Dongjing

Dongjing is a ritual music of Yunnan and Sichuan in south-west China, performed by lay associations of amateur musicians — the Dongjing societies — who chant and play settings drawn from Daoist liturgy, Confucian ceremony and the classical Chinese tune repertoire. A mixed ensemble of plucked and bowed strings, flutes, percussion and voices performs slow, heterophonic suites of qupai melodies and sung scripture. Once practised by Han communities across the region and adopted with particular distinction by the Naxi of Lijiang, it survives as a marker of literati refinement and local identity.