had long braids and wore gowns and jackets. After cutting their long braids in the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, they changed to wrapping their heads with purple or green square scarves, inserting two pieces of "Ciguqing" in the middle, sticking a small red flower on each ear, wearing a black jacket with white buttons, and a colorful apron tied around the waist; female performers (butterfly girls) wear green white collared tops, pink pants, a green silk ball tied on their heads, and a ribbon trailing behind them, a red silk ribbon tied around their waists, and five-color shoes with a pink velvet flower with a green stamen on the toe. The music of "Catching Butterflies" is accompanied by percussion instruments, including drums, gongs, hall gongs, and cymbals, and is directed by the drummer. The speed, strength, and length of the gong and drum beats depend on the performers' movements. Since most of the performances are in squares and streets, the gong and drum beats have a relatively fixed rhythm, but the number of repetitions is not fixed.