As a traditional folk art, lanterns have been inherited. The lights in all parts of our country have many colors, different styles, beautiful workmanship and brilliance. Lantern Festival, many places will hold lantern exhibitions and lantern festivals. Lantern Festival lanterns include hanging lanterns, dragon lanterns, sedan chair lanterns, lantern lanterns, water lanterns and ice lanterns. For example, the Palace Lantern in Beijing, the Lotus Lantern in Tianjin, the Pearl Lantern in Shanghai, the Glass Lantern in Suzhou and Hangzhou, the Lotus Lantern in Guangzhou and the Ice Lantern in Northeast China all have obvious local characteristics and unique artistic styles. On the Lantern Festival night, children are carrying lanterns and wandering around to play. Accompanied by the Lantern Night Market, there have always been many traditional customs and programs: making social fires, playing dragon lanterns, dancing lions, rowing dry boats, walking on stilts, dancing yangko, solve riddles on the lanterns, etc., where lanterns shine at night, and people walk on the streets to watch the lanterns, juggle games and have fun. Making a social fire is a traditional folk entertainment activity with a long history. In the Spring and Autumn Period, there was a record of Confucius' view of social fire. Broadly speaking, there are more than 71 kinds of social fire programs, such as playing dragon lanterns, dancing lions, boating, stilts, bamboo horses, big-headed dolls, dumb old wives, etc., all of which belong to the scope of social fire and have various forms. In a narrow sense, it refers specifically to the pistachio, which has developed to the present, including Che Rui Zi, Mary Ma Zi and Gaotai Rui Zi, which are mysterious and bizarre, giving people a sense of breathtaking beauty.
Folk social fire performances spread all over the country have different tricks, but their technical styles are different. Playing dragon lantern, also known as dragon lantern or dragon dance. Its origin can be traced back to ancient times. Legend has it that as early as the Yellow Emperor's period, in a large-scale song and dance of Qing Jiao, there was an image of a leading bird played by a man, and then a dance scene with six dragons interspersed with each other was arranged. The dragon dance recorded in writing is Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu" in the Han Dynasty. The author vividly describes the dragon dance in the description of hundreds of plays. According to the Records of Sui Shu Music, Huanglongbian, which was similar to the dragon dance performance in hundreds of plays during Emperor Yangdi's reign, was also very wonderful. Dragon dance was popular in many places in China. The Chinese nation advocates dragons and regards them as auspicious symbols. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica said: "The dragon has nine shapes: its body is like a snake, its face is like a horse, its horn is like a deer, its eyes are like a rabbit, its ears are like an ox, its abdomen is like a stork, its scales are like a carp, its claws are like an eagle, and its palm is like a tiger." In the eyes of the ancients, the dragon has the function of calling the wind and calling the rain, eliminating disasters and epidemics. Since ancient times, China has been founded by agriculture, and good weather is of great significance to production and life. Therefore, the ancients strongly hoped for the protection of the dragon, thus forming the custom of dancing dragons at sacrifices and lanterns at the Lantern Festival. In the Song Dynasty, Wu Zimu's "Dream Liang Lu" recorded: On the night of Lantern Festival, "tied Jackie Chan with grass, covered the grass with a green curtain, and placed thousands of lamps and candles densely, looking at it like a double dragon flying away." In the long-term development and evolution, dragon dance has also formed many different styles, mainly including dragon lantern and cloth dragon. Dragon lantern, also known as "dragon", is the most popular dragon dance. This kind of dragon is made of bamboo and tied into a dragon head, a dragon body and a dragon tail, covered with paper and painted with colors. The dragon body has many knots, and the number of knots can be more or less; But it must be singular.
light candles in each section; In some places, candles are not lit, but "oil twist" made of tung oil, cotton yarn or rush. The burning power of this kind of oil twist is very durable, and the dragon lantern is colorful when dancing, and it will never go out. There is a wooden handle for dancers to hold below. There is also a person holding red silk beads in front of the dragon to direct the dragon dance. For example, in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, "Carp and Fish Turn into Dragons" is flexible and skillful, and is good at changing. The dragon dancer is dressed in an openable and closable carp skin. At first, the audience sees fish swimming in the water, but with the lively music, the fish suddenly changes into dragons, and then a fire-breathing carp jumps over the dragon body, symbolizing the meaning of "carp jumping over the dragon gate". Bulong, also known as the "colorful dragon", mainly performs in the daytime, and does not burn candles during the festival, so it flies and exults when performing, as if the waves of the river and the sea surge, and its momentum is extraordinary and majestic, which makes it unique. When dancing the dragon, it shows that the dragon is hovering and exultant, and its movements are very complicated.
In some places, the Lantern Festival is noisy, and there are more than 111 dragon lanterns in various roads, and the procession is as long as 21 or 31 Li. Each dragon lantern is accompanied by ten gongs and drums, which are very spectacular. Overseas, many Chinese communities still retain the ancient tradition of playing dragon lanterns and often perform for local festivals.