Individual regions have lion dances during Chinese New Year, how much do you know about this culture?

Lion dances are categorized into south and north, with the southern lion dance being most famous in Guangdong. The lions are made of colored cloth and each lion has two people performing together, one dancing at the head and one at the tail. The performers dress up as lions and perform various forms of lion movements to the accompaniment of gongs and drums. During the performance, the lion dancers show various movements based on southern martial arts, which are very masculine. Chinese lion dance culture has a long history. There are records about lion dance in the Han Dynasty, and in the Tang Dynasty, lion dance was also known as "Taiping Le", which was specially used for court dance.

Lion dance activities and performances were widely spread in the folklore, as the lion was considered an auspicious animal, symbolizing good luck. With the evolution of The Times, the custom of lion dance was spread from the Central Plains to the Lingnan region, so there are southern and northern lions. The Southern Lion focuses on the form, modeling appearance is more similar to the real lion, performance action tends to be flexible; the Southern Lion focuses on the external image, modeling bold, with drums and music, dancing enthusiastically. Therefore, the Southern Lion is also known as the "Waking Lion" by most people. The ethnic culture of Lingnan region plays an extremely important role in South China, especially in Guangdong. On some festive days or important events, there will be lion dances to "cheer up". This tradition has been passed down from generation to generation and has a long history.

The culture of awakening has enjoyed thousands of years of history in Guangdong. Legend has it that awakening evolved from a divine beast, which was called "red lion" because of its shape resembling a lion, one was called "red lion". Guangdong villagers united it with "sleeping" and called it a harmonic of "sleeping lion", which is an antonym, sleeping and waking up like to talk about the word "waking up" in the Guangdong area, and the word "red lion" was changed to "lion dance". The Chinese lion dance was originally a traditional folklore characterized by spontaneity, entertainment and casualness. After more than 2,000 years of evolution and development, it comes in a variety of forms, styles and genres.

It has developed from a general performance activity into a cultural and sports activity integrating entertainment, festival, competition and fitness, and has begun to step into the development track of standardization, scientification, competition and internationalization. The image of the lion is solemn and powerful, and has been regarded as an auspicious animal since ancient times. In China, the northern lion is concerned about the similarity of appearance: thick eyebrows, big eyes, energetic, muscular, head as big as a bucket. As the saying goes, "ten catty lions nine catty head". The stone lions in the south are very different from those in the north.