The Dongjing Music Revival: Have Music, Will Travel

Abstract Like many other forms of traditional music, Dongjing music began to experience a tentative revival at the end of the 1970s. Though this could not have occurred without the national political liberalization, the catalysts in the revival were the enthusiastic individuals who had the courage, imagination, and organizational skills to lead the way. At the same time, the tradition has experienced the same problems as its counterparts elsewhere in China—a mainly middle-aged and elderly population of aficionados, a shortage of young recruits, and financial limitations. Nevertheless, the groups still playing the music in the 1990s have solved some or all of these problems, so that there is once again a network of individual and group interaction conducted through the medium of Dongjing music in Lijiang County.