Dragon Dance

Ⅲ-4Traditional DanceChongqingBatch 1 (2006)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Already in the oracle-bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty there are records of several people collectively sacrificing to the dragon and praying for rain; the record of Dong Zhongshu's 'Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn' in the Han dynasty already contains clear accounts of the various dragon dances used to pray for rain; from that time on, poems and prose of every dynasty recording dragon dancing at court or among the folk are found again and again.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The most basic expressive means of dragon dance are its prop modelling, its compositional variations and its sequences of movement. According to the different materials used in binding the dragon props, dragon dance is divided into cloth dragon, gauze dragon, paper dragon, straw dragon, coin dragon, bamboo dragon, palm-fibre dragon, bench dragon, hundred-leaf dragon, lotus-flower dragon, fire dragon, chicken-feather dragon, flesh dragon and so on; northern dragon dance is generally tall and massive, simple and archaic in style and full of vigour, while southern dragon dance is exquisite and fine, lively and quick. The composition and movement of dragon dance generally have such characteristics as 'rounding', 'rolling', 'twining', 'interlacing' and 'leaping'. The traditional performance procedure of dragon dance is generally: 'inviting the dragon', 'sending the dragon out', 'performing the dragon' and 'seeing the dragon off'. Among the people there is a saying: 'at seven or eight one plays with the straw dragon, at fifteen or sixteen one plays with the small dragon, the young and middle-aged dance the big dragon'. The number of dragon dancers may be as few as one man dancing two dragons, or as many as a hundred men dancing one big dragon. The dragon is the totem of the Chinese nation and the ancestor in which it believes; dragon dance is a symbol of the spirit of China. It embodies the spirit of the Chinese nation's unity and cohesion and its pioneering and striving spirit, and contains the cultural meaning of harmony between heaven and humanity and of bringing benefit to humankind. It is the most common form of entertainment for Chinese people on auspicious and celebratory occasions; its atmosphere is ardent and stirring to the heart, and it is an extremely precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. The Tongliang dragon dance is a form of dance art transmitted within the territory of Tongliang County, Chongqing Municipality, which takes the dragon as its principal prop. It rose in the Ming dynasty, flourished in the Qing dynasty, and in the present day blazes anew and enjoys worldwide renown. The Tongliang dragon dance includes two major series, the dragon lantern dance and the coloured lantern dance. The dragon lantern dance mainly includes ten varieties: the great ru dragon, the fire dragon, the straw dragon, the bamboo-shoot-shell dragon, the yellow-berry dragon, the bench dragon, the upright dragon, the small coloured dragon, the bamboo-bang dragon and the lotus-flower dragon, of which the great ru dragon is the most distinctive. The coloured lantern dance mainly includes twelve varieties: 'fish leaping the dragon gate', 'loach eating the sweet dumplings', 'three strips', 'the eighteen scholars', 'the shining lion', 'the hill-clearing tiger', 'the clam spirit', 'the rhinoceros gazing at the moon', 'the pig gnawing the pumpkin', 'the high-platform dragon-and-lion dance', 'inscribing the name on the wild-goose pagoda' and 'the pumpkin trellis'. The Tongliang dragon dance is characterised by its close connection with folk-custom activities, its rich repertoire of routines and the harmony and humour of its movement rhythms; its accompanying music is distinctive, its props ingeniously conceived, its modelling exaggerated, its costumes plain and elegant, its dancers free to join in and easy to withdraw, and public participation is extremely strong. The Tongliang dragon dance embodies the spirit of unity and cohesion, of bringing benefit to humankind, of striving upward and of harmony with heaven; at the same time it has such social functions as amusing the gods and the people and displaying power.

The ten dragon-lantern varieties

One of the two series of Tongliang dragon dance, comprising ten varieties of dragon lantern, of which the great wriggling dragon is the most distinctive.

The twelve coloured-lantern varieties

The other series of Tongliang dragon dance, including Carp Leaping the Dragon Gate, Loach Eating Dumplings, Eighteen Scholars, Bright Lion and Rhinoceros Gazing at the Moon.

Competition-standard routines

Routines created by the inheritor Huang Tingyan; when dragon dance entered state sports competition in 1994 these four were adopted as prescribed routines.

Inviting, bringing out, dancing and sending off the dragon

The traditional sequence of Chinese dragon dance, into which Tongliang has absorbed Sichuan opera percussion, operatic postures and martial routines.

Da Ru Long (the great wriggling dragon)

The most distinctive of the ten Tongliang lantern varieties, marked by its long, writhing, undulating body, and one of the few Tongliang forms known worldwide.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Dragon dance, also called 'performing the dragon', is known among the people as 'playing the dragon', 'playing the dragon lantern' or 'dragon lantern dance'; it is widely distributed throughout the country and among all ethnic groups, and the diversity of its forms and varieties is beyond comparison with any other folk dance. In terms of colour, dragon dance is divided into yellow, white, azure, red, black and so on, of which the yellow dragon is the most noble.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Down to the present day, dragon dance is still one of the dance forms commonly present at folk festive and seasonal occasions. Only a few varieties of the Tongliang dragon dance, such as the great ru dragon and the fire dragon, are known throughout the world; most dragon dance varieties are already in an endangered state and urgently need protection and rescue. Huang Tingyan (official archive record of the associated inheritor): male, Han ethnicity, born in 1941, native of Tongliang, Chongqing. Huang Tingyan began to learn the art at the age of eleven, studying coloured-dragon dancing and gong-and-drum beating with old artists such as Shen Junsheng and Zhao Haitao; from 1988 onward, on the basis of the traditional dragon dance techniques he had inherited, he created a number of dragon dance routines that are both technically difficult and rich in narrative, weaving Sichuan Opera wind-and-percussion music, operatic stage routines and martial arts weapon work into dragon dance performance, making the Tongliang dragon dance all the more splendid. In 1994 the State Sports Commission listed dragon dance as one of the sports competition events, and the routines 'big horizontal figure-eight flower', 'linked rings', 'flying dragon chasing the pearl' and 'golden dragon embracing the pillar' created and arranged by Huang Tingyan were recognised as the prescribed routines for dragon dance competitions. Representative inheritor of the second national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Dragon Dance (Tongliang dragon dance). Beginning in 1994 Huang Tingyan taught and popularised the techniques of the Tongliang dragon dance and trained many successors; the widely recognised outstanding dragon dance artists Zhang Shunsheng, Zhang Mingxin, Zhang Yongjiang and Huang Wencan are all his disciples.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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