As a national intangible cultural heritage of China in Jinxiu Yao Autonomous County, Guangxi, the Huangni Drum Dance is deeply rooted in ritual contexts such as the worship of Pan Wang and funeral blessings, carrying multiple cultural significances including religious symbols, community memories, and ethnic identity. However, under the dual background of tourism development and the productive protection of intangible cultural heritage, the Huangni Drum Dance is undergoing a profound transformation from ritual to stage performance. Based on field research in Jinxiu County, this study explores the mechanism of cultural meaning reconstruction and the operational logic of stage performance during this transformation process.Firstly, the article restores the ritual context of the Huangni Drum Dance, revealing its symbolic system and meaning structure. Secondly, it classifies the stage performance into three types: original display, adapted performance, and educational exhibition, and analyzes their reconstruction paths in terms of time, space, personnel, and narrative dimensions. Then, it examines from the aspects of meaning selection, translation, and recreation which traditional connotations are strengthened or weakened, and how new meanings are generated. Finally, it focuses on the core tension between ritual, performance, and commerciality, and investigates the adaptation strategies of inheritors and local communities between “authenticity“ and market logic, including stratified performance, retention of ritual bottom lines, and income feedback mechanisms. The research shows that the stage performance of the Huangni Drum Dance is not a simple cultural distortion, but a selective reproduction of meaning and the construction of a composite text.