Dragon Dance

Ⅲ-4Traditional DanceWuhanshihanyang, HubeiBatch 2 (2008)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

It originated in the Zhenguan era of the Tang dynasty and has a history of more than 1,400 years. In December 1999, the Hanyang tall dragon was invited to Beijing to take part in the national Chinese dragon dance competition, winning first place in the gold award of the 'Guoan Cup' and first place in the 'Shanhua Award', the highest award for folk art in China. Since the late Qing dynasty and early Republic period, through the transmission of several generations of folk dragon makers and dragon dancers from the Zhou and Li families, the Hanyang tall dragon has achieved considerable development.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Classified by the form the dragon takes, dragon dance includes 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 many other types; because the forms differ, their dance postures and dancing techniques also differ in their own ways. The traditional performance procedure of Chinese dragon dance generally consists of such segments as 'inviting the dragon', 'sending the dragon out', 'performing the dragon dance' and 'seeing the dragon off'. Dragon dance embodies cultural meanings of pioneering effort and of the unity of humanity and nature, and is an important part of the spirit and cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. The Hanyang tall dragon is a lantern-dragon art form peculiar to Hubei, popular in Jiangdi Township, Yongfeng Township and parts of Caidian in Hanyang District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The Hanyang tall dragon uses an upright dancing method, different from all other kinds of dragon lantern; its binding, its consecration ceremony and the related burning and seizing of blessings also have distinctive features. The head of the tall dragon is more than 4 metres high and weighs 40 kilograms, making it look exceptionally tall and mighty, and it is even more impressive when danced. The tall dragon dance is a grand and magnificent spectacle; the routines performed with the dragon head include knocking the tall dragon, sweeping the tall dragon, raising the tall dragon and shaking the tall dragon. Holding it in the mouth and supporting it on the teeth, the performers set the dragon that weighs tens of kilograms whirling with vigour and full of life. As an outstanding representative of Chinese dragon dance, the tall dragon displays the distinctive features of the dragon paper craft of central China in such respects as paper-making technique, structure and form.

The vertical dance method

The Hanyang tall dragon is danced vertically, unlike every other dragon lantern; its head stands over four metres and weighs forty kilos, giving it exceptional force.

Knocking, sweeping, lifting, shaking

The head-dancing routines of the Hanyang tall dragon, performed so that a forty-kilo head sweeps and shakes with vigour.

The mouth-and-teeth hold

A feat developed by the inheritor Liu Weixiang, who supports the towering head on his teeth alone and shuffles forward on his knees, famed as unmatched in dragon dancing.

Consecration and the bonfire scramble

The distinctive customs of making, consecrating and burning the dragon for good fortune form a complete ritual chain distinguishing it from other lantern dragons.

The Zhou and Li dragon-making families

From the late Qing the Zhou and Li families of makers and dancers carried the Hanyang tall dragon forward, its paper-craft structure showing the region's distinctive traits.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Dragon dance, also called 'dragon performance', is known among the people as 'playing the dragon', 'playing the dragon lantern' or 'dragon lantern dance'; it is the most widely distributed and most far-reaching folk dance in China. This dance takes varied forms in its performance, and dragon dances among different ethnic groups and different regions differ markedly in style.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present the technique of making the dragon has few successors, the art is left to grow or wither on its own, it is on the verge of extinction and urgently in need of rescue. Liu Weixiang (official archive record of the associated inheritor): Male, Han ethnicity, born in September 1977, native of Wuhan City, Hubei Province. He began practising the dragon tail at the age of 12, and at 17 formally became a disciple of the old dragon-dance master Wang Zili to learn the dragon head. After more than ten years of honing, he performs the traditional dragon dancing skills of knocking, sweeping, raising, supporting, shaking and topping with greater refinement, astonishment and daring. He has inherited and developed the unique skill of 'holding it in the mouth and supporting it on the teeth', namely supporting a towering dragon head of tens of jin with nothing but the teeth and advancing on the knees in shuffling steps; it is praised as 'a divine feat unmatched in the world of dragon dance'. He has repeatedly led tall-dragon artists to performances at home and abroad. The tall dragon he performs is exquisitely skilled and grand in scale, and is highly praised by audiences. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Dragon Dance (Tall Dragon). He has trained a number of inheritors, including Chen Tao.

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 ↗

This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回英文名录。