Lantern Dance

Ⅲ-45Traditional DanceDongzhi, AnhuiBatch 2 (2008)Newly Added Item

01 · Historical Records

Lantern dance has existed since ancient times. There are Qing-dynasty records of 'lantern dance' in which characters were formed through dancing with lanterns as props. Folk artisans used bamboo, wood, rattan, metal and other materials produced locally to make lanterns of every kind for hanging lanterns and tying coloured streamers, and these later developed into many forms of folk entertainment such as dancing the dragon lantern and playing with flower lanterns.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

On every festival (especially the Lantern Festival) and on rites such as prayers for rain, sacrifices and supplications for a good harvest, both the court and the people would hold lantern dance performances. At first lantern dance was characterized by arranging characters; later it gradually developed into a folk dance style in which coloured lanterns are arranged to build patterns and create a poetic mood, and it spread throughout the country. Classified by the shape of the lantern display, lantern dance falls chiefly into three kinds: those imitating animals, namely dragon lantern dance, lion lantern dance, fish lantern dance, clam lantern dance, butterfly lantern dance and hundred-bird lantern dance; those imitating flowers, namely lotus lantern dance, chrysanthemum lantern dance and wax-flower lantern dance; and other forms such as boat lantern dance, cart lantern dance, cloud lantern dance and embroidered-ball lantern dance. Lantern dance performances are rich in form; they are generally staged at night as mass dances and on a grand scale. The performers dance as they move, the formations keep changing, and fireworks and firecrackers are let off during the dance, making a magnificent spectacle. This folk dance style appears mostly in Han areas, while also being popular in some minority areas. Dongzhi flower lantern dance is a rarity among the folk dances of southern Anhui's mountains, with a history of more than three hundred years. It is passed on mainly among more than twenty great-surname clans in the townships of Zhangxi, Yanghu, Guangang, Muta and others in Dongzhi County, Anhui Province. Performances of Dongzhi flower lantern dance are organized on a family basis. They generally begin on the second day of the first lunar month and end on the fifteenth, and the longest performances continue until the lanterns are closed off on the second day of the second lunar month. Dongzhi flower lanterns are composed of more than ten kinds of lantern in differing forms, including the 'six-beast lantern', the 'millstone lantern', the 'Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea lantern', the 'Five Wuchang Peace lantern', the 'dragon lantern', the 'lion lantern', the 'clam-shell lantern' and the 'dry boat'; the 'six-beast lantern' is also called the 'six-beast peace lantern', and the six beasts are the qilin, the lion, the unicorn, the elephant, the deer and the muntjac. The performance forms of Dongzhi flower lanterns are not all the same, but all of them carry rich cultural content, involving folk dance, folk music, folk handicraft, folk art, primitive religious belief and other fields. Dongzhi flower lantern dance is an important folk-custom activity in Anhui's countryside. It brings together many folk arts and crafts of local origin or brought in from elsewhere, including craft art, drama, music and martial arts, and it preserves an archaic, rugged primitiveness. Its performance integrates making coloured lanterns, singing Wennan ci, Huangmei opera and beating shifan gongs and drums into a single whole, and within it is accumulated a great deal of historical information, giving it rich cultural content.

The six beasts lantern

The most characteristic of the Dongzhi lanterns, also called the six beasts lantern of universal peace, featuring qilin, lion, unicorn, elephant, deer and river deer.

From the second day of the first month to the second of the second

Performances are organised by clan, running from the second day of the first lunar month to the fifteenth, and in the longest case until the second of the second month.

Lantern making, opera and gong-and-drum music

The dance fuses lantern making with Wannan ci and Huangmei opera singing, ten-part gong-and-drum music and martial arts, in a plain and robust archaic idiom.

The millstone, Eight Immortals and five demons lanterns

The tradition encompasses a dozen lantern types, among them the millstone lantern, the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, the five demons lantern of peace, dragon and lion lanterns, the clam and the land boat.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

In the Dongzhi six-beast lantern the qilin comes first, followed in order by the lion, the unicorn, the elephant, the deer and the muntjac, and the lanterns are arranged in procession in this order. Each surname's lantern association has a 'lamp head' in charge, responsible for the sequence of the lanterns, the date the lanterns go out and the expenses of the sacrificial rites.

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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present Dongzhi flower lantern dance is transmitted only by oral teaching and demonstration. As the old artists pass away, the originally exquisite performing techniques have partly been lost; and because young people have insufficient understanding of the value of this folk art, Dongzhi flower lantern dance has a shortage of successors and urgently needs rescue and protection. Huang Jiehai (official archive record of the associated inheritor): A man of Han ethnicity, born in February 1963, from Dongzhi County, Anhui Province. At about ten years old he began learning the making, papering and performance of the six-beast lantern from his father, his elder brothers and the elders of his clan. He is skilled at making lantern-dance figures such as the unicorn, the lion, the elephant and the muntjac. He has particular skill in choreographing the six-beast blessing dance within the six-beast lantern. He took part in lantern association activities several times and gradually became the lead dancer of this skill. He has fairly completely compiled materials on the making and performance of the six-beast lantern, has carefully organized and planned lantern dance activities, and has coached and trained a group of young and middle-aged learners, so that Dongzhi flower lantern dance is passed on from generation to generation. Representative inheritor of the fifth batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item Lantern Dance (Dongzhi Flower Lantern Dance).

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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