Music on the Silk Road| Lusheng-guitar melodies getting popular

Laobaoda village is home to Lahu people in Lancang Lahu autonomous county of Pu’er city southwest Yunnan province. People here use guitar and their traditional instrument Lusheng to play songs.

Love Songs of Lusheng (Photo by Ying Jinyuan)

Many people start to know the Lahu because of a movie called Love Songs of Lusheng in the 1950s. Lusheng is a traditional instrument of Lahu of more than a thousand years’ history. It is made of bamboos, gourd and beewax. Lahu families pass on the techniques of Lusheng making for generations. Thus, most villagers in Laobaoda know how to play Lusheng and dance along with it.

Lahu people in Laobaoda village dance with Guitar. (Photo provided to Yunnan Net)

With the development of tourism in recent years, Laobaoda’s folk performance is now an integral part for villagers to welcome visitors. On the stage, villagers will also bring guitar with them.

Now in the village, there are about 500 villagers, 9 inheritors of Lusheng, more than 300 Lahu folks songs and more than 200 guitars. Most of the folks haven’t been trained to play the guitar before, but somehow they can play.

Li Shikai, a local Lahu folk, is the national-level inheritor of Lahu Lusheng dance. He started to learn the dance and the Lahu epic of Dupa Mipa from his father and other musicians since 12. When meeting guitarists, he also learned guitar from them out of interest and finally, he used guitar to perform Lahu folk songs.

Trying to use guitar to perform, he found that the instrument and Lahu folks songs are a great match. Then, he applied this western instrument in creating Lahu songs. Li brought back the first guitar to his hometown in 1984. Two years later, 8 guitars appeared there.

The group Lahu dance Creating a Spring (Photo provided to Yunnan Net)

Using guitar and Lusheng locals created a Lahu dance named Creating a Spring in 2020. And the dance was performed at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2022.

Laobaoda has established Lahu Ya’e Art Troupe where artist Li Naluo stands out. Since 2005, the troupe has been to many places to perform. Their songs, such as Happy Lahu, Can’t Be Apart, Love You Truly and Happy New Year, are made into MTV for better publicity.

Li and the troupe also performed in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Her team also performed in Japan.

Source: Yunnan Net; trans-editing by Wang Yunya