Macau Taoist Association澳门道教协会
- Type
- Temples and Abbeys (Gongguan)
- Location
- Macau, China · Macau · Macau Peninsula · 2nd Floor B, Yau Sik Industrial Building, No. 41 Avenida do Almirante Lacerda
- School
- Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism
- First built
- 2001 (per the association's official website) / 2002 (per the China ICH website and others) · Two accounts of the founding year coexist; the founder and president, Wu Bingzhi, comes from a local Macau family of hereditary householder Zhengyi priests
- Heritage status
- National Intangible Cultural Heritage: 'Macau Daoist Ritual Music' (2011)Macau SAR Intangible Cultural Heritage (2009)
Overview
The Macau Taoist Association was founded by the local community of householder Zhengyi priests; its founding year is given as either 2001 (per the association's own website) or 2002 (per the China Intangible Cultural Heritage website and similar sources), and its president is Wu Bingzhi. The association's most important work has been the rescue and compilation of 'Macau Daoist Ritual Music': the Wu family line of priests in Macau has, since the late Qing, performed rites of offering, salvation of the dead, and prayer for blessings, and their liturgical chants blend features of both the Lingnan Zhengyi tradition and the Guangdong Quanzhen tradition, the two systems' ritual music having merged and been transmitted together for over two hundred years — a phenomenon quite rare among Daoist communities elsewhere. Since 2006 the association has invited specialists to transcribe the music, recording and preserving over five hundred pieces of Daoist music and compiling the Macau Daoist Ritual Music collection, whose number of pieces ranks among the highest of any collection of Daoist ritual music anywhere. This project was listed as intangible cultural heritage of the Macau Special Administrative Region in May 2009, and was included in the third batch of the National List of Representative Items of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2011 (serial number 638, item number II-139, category of traditional music), with the association itself designated as the protecting body. The association also maintains the Macau Taoist Orchestra, and organizes the Macau Taoist Culture Festival, a Daodejing calligraphy and essay competition, and international exchange activities.
Highlights
- Macau Daoist Ritual Music (a National Intangible Cultural Heritage item)
- Over five hundred pieces of Daoist music recorded and preserved
- The Macau Taoist Orchestra
- The Macau Taoist Culture Festival