Xianshi
01 · Historical Records
Lion jerking originated in the Qing dynasty. In the late Song and early Yuan periods, the Zhao clan (descendants of the Song imperial family) and the Yang clan (descendants of the famous Song general Yang Jiye) fled to Caota one after another because of the wars, but the two did not get along with each other: in particular they quarrelled endlessly over water sources and irrigation, and the feud was only gradually settled when the authorities intervened in the Qing dynasty.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Xianshi (Caota lion jerking) is a traditional recreational and entertainment item that organically fuses physical exercise, acrobatics and puppetry technique. It is practised in Zhuji City of Zhejiang Province and in neighbouring cities and counties such as Shaoxing, Jinhua and Lishui, with Qiandian Village of Caota Town, Zhuji City, as its representative. Taking this opportunity, the Zhu clan (descendants of the Song Neo-Confucian master Zhu Xi), which lay between the Zhao and Yang clans, was inspired by the stone lions the two had fought over, and proposed that at the traditional temple fair on the nineteenth day of the second lunar month each year the taige platforms should be assembled to welcome spring with dragons and lions auspiciously displayed, as a sign of neighbours living together in harmony. The Zhao and Yang clans, long worn out by their quarrels, gave their assent, and from this arose the Zhao family taige, the Yang family dragon dance and the Zhu family lion jerking. According to the "Customs" chapter of the Zhuji Minbao Fifth-Anniversary Souvenir Album, "there are those who bind their bodies and practise boxing, with sabres, spears, halberds and swords, forming teams and displaying their skills. There are those who perform lions seizing the embroidered ball... some hang a lion on a frame, with one person inside working the ropes, leaping to fight for the ball, every posture dazzling to the eye." In Caota lion jerking the ropes are pulled during the dance, so that the ball moves and the lion dances; hence the name "lion jerking". A lion-jerking team generally consists of about 20 people, divided into the performance troupe, the ball-tossers who lead the lion, the women's drum band, and so on. The percussion instruments consist mainly of drums, gongs, flags and cong (a kind of ancient trumpet or cannon). The performance props consist mainly of one lion cage, one coloured ball, five lions and a number of thin ropes. The five lions are decorated in yellow, green, blue, red and brown, five colours standing for metal, wood, water, fire and earth, the Five Phases. Four sturdy young men carry the cage on their shoulders as they walk, and behind them eight people hold the ropes, controlling the coloured lion as it jumps, jerks, twists, or raises its forepaw to scratch its ear inside the cage. A lion-leader skilled in martial arts then tosses the ball to tease the lion, and the coloured lion rolls and dances to the beat of the drum, performing such postures as jerking, teasing, soaring and pouncing; accompanied by the blowing and striking of the women's grand gong-and-drum band, a joyful festive atmosphere is fully revealed. All the roles in a lion-jerking team must work together in tacit understanding, which embodies a social atmosphere of neighbourhood solidarity and harmony and of a stable and peaceful village. Caota lion jerking combines the art of modelling with the art of performance, incorporating both acrobatics and string-puppet technique; it demonstrates superb artistry, broad popular entertainment value, strong cooperativeness, outstanding spectator appeal and marked folk character.
Five-coloured lions and the five elements
The equipment is one lion cage, one coloured ball, five lions and cords; the lions are yellow, green, blue, red and brown, standing for metal, wood, water, fire and earth.
Four to carry, eight to pull the cords
Four strong men carry the cage and eight pull the cords, making the lions jump, shake, twist and scratch, while a martial ball-thrower teases them into rolls and pounces to the drum.
The Zhao, Yang and Zhu clans and the temple fair
Descendants of the Song imperial house and of the general Yang Jiye, long at odds over irrigation, joined in a temple-fair procession proposed by the Zhu clan, descendants of Zhu Xi, giving rise to the Zhao pageant, Yang dragon and Zhu lion.
The Zhuji folk-custom record
The fifth-anniversary volume of the Zhuji newspaper records teams of boxers with swords and spears and a lion suspended on a frame pulled by one man inside to seize the embroidered ball.
The women's drum band
A troupe of about twenty divides into performers, ball-throwing teasers and a women's drum band, whose drums, gongs, flags and blunderbusses set the festive mood.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Caota lion jerking takes Qiandian Village of Caota Town, Zhuji City as its centre, and also extends to neighbouring cities and counties such as Shaoxing, Jinhua and Lishui.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Ningde Huotongxianshi · Xianshi · Xianshi.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
From the Qing dynasty to the present, a clearly traceable lineage of transmission has run through five generations, and these inheritors have made outstanding contributions to prop-making, performance technique and transmission in practice. The locality has lion-jerking performance teams and women's drum bands, as well as relevant transmission bases, forming a well-established mechanism of passing on skills, helping and leading newcomers, and a system for training inheritors. Caota lion jerking has a distinctly regional character and combines the value of physical fitness and entertainment, of artistic appreciation and of historical and cultural significance. It enriches the traditional festival cultural life of the general public, highlights a harmonious atmosphere in which neighbours live together in amity, respect and mutual assistance, and has positive significance for promoting social stability and development and for rural revitalisation. Zhao Bolin (official archival record of the associated inheritor): male, of Han ethnicity, born in September 1949, native of Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province. In childhood, under the influence of his grandparents, he became fascinated by lion jerking; in the 1980s he organised a Xianshi team and served as its leader, and took part many times in cultural and sports performances and competitions at provincial and municipal level. In order to make Caota lion jerking more appealing and better received by the common people, he continually improved and innovated such things as the structure of the lion-jerking apparatus, the materials used, the appearance design, the rope-pulling technique and the performance technique, changing the lion, which originally could only move simply back and forth, so that the large and small lions dance in an all-round manner — forward and backward, up and down, left and right. This broke through the technical difficulty of lion jerking and raised its artistic appeal. In the course of taking in apprentices and teaching the skill year after year, he passed on what he had learned about lion jerking to his students, so that this craft was inherited and developed. Representative inheritor of Xianshi (Caota lion jerking), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth national-level batch.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chen Xinfa 03-1202
- Hu Jinchao 03-1203
- Zhao Bolin 05-2535
- Hu Genji
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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