1. What Is Lion Dancing?
Lion dancing is a long-lived Chinese tradition. Often mistaken for a dragon, it is performed by a two-person team, moving underneath the lion head as if a puppet dancing to the beat of the drums. You might have seen performances during Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year), openings of places such as restaurants or banks, or ceremonies such as weddings. These lions are believed to scare away evil spirits who bring bad luck, and bring in prosperity and good fortune. Many legends exist as to how this cultural sight came to be.
An example is the story of a Chinese emperor plagued by nightmares for many nights of demons and dark spirits haunting his soul, until in one of his nightmares a feline-like animal appeared and scared them off. Once awake from his dream-like state, he ordered his councilmen to find this animal of peace and present it to him. With no such luck, the councilmen decided to create such an animal to be performed by martial artists. Such a performance was similar to the emperor's dream that he accepted the spectacle and had it performed to ward off the demons and evil spirits annually on the first day of every year.
Differing Styles of Lion Dancing
There are two general styles of lion dancing:
- the Northern Peking style
- the Southern style.
In the Northern Peking style, the lions used resemble furry dogs, specifically the Pekingese Dog. Not only that, but the characteristics of the Pekingese Dog are apparent in the Northern style of lion dancing. It is in this style that tricks such as the half-stacks, crane-stacks, head-stacks, and shoulder stacks, as well as front, back, and side flips were used frequently.
In the Southern Style, the forms of martial arts are fully apparent. In essence, this traditional style was about the typical "banishing" of evil spirits and welcoming good fortune, as well as showcasing one's martial art skills, power, strength, and stability. More times than not, the characteristics portrayed by this lion style were aggressive in nature. However, these skills were required as the heads were very heavy prior to the introduction of the Malaysian style heads. They were so heavy that it was difficult to perform the tricks of the Northern Style. However, the Southern style has branched off into another category: the Modern (Malaysian/Hybrid) form. This branching of the Southern form took place with the introduction of the modern "Hoksan" head in the late 1990's. Due to the lightness of the head, stunts of the Northern lion dances were easily accomplished, and overall it has taken on the form of the Northern Peking style. In fact, this is among the reasons why the modern Malaysian Lion Dance is also known as the Hybrid style - for mixing the traditional routines of the Southern forms with the entertainment of the Northern style.
Various Colors
In the Southern form of lion dancing, you will notice that there are different colored lions - each usually with its own set of characteristics. Lion sets may come in colors of (format: color skin/color fur) silver/white, gold/white, red/white, gold/gold, red/red, red/black, green/black, and other variations may exist. In general, lions with black fur are usually aggressive, taking a low stance and moving very quickly with sharp movements. Lions with white fur are either wise-looking or playful. The choice of characteristics is, of course, dependent on the decision of the team controlling the head.
There is an essential routine that many lion dancers of the Southern form follow. To begin with, a lion either starts off sleeping on the floor of the main stage, or enters a doorway after licking the entrance three times. Many of the moves are generally done in threes, and usually go in the direction of left, right, and center (or left, depending on the school/troupe preference). As such, the lion will enter and tease/play with the crowd, bow three times, usually do a routine or freestyle, eat and spit the lettuce to spread fortune around, and then release the scroll that wishes whatever the banner may say: "Good Fortune", "Happy New Year", etc. Finally, the lion bows three times once again, and then leaves. Of course, as it leaves, if it sees some good luck money in red envelopes offered, it will accept them in return for more good luck.
There are other variations of the creation of the lion dance art, all described similarly and yet differently. Today, lion dancing has evolved from the traditional aspects that display the power and stability of the practitioners' martial art to a modern form in which the feline attributes and characteristics of dogs are emphasized in the attempt to make the lion more life-like.
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