Formerly viewed as the heritage of feudal superstition, China's Nuo culture will apply for status of World Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Nuo is associated primarily with its uniquely strange masks and is reputed to have power to ward off evil spirits and epidemics, at least according to folk beliefs in several provinces and such beliefs are still widely held today.

According to the organizing committee of the China's Jiangxi International Nuo Culture Festival, currently being held in Nanchang, the three-thousand year long Chinese Nuo culture will formally apply for World Intangible Cultural Heritage status.

Since antiquity, China's Nuo is active and popular amongst the people in provinces such as Jiangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Anhui and Fujian. Jiangxi's Nuo dance originated during the West Han dynasty (206 B.C. to 8 A.D.) and Nuo masks were uncovered from Shang dynasty (1765 to 1122 B.C.) graves. Nuo culture has survived all these centuries more or less intact. On the 14th Jiangxi's Nanchang displayed a thousand pieces of Nuo masks and clothing accessories and caused quite an uproar. Nuo masks during the Han, Ming and Qing dynasties were also on display. Nuo sedan chair and other accessories caused eyes to open and jaws to drop amongst the spectators.

China's Nuo culture was viewed as Ancient Chinese culture's "living fossil". During the cultural revolution in the 1960's and 1970's it was viewed as feudal superstition and proscribed for ten years and revived only after the cultural revolution has died down.

In the past twenty years, Jiangxi's Nanfeng and Pingxiang's representative Nuo cultural activities were full of variety and vigor, with expanding influence year after year. In the twenty-five township within Jiangxi, every year there are displays of Nuo dances and Nuo operas. The entire province now counts more than 30 Nuo temples. Nuo dances and Nuo opera houses number more than 300 and have traveled as far as France, Singapore, Japan and Taiwan to give performances that have won praises.

(Chinanews.cn June 16, 2005)