Intertwining the tangibility and intangibility into folk dance performance


The portfolio project packaged with 3 different parts and will intertwine the intangibility and tangibility into live performance. The project will reconstruct the nomad’s living style through some documentary films, photos, ethnographic objects and live performance in museum space for dedicated audiences or high school students. 

In the first part, students will see the permanent ethnographic exhibitions at the main exhibition hall of the National Museum of Mongolia. Based on the ethnographic objects of the museum, they will be given knowledge and understanding on the nomadic living style of different ethnic groups in Mongolia. They will find the answer to questions, why nomads live in ger, why they move four seasons of the year, why they herd livestock, how they created this "unique" nomadic culture in the long period of the history and so on.
Nomad's dwelling Ger

Nomad's living style
 For instance; from the permanent exhibition (below picture) of the traditional costumes of Mongolian ethnic groups at National Museum of Mongolia, students will get the knowledge how those ethnic groups are distinguished by their costumes. Later this will help them to distinguish different variations of "Bii Biyelgee" folk dance through costumes of practitioners, besides with the iconic movements.

Permanent exhibition of the traditional costumes of Mongolian ethnic groups
Then students will see the usage of different ethnographic objects collected from nomadic people (herders), which are all embodied in the folk dance "Bii biyelgee" associated with living style (a half hour to be needed in this part). For instance: the tangible object, such as wooden bucket is used for milking a cow, milking a mare, milking a camel; and wooden spoon used for sprinkling milk for nature and blue sky; wooden sticks are used for flattening sheep wool to make felt; traditional musical instruments and so on.  

in the right and left side, there are buckets 

Mongolian traditional musical instruments 
In the second part, students will watch short documentary contains the living style of selected ethnic group. In this part, students will see how people use those tangible objects into their daily life for what purposes.  For instance: milking a cow using with bucket shown in the first part of the exhibition; sprinkling milk with the wooden spoon; and so on. Additionally, some embodied movements from other intangible heritage elements, for instance: the traditional way of making the milk tea; and traditional game of knucklebone shooting, rituals for sacrificial mountains will be explained in the documentary. From this part, they will have an understanding how herders use that objects in their daily life for different purposes. Approximately 15 minutes documentary will be used in this part.
                      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nqKz9CuEoo&t=883s

This video shows how Durvud people prepare the milk tea 
http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/en/RL/mongolian-knuckle-bone-shooting-00959

                  The video shows the Mongolian traditional game of knucklebone shooting 
The final part of the package will be an interactive performance exhibition by Biyelgee practitioner. Bii biyelgee resembles a mirror which reflects the nomad’s living style inside and outside of the ger. Since most of the movements imitate labor activities inside the ger, the special space or nomad’s ger (yurt) will be built inside of the museum. Students will go inside of the ger and will see the live performance by dance practitioner and then small speech will be given by practitioner on the imitation of movements and narratives. The practitioner will demonstrate the difference of movement based on the living style of ethnic groups. If students want they will have an interactive conversation session with practitioners on the dance itself. Since this space constructed for only this performance, further transmission classes can be given to students in accordance with museum timetable.

Some examples of how movement imitate the living style inside the narrow space of the ger are following; for instance, braiding hair and traditional game knucklebone shooting. 

 Here practitioner is imitating the process of braiding hair


Practitioner is imitating the process preparing the leather strap for cattle 
There are also imitations of activity out, for instance; archery (arrows and bow), riding a horse, wrestling, harvesting, sprinkling a milk for the sky and so on. Mongolians worship nature and blue sky (Tengrism[1]) and we sprinkled milk to the blue sky and nature for hundreds of years to ask forgiveness and support from ancestors. Below picture shows the movement called “Tsatslaga” which is an imitation of the ritual of milk sprinkling to the blue sky.




[1] Tengrism – worship to nature and sky http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Tengriism






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