lion dance

guangzhou people have a best time in spring festival. going to theatre, playing card, shopping, traveling, having a new year visit, asking for spring festival allowance and watching lion dance are all their favorites, but lion dance is the most attractive. as we know, in guangzhou, lion dance, one of folk activities, is a traditional recreation in spring festival.

lion dance is commonly called “dance of awaken lion” in guangzhou, and it is based on martial arts and expressed in a way of dancing. in lion dance, two persons are needed to activate the lion, one stands in the head of lion, and the other one in the tail part. usually, a big headed buddha will stand in front of the sleeping lion to tease it, and then the lion is awakened. its gestures, behaviors, feelings of happiness, fury and sadness will be completely performed in the dance. almost in all festivals, competitions and ceremonies, people will arrange a lion dance for seeking more excitement. 

guangzhou lion dance can be traced back to the end of ming dynasty, previously, it was performed to show respects to the spirit of martial arts. in the middle period of qing dynasty, it was popular in liangguang area, and passed to the south pacific, the north america and the places gathered with overseas chinese. the “ lion “ made in sanyuanli and bantang is the most special. whenever festivals come, parade of lion dance will be arranged for celebration and encouragement. if a “lion” visits your home, it means you will have a good luck in the future, and usually, you should give performers some bonus for thanks. right now, each town, every enterprise, some villages and street have set up their own teams of lion dance, and the most competitive team is guangzhou worker team of awaken lion.

in fact, there is difference in “ northern lion” and “southern lion”. norhtern lion emphasizes appearance, while southern lion pays more attention to expression and is good at perform the lion gestures vividly, such as the gestures of sleeping, standing, moving out of the cave etc. when lion feels happy, it walks slowly; when it gets angry, it walks like a corrida; when it feels bad, it walks steadily with close eyes; when it feels excited, it jumps in big steps, which are all dance rules followed in “southern lion”. in addition, there.are some other performance forms like dance of greeting, dance of jumping dragon gate, dance of picking lettuce etc, and the steps include short step, couchant step, bow step, back and forth step and kylin step etc. the climax of “lion dance” is in the part of “lettuce picking”, and lettuce symbolizes longevity and good health in chinese. people hang the lettuce high in air or put it in a plate, usually, a bonus envelope will be tied with the lettuce, and then the lion dance is performed in the routine steps of touching, surprising, eating and spitting out the lettuce. lettuce picking is composed of many famous forms like low picking, high picking, water picking, bridge picking and so on. in picking, according to the height of lettuce, two or three persons at least are needed to complete picking by way of human pyramid or over ten persons at most. lion dancers must successfully pick the lettuce one time only, and have the “lion” eat the lettuce, and then spit it out, and throw it to the master at last, when the master receives it, it means good fortune comes to him as well.

further more, there is a fairy tale about guangzhou “awaken lion”. in the beginning of ming dynasty, a tiger with wings of bat’s appeared in guangdong, and it could fly to eat the hearts of the wicked people, and its fur would drive the demons away, so guangdong people regarded as an auspicious thing to bring safety to their family, therefore, people made a model by imitating its looks and used it in “ lion dance” in hope of driving disasters away. afterward, by research, this tiger was the traffic tool for manjusri bodhisattva, which is named “ lion”, as it grew with long mane which was in the same color as its body’s, it seemed like a flying bat when it ran rapidly.

today’s guangzhou awaken lion with a horn in head is in a unique form, actually, it looks like a “rangifer tarandus linnaeus” which is unlike a lion, a rhinoceros, a kylin or a tiger. there is also a legend about this animal. in the starting of ming dynasty, a beast with a horn in head came in fuoshan, and did harm to the local people. afterward, in order to subdue this beast, someone thought of making the same model by bamboo strips and paper, and then beated drums and gongs, and fired bangers to scare the beast away, therefore, people make this lion with one horn an auspicious object capable of driving bad fortune and disasters away.