Lion Dance

Ⅲ-5Traditional DanceLinhai, ZhejiangBatch 1 (2006)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

The “Huangsha lion” was first created during the Northern Song dynasty and is performed mainly around Huangshayang in Baishuiyang Town, in the mountainous northwest of Linhai City, Zhejiang Province. Table-stacking is the hardest part of the entire performance: more than forty tables are piled on one another in a stepped pyramid, and at the top the stack of nine tiers of tables rises to about three zhang and two chi. A single word — “a supreme feat” — is set on the four legs of the ninth and highest tier of tables: the table legs point up into the air, and one performer strides across those four upturned legs, taking off his shoes and stockings to display the acme of acrobatic skill.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

The lion dance, also called “shizi wu”, “lion lantern”, “wuxi” or “playing the lion”, is performed mostly at New Year and other celebratory occasions. In the minds of all the peoples of China the lion is an auspicious beast symbolizing good fortune and the fulfilment of wishes, so lion dancing carries the people's hope of warding off disaster and harm and of seeking good fortune and blessings. The lion dance has a distant history; the “elephant men” recorded in the “Treatise on Rites and Music” of the Book of Han were its predecessor, and Tang and Song poems and prose contain many vivid descriptions of lion dancing. Surviving lion dances fall into two great categories, the southern lion and the northern lion. The southern lion features many difficult and demanding martial techniques and looks vigorous and fierce; the northern lion is naive and charming and takes playful romping as its main content. Because the materials and binding methods used for the lion head differ, lion dances of many kinds abound in each locality, glittering in their variety. The customs of this area are bold and dashing, plain and close to antiquity, and martial arts are esteemed; moreover the custom of dancing the lion has been established here for a long time. The greatest feature of this traditional performing art is the ingenious combination of the finest folk martial arts with traditional lion-dance performance, making dancing and martial arts one and the same. It can not only roll and frolic on the ground but also perform various amusing movements on a high platform. During the performance, while the performer turns somersaults on the eight-immortal table, he simultaneously performs table-top acrobatic movements such as “passing through the hall”, “somersault on the table”, “crawling down to the spot”, “hanging on the table leg” and “the stacked buddhas”. The Huangsha lion integrates dancing and martial arts as one, amuses both gods and people, balances hardness and tenderness, and carries distinctive local cultural features together with the people's fine expectations. From Lunar New Year's Eve, the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, until the second day of the second lunar month, the performers travel from village to village to give performances. The people of Huangshayang, the core area of the Huangsha lion, and of the places to which it has spread pray for favourable weather, plentiful harvests, prosperity in both people and property, and good fortune and peace. They all hope that the lion dance will grant them auspiciousness, ward off disaster and bring blessings, so that they may spend the festival in great merriment.

Table leaping and the nine-tier feat

Its hardest episode: over forty tables stacked to nine tiers some ten metres high, the ninth upturned so that a single performer steps across its four legs, removing shoes and socks.

Table acrobatics

The table-top acrobatics performed while the lion flies across the tables, forming a complete system in keeping with its martial-dance unity.

Dance and martial art as one

Its greatest trait is the fusion of local martial skill with lion dance, entertaining gods and people alike, firm and yielding, with a distinct local character.

Village rounds from New Year's Eve to spring

From New Year's Eve until the second day of the second month the artists tour the villages, the core of the new-year festivities in the northwestern hills.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The “Huangsha lion” was first created during the Northern Song dynasty and is performed mainly around Huangshayang in Baishuiyang Town, in the mountainous northwest of Linhai City, Zhejiang Province. The customs of this area are bold and dashing and plain and close to antiquity, martial arts are esteemed, and the custom of dancing the lion has been established here for a long time. It ingeniously combines the finest folk martial arts with traditional lion-dance performance, integrating dancing and martial arts; it can not only roll and frolic on the ground but also perform various amusing movements on a high platform, and during the performance the performer, while turning somersaults on the eight-immortal table, simultaneously performs table-top movements such as “passing through the hall”, “somersault on the table”, “crawling down to the spot”, “hanging on the table leg” and “the stacked buddhas”. From Lunar New Year's Eve, the thirtieth day of the twelfth lunar month, until the second day of the second lunar month, the performers travel from village to village to give performances; the people of Huangshayang, the core area, and of the places to which it has spread pray for favourable weather, plentiful harvests, prosperity in both people and property, and good fortune and peace, all hoping that the lion dance will grant them auspiciousness and ward off disaster and bring blessings.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

The Huangsha lion has research value for the study of folklore, sociology, aesthetics, anthropology and related fields. With the rapid economic development of the eastern coastal region of China, the aesthetic concepts and cultural life patterns of traditional society have undergone change. Today fewer than ten elderly performers who can still perform the Huangsha lion remain, and this highly ornamental form of traditional folk dance faces the danger of a break in transmission and of being lost. Wang Yueyou (official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han ethnicity, born in 1949, a native of Linhai, Zhejiang. He ingeniously combined folk martial arts with traditional lion-dance performance, inserting startling martial feats into the lion dance as he performed it, and the table-stacking lion-dance movements he created are thrilling and beautiful. After the 1990s, Wang Yueyou shouldered the responsibility of transmission, passing on the lion-dance skills he had learned throughout his life to the next generation and training a large number of lion-dance team members. Representative inheritor of the lion dance (Huangsha lion), a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the second batch.

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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