The hometown of the cigarette box dance of the Yi people

The birthplace of the harmonious cigarette box dance makes Yangwu Town the hometown of the cigarette box dance of the Yi people. The strings are ringing, the foot poles are itching, and the cigarette box dance is the happy spirit of Yi Village in Yangwu Town and the soul of the spiritual and cultural life of the Yi people. Without the cigarette box dance, the Yi people's life would be boring without salt. There are 87 villages inhabited by the Yi people in the town. Every village has its own cigarette box dance team. Adult men and women in the village can dance the cigarette box dance. And the cigarette box dance penetrates into all areas of life in Yi Village, such as entertainment parties, festivals, celebrations, gatherings, sacrifices, weddings, funerals, etc. It is a rare national cultural phenomenon that a dance has reached such a level of popularity in one place.

The harmonious and joyful Yi Cigarette Box Dance at Lukui Mountain and Mopan Mountain in Yangwu Town is native to the Yi folk. It has jumped from ancient times to the present, during the era when the Cultural Revolution swept away the "Four Olds" , and never stopped. In 1988, the Yangwu Town Harmony Music Yi Cigarette Box Dance Team represented the Yuxi area in the Yunnan Provincial Art Festival held in Kunming; in 1995, the Yangwu Town Harmony Music Yi Cigarette Box Dance Team participated in three events in Ashan, Xinping and Yuanjiang. The "Mysterious Ailao Concert" performance held by the county won the third prize; in May 2001, professors from the Music Department of the University of the Philippines and Columbia University Music Department came to watch the Yi cigarette box dance of the Harmony Music in Yangwu Town; 2002 In June 2016, the Heyue Yi Cigarette Box Dance of Yangwu Town was broadcast on TV media as a special feature of Hunan TV Station's "Appointment with Roses".