Standardising Tradition, Negotiating Authenticity: Institutionalising Yi Cigarette Case Dance in Contemporary China

When a locally variable dance enters heritage programmes and formal education, some degree of organisation is unavoidable. The difficult question is what should be organised, by whom, and with what consequences for the practice. This article examines that problem through Yi Cigarette Case Dance (YCCD), a traditional dance associated with Yi communities in Shiping County, Yunnan Province. Although YCCD was included in China’s first national list of intangible cultural heritage in 2006, its transmission still relies heavily on demonstration, participation, and the bodily judgement of experienced dancers. The article draws on interpretive ethnographic fieldwork conducted between October 2025 and June 2026. Materials include participant observation, field notes, informal conversations, local documentary and audiovisual sources, and two extended interviews with a provincial-level representative bearer whose work spans village practice, professional performance, curriculum development, and heritage education. The analysis shows that institutionalisation widened the settings in which YCCD could be taught and performed, but did not make transmission independent of practitioners. Standardisation was directed mainly towards a teachable foundation movement names, basic rhythmic patterns, short sequences, and shared teaching resources while village styles continued to be treated as meaningful variation. Practitioners judged new arrangements through rhythm, weight, coordination, use of the cigarette cases, and an overall quality described as “flavour” and “spirit”. I use bounded adaptation to describe this negotiated scope for change, and embodied authority for the socially recognised capacity to demonstrate, correct, and evaluate performance. The case suggests that safeguarding living dance depends less on choosing between institutions and communities than on how authority is negotiated across them.

intangible cultural heritage; Yi Cigarette Case Dance; institutionalisation; standardisation; authenticity; embodied knowledge; dance heritage

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