The Artistic Style of Guangdong Lions

There are many kinds of lion dances. To sum up, there are "Southern School" and "Northern School" with different styles and characteristics. Popular folk saying: "Northern Lion" originated from the Northern Wei Dynasty. Lion dance is popular in "Hu Ren" and is made of wood carving as a sacrificial ceremony. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, the King Wu of Wei called it "Ruishi of Northern Wei Dynasty", which was not only an entertainment place in the palace, but also helpful for Hu people to miss home. It was called "Northern Lion" in the Southern Song Dynasty.

"Southern Lion" is popular in Guangdong, south of China. It is said that there are monsters that eat the harvest of rural farmers everywhere, but they do not harm people and animals. It often makes the sound of "year after year", so people call it "Nian beast". Nian beast has big eyes, tentacles and good personality. Rural farmers regard it as a god beast and dare not kill it. Later, the villagers used firecrackers to scare away the "Nian Beast" and people were calm again. The villagers congratulated their relatives and friends and designated this day as "New Year", symbolizing a new beginning. Since then, every New Year, people use bamboo to imitate the "Nian beast", set off firecrackers and send red seals. Secondly, there are strict differences in modeling between the South Lion Head and the North Lion Head, and the North Lion Head is mainly realistic. The Southern School is based on the spirit likeness, and its artistic image is to create an exaggerated and romantic lion.

Guangdong lion is the most representative of the southern lion dance. After lions spread to different places, according to local customs (especially in Malaysia and Singapore), their grip, dance and appearance are different. However, the appearance of the lion's head shows its character through color. For example, the image of Zhang Fei with a red lion's Guan Gong face, a black-and-white face, a green nose and an iron horn, and a toothbrush beard shows its bold and rough momentum.

Guangdong traditional lion dance pays attention to skills and martial arts, and generally consists of two or three people. Among them, a lion dance head, a lion dance tail, a big head Buddha, led by sunflower fans, followed by gongs and drums. Lions dance in various postures with the fast, slow and light rhythm of drums.

There are more than 20 basic movements commonly used in lion dance, such as licking hair, scratching, exploring the road, playing in water and drawing green. Emotionally, they are mainly happy, angry, sad, happy, greedy, suspicious, taboo, worrying, hungry, sleeping and waking up. The gait steps are four horses, meridian horse, opening and closing horse, riding dragon steps and so on. Skilled masters can not only dance the lion's mentality, but also show a set of story lines from the difficult lion dancing skills. Only in this way can we truly achieve the perfection of Nanshi Kung Fu. Lions can beat drums, gongs and cymbals during performances. Drummer is the core and soul of lion dance.

With the continuous development of the times, great changes have taken place in the lion art, whether it is acting or lion head and equipment. There are certain restrictions on the length, short, high and low of equipment in the world. The competition time is set at 10 to 15 minutes, and the number of participants is limited to 6-8, thus making the traditional art of lion awakening from popular to competitive, standardized and scientific.