Lion dance is an excellent folk art in China. Every festival or assembly celebration, people use lion dance for entertainment.

History:

First, the initial stage

Lion dance is a traditional folk performing art in Asia. Performers dress up as lions to the music of gongs and drums and make various movements of lions. China folk tradition holds that lion dancing can exorcise evil spirits. Therefore, whenever people miss their relatives more, such as the New Zhang Celebration and the Spring Festival Tournament, people like beating gongs and drums and dancing lions. Lion dance is also famous with Chinese emigrating overseas. Lion dance is quite popular in Chinatown in Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. Overseas Chinese living in Europe and America have also formed many lion dance clubs. Every year during the Spring Festival or major festivals, they will dance lions around the world to celebrate.

There are different opinions about the origin of lion dance. According to myths and legends, lions appeared in the mountains before and ate the villagers in the village. Later, the villagers learned martial arts and killed the lion. The villagers imitated the shape of a lion and became lion dancers. It is also said that the Tathagata leads the lion away, so there is a "big head Buddha" among the southern lions to lead the lion. There is also a legend that some villagers used paper lions and gongs and drums to drive away Nian animals and turned them into lion dances.

Second, the later period

Lions are powerful and known as the king of beasts, but China is generally not harmed by lions. Therefore, the people have friendly feelings for the lion, and regard it as a symbol of courage and good luck, hoping to use the powerful image of the lion to exorcise evil spirits, resulting in lion modeling to suppress or show martial arts.

China society has always been dominated by agriculture. With the changes of solar terms and agricultural life, various festivals or ceremonies to greet the gods have emerged. In these festivals, people use gods or auspicious animals to exorcise ghosts and entertain gods, which gradually has the significance of entertaining people.

With people's love for lions, they are no longer satisfied with the static artistic image of lions in doorways, eaves, stone fences, seals and New Year pictures. They wanted the lion to live, so they created a dance that imitated the lion's behavior, and then improved it and developed it into a unique art of the Chinese nation.

Although the folk lion dance has a long history, there are different opinions about the origin of this art. Experts have rummaged through a batch of books and can only get some clues from various records, including various legends.

Extended data

China lion dance:

Lion dance can be divided into north and south. At first, the northern lion was popular in the north of the Yangtze River, while the southern lion was popular in South China, Nanyang and overseas. In recent years, there have also been dances that combine the two, mainly using the footwork of southern lion and northern lion, which is called "Southern Lion and Northern Dance".

(a), the northern lion

The northern lion looks like a real lion, with a simple head and golden hair all over. Lion dancers (usually two people dancing at one end) will coat their trousers and shoes with fur, and look like lifelike lions before dancing. The lion with a red knot on his head is a male and the green one is a female. The northern lion shows flexible movements, which is different from the southern lion. Dance is mainly about jumping, falling, turning, rolling, jumping and scratching.

Lions in the north usually appear in pairs, led by masters dressed as soldiers. Sometimes a pair of northern lions will match a pair of little northern lions. The little lion teased the big lion, and the big lion teased and showed his family. The performance of the northern lion is closer to juggling. Musically, Beijing cymbals, Beijing gongs and Beijing drums are the main instruments.

(2), South Lion

The Southern Lion, also known as the Lion Awakening, has a more vigorous shape and pays attention to "horse stance just look" when dancing. Southern Lion shows a vigorous lion style mainly through the movements of dancers, and generally only two people dance at one end. The lion's head is a mirror of China's traditional drama. It is bright and delicate, and its eyes and mouth move. Strictly speaking, heather's lion head is not like a lion's head, and some people even think that heather is closer to the "Nian" beast. Heather's lion head also has a horn. It is said that it used to be made of iron to cope with the fights that often occur when dancing lions.

Traditionally, the lion's head is divided into Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. The three lion heads are not only different in color and decoration, but also have different dancing methods according to the personalities of the three ancient people. Red is Guan Gong lion, representing loyalty and victory. Because Guan Yu is also Wu Caishen in the eyes of China people, Guan Yu's lion also represents wealth, yellow is Liu Bei's lion, representing Zebei's livelihood, benevolence and royal extravagance, and black is Zhang Fei's lion, representing qi and bravery. Therefore, Zhang Feishi is usually only used in competitions or challenges, and red and yellow are common festive events.

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