Types of dragon dancing

"Dragon Dance" is a Han folk dance popular in the East Island (Leizhou Cultural District) on the outskirts of Zhanjiang. It originated in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties and prevailed in the Qianlong and Jiaqing years of the Qing Dynasty. It is a large-scale square art.

In the past, during the Mid-Autumn Festival of the Lunar New Year or the harvest season at the end of the year, local people would perform "Dragon Dance" in the streets or squares, and each performance would last for three nights.

"People Dragon Dance" is a kind of dragon dance in China, but it is all composed of people. The head, body and tail of the dragon are all assembled by human bodies. The dragon head consists of a tall and powerful young man and three children, representing dragon tongue, longan and dragon horn respectively; The dragon body is supported by adults to supine children and connected in sections; Longwei is also an adult, with a child on his shoulder and his feet spread apart to show Longwei. The performer wore a yellow and red headscarf, a short-legged dragon suit and bandages on his arms and legs, which looked strong.

This kind of "dragon dance" is generally more than ten meters long, consisting of fifty or sixty people, and some are tens of meters long, hundreds or even hundreds of people. When dancing, it is light and flexible, and its movements are rough and powerful, as if it were vivid, sometimes turning left and right, sometimes dancing pearls, and sometimes shaking its tail and shaking its head.

In recent years, local artists have also reformed and processed the structure, dance steps, dance forms, music and rhythm of "People Dragon Dance", and formed performances such as "Starting the Dragon", "Dragon Nodding", "Dragon Crossing the Cloud" and "Dragon Rolling the Waves", which made it more perfect and was warmly welcomed by the masses, and was known as "a must in the East China Sea".

affected area

East island area on the outskirts of Zhanjiang.

trait

Dragon dance is a traditional dance. People wear special clothes and form the shape of a dragon. Every Mid-Autumn Festival, local people will spontaneously organize dragon dances, with percussion instruments such as gongs, money and drums as the rhythm. People perform their duties and cooperate closely, which profoundly embodies the majesty and atmosphere of the dragon, grand and wonderful.

Zhanjiang Leizhou Shentang Dragon Dance

Zhanjiang Leizhou Shentang Dragon Dance successfully applied for the World Heritage.

Dragon dance in Shentang is a large-scale festive dance created by the ancestors of Shentang during Jiajing period of Qing Dynasty. As the finale of the carnival night of Mid-Autumn Festival (August 15th of the lunar calendar, Izayoi), it has lasted for 500 years. The performance team consists of dozens or hundreds of people, dressed in yellow or cyan, with red Chinese corsets or belts. After dressing up, it becomes Huanglong or Qinglong.

The composition of human dragon is divided into three parts: dragon head, dragon body and dragon tail. The whole person is lifelike, lifelike.

It is now distributed in Shentangwei, Shentang Town.

history

According to legend, in the fifth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1526), there was a local custom of adults carrying children on their shoulders, forming a "dragon" on their shoulders, holding incense and performing along the street to celebrate. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it prevailed in nine counties in Leizhou.

For hundreds of years, it has been passed down to this day.