Dragon Dance

Ⅲ-4Traditional DanceLaifeng, HubeiBatch 3 (2011)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

According to the recollections of the elderly performer Li Ying, the ground dragon lantern comes from the Chu Overlord Xiang Yu's legend of “a dragon born of a tiger, raised by a phoenix, shaded by one.” Four or five generations of his family have played the ground dragon lantern, and handed down to the present it has a history of roughly three hundred years.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Whenever the Spring Festival or the “Dragon Boat Festival” on the fifteenth day of the fifth lunar month comes, the ground dragon lantern teams of the two villages travel from village to village and from hamlet to hamlet, touring the four quarters and winning wide popular favour. Twelve dance routines and movements of the ground dragon lantern survive today; the performing skill is demanding, the performance and its visual appeal are very strong, and the dancing method is distinctive. Where most folk dragon dances hold the dragon aloft with wooden poles, the ground dragon is performed without poles: nine performers hide themselves inside the dragon's body in turn and grasp the belt of the person in front of them, and the dragon rolls and dances entirely by feel and by tacit coordination. Another of its distinctive features is that the dragon dances together with the phoenix and the tiger, later joined by the fish, the shrimp and the turtle, so that animals of the sky, the earth and the sea perform on the same stage. The ground dragon lantern combines the dragon, the phoenix and the tiger into one; it has strong visual appeal and deep cultural content, and at the same time serves the social function of invigorating mass cultural life and promoting harmony among villages and clans.

Ba Di Suo

The local name of the ground dragon lantern in two neighbouring Tujia villages, a distinctive lantern dance performed at New Year and the mid-fifth-month festival.

Nine dancers hidden inside the dragon skin

Its unique method: instead of poles, nine dancers hide inside the skin and grip the belt of the man in front, making the dragon writhe by feel and mutual understanding alone.

Dragon, phoenix and tiger together

Another distinctive feature is that dragon, phoenix and tiger dance together, later joined by fish, shrimps and turtles, uniting sky, earth and sea in one scene.

Dragon coils the tree and walks the taiji

Among the twenty-three movements and routines mastered by the inheritor Deng Bin, twelve of which survive in the dance today.

New Year and mid-fifth-month outings

The fixed seasons of the ground dragon lantern, when the two villages' teams tour the countryside, much loved by local people.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The ground dragon lantern is passed down in Dayanban and Banshajie, two neighbouring Tujia mountain villages in Laifeng County in the heart of the Wuling Mountains, where it is locally called “Badisuo”; it is a distinctive folk lantern dance of the Tujia people. A local proverb says: “When Badisuo goes walking, it looks exactly like a real dragon in motion. Dayanban and Banshajie in Laifeng County lie in the heart of the Wuling Mountains, where Tujia villages are built against hills and beside streams, and the ground dragon lantern is locally called “Badisuo.” When the dance team travels from village to village it need not build a stage in advance; threshing floors and courtyard yards can both serve as the opening ground. The arrangement in which the dragon, phoenix and tiger perform on the same stage together with the fish, shrimp and turtle also brings the animals of the mountains, the sky and the marshes into a single ritual scene, reflecting the local religious substratum of the veneration of many gods together. A local proverb says: “When Badisuo goes walking, it looks exactly like a real dragon in motion.”

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Deng Bin (as recorded in the official archive of the associated inheritor): Male, of Tujia nationality, born in September 1932, native of Laifeng County, Hubei Province. Influenced by his elders from childhood, he has loved folk dance arts such as the ground dragon lantern, the bench dragon and the straw bundle dragon; he trained hard in martial arts skills and is of robust build, quick and agile in movement. He has mastered the playing of the treasure ball and the dancing of the dragon head in the ground dragon lantern, together with twenty-three performance movements and dance routines such as dragon coiled round the tree, dragon crossing the bridge and dragon walking the taiji diagram. He can climb a ladder of blades barefoot, roll his bare body over broken glass, and even perform high aerial rotations with a blade tip balanced on him. Even in his eighties he remains devoted to the transmission of the project, serving as chief coach at the local dragon lantern teaching base, and whenever the New Year comes he travels the villages performing the ground dragon lantern, deeply loved by the people. Representative inheritor of the dragon dance (ground dragon lantern) inscribed in the fourth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.

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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