Venue:  Penghao Theater, No. 35, Dongmianhua Hutong, Jiaodaokou Nandajie (80 meters east of Central Academy of Drama)

Performers:  Members of the Pumi Group, Tufeng Project

• Li Zhengfan (Mr.) – Rongba Yarizu (Pumi name)

• Yang Dexiu (Ms.) – Guli Rongmi (Pumi name)

• Li Changxiu (Ms.) – Rongba Saheyong (Pumi name)

Performance:  A mix of unique musical instruments (mouth harp, four-stringed goat-head instrument), multi-vocal folk song performance, insights into village life, and interactive activities with the audience.

Price:  RMB50 / RMB30 (students only)

Contact Wei Xiaoshi (13621203570), and Penghao Theater (6400-6472/52)

http://www.douban.com/artist/pumigroup

Introduction:

The Pumi people are descendants of the ancient Di and Qiang tribes from the eastern edge of the
Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. With a population of a little over 30,000, it is one of the smallest
ethnic minority groups in China.

The thousand-year-old forest is home to the Pumi people, and has shaped the spirit of their
unique musical tradition: in ancient Pumi song, they have used the tree as a metaphor to tell
stories about the four Pumi clans and their migration from their original locations; bamboo was
fashioned into intricate mouth harps, to evoke the magical sound of nature; carved from tree
branches, the four-stringed goat-head musical instrument echoes the lonely sounds of a Pumi
grandpa; the old-man dance is the happiest dance of the Pumi people and shows respect for the
forest; facing those same mountains and forests, a young Pumi shepherd sings a sad song of
missing his girlfriend, and the weaving girl expresses her sorrow at losing her log house in a
fire; and when a Pumi passes away, relatives will sing a song to guide his or her spirit back to
the homeland of their ancestors…

The forest has been a blessing for the ancient Pumi tribes…but times are changing and now the
Pumi people are urged to guard their roots in the forest, as well as their spiritual world.

Today, these Pumi music ambassadors are with us here in Beijing. 
This summer, come and learn about the sounds of the Pumi forest…

For sample music clips, please click here: www.douban.com/artist/pumigroup/
To know more about Tufeng Project, please visit our website: www.tfjh.com.cn

More about the Pumi People

An ethnohistorical dictionary of China‎ - Page 282 by James Stuart Olson - History - 1998 - 434 pages. page 281

Corn is the Pumi staple, but they also produce rice, wheat, barley, beans, oats.

The Journal of Asian studies - Page 393 by Association for Asian Studies, Far Eastern Association (U.S.) - History - 2001
My conversations with the Pumi were carried out in Chinese interlarded with ...
Now our official name is Pumi. But in daily conversations people are still