Dragon Dance

Ⅲ-4Traditional DanceHuangshanshixiuning, AnhuiBatch 5 (2021)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

When the bench dragon dances the scene is immense: at one moment it is the “divine dragon leaving the sea,” the dragon body rising and falling in a coiling spiral from front to back, like a flood dragon swimming on the sea; at another it is the “earth dragon gazing at the moon,” the dragon head raised high while the dancer holding the tail lies on the ground, twisting the waist and turning the body; at another it is the “jade dragon bringing rain,” meteors spurting from the mouth like splashing rain flowers; at another it is the “golden dragon coiled round the pillar,” the dragon head held still while the dancers holding the tail run round and round like a millstone, coiling the dragon body into a ball and then swiftly unravelling it and coiling it the opposite way — a magnificent sight.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The Huizhou bench dragon draws on local materials, involves broad participation, is grand in scale, simple in movement and deep in meaning. The Huizhou bench dragon consists of a dragon head, body and tail; the length varies from village to village, generally one section per household, so the larger the village, the longer the dragon body. The dragon head and tail are made by professional craftsmen engaged by the clan head of the ancestral hall, while the body sections are the responsibility of each household. The bench sections of the dragon body are generally made of fir planks, 1.5 metres long and twenty centimetres wide. A round hole is chiselled at each of the two ends of the bench top: at one end the hole is used for the dragon dancer to insert the handle, and the hole at the other end is used for the head post of the handle of the following dragon section to pass through and be joined. Large red lanterns are fixed on the bench tops, in varying numbers. The performing team of the bench dragon consists mainly of five parts: the lantern bearer, the dragon head, the dragon body, the dragon tail and the gong and drum team. When the dragon is danced, each household carries the dragon body section it has kept at home to the Dragon King temple at the village water inlet and joins it to the head and tail; each dragon is at least 100 metres long. According to records, in the late Ming dynasty the Zhang clan of Youlong village, Hecheng, began making and performing the bench dragon, to pray for and celebrate abundant harvests and a growing population. It afterwards spread gradually to the surrounding areas. In performance all the dragon dancers are farming households from the village, and the organizers are mostly the clan head or persons of renown in the village. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the principal village officials took on the organizational work related to the protection and practice of the bench dragon. The Huizhou bench dragon embodies the people's fine ideal of praying for favourable wind and rain and for peace year after year, and its dragon body, with board joined to board and section locked to section, tells the world that only unity and cooperation can bring wishes to fulfilment.

The four signature manoeuvres

The four grand manoeuvres: the dragon leaving the sea, the earth dragon gazing at the moon, the jade dragon bringing rain and the golden dragon coiling the pillar.

Division of head, body and tail

Head and tail are commissioned by the clan elder from specialist craftsmen while each household makes one section, so the larger the village the longer the dragon, each at least a hundred metres.

Fir planking and socket joints

Each fir plank is 1.5 metres by 20 centimetres with round sockets at both ends, one for the dancer's handle and one for the next section's post, and carries a red lantern.

Lantern and population homophony

In Huizhou dialect lantern and population sound alike, so the dance means a growing household; the Zhang clan of Youlong village began it in the late Ming to pray for harvests and descendants.

Joining the dragon at the water-mouth temple

Each household carries its body section to the Dragon King temple at the village water mouth to be joined to head and tail; the dancers are all farmers and the organisers clan elders.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In the Huizhou dialect “lamp” and “population” are homophones, so it connotes a growing population. It is an important component of Huizhou culture, a vivid witness to the moral concepts, ideal aspirations, practical wisdom and creativity of the local people, and it plays a positive role in strengthening cultural confidence and promoting social harmony.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The Huizhou bench dragon is a traditional form of dance performance mainly passed down in Xiuning County, Huangshan City, Anhui Province; it is called the “Huizhou bench dragon” because its body is made of specially made benches joined end to end, and it takes the three townships of Liukou, Wangcun and Hecheng as its core areas of transmission. This project has been transmitted for more than five hundred years. The project has been handed down from generation to generation through master-apprentice and family transmission, relying on folk dragon dance practice, and many people have learned it.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

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

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Dragon Dance (Huangshanshixiuning, Anhui) · China ICH Official Project Archive

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。