How is the Fengshun Fire Dragon Dance made?

Fengshuzhai Fire Dragon is a traditional folk cultural activity of the Han Chinese in Meizhou, Guangdong. It consists of burning fire tree (burning smoke frame), burning jade gate (carp jumping dragon door) and burning fire dragon. It has a history of 300 years.

'Fire Dragon' is made by first making the body of the dragon with bamboo strips, then framing it with white paper and coloring it to form a simple image of a dragon. Then 'earth rockets' are made from gunpowder made of sulfur, white nitrate and charcoal, and the whole body of the dragon is loaded with different styles of fireworks such as beads, spinning flowers and plows.

On the night of the Lantern Festival, foreign tourists and dozens of Fangyuan people come here from all directions to watch the wonderful performance of burning fire dragons. It is really a scene of 'all the people of the city all-night fun, Changchun silver flowers bloom'.

After hundreds of years of continuous research and improvement by artists, 'fire dragon burning' has developed from the initial handle to more than 30 meters long; smoke stalls from the original five or seven increased to 13, 15 meters high, especially 'Yumen', which has been lost for for more than 60 years. It has been excavated again for artistic processing, making a new contribution to the development of folk art. In recent years, the team of artists has been growing and the production technology has been further improved.

In the 1980s, 'Fire Dragon' was performed in Meizhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhaoqing, Zhangzhou, Fuzhou and other places, and was so popular with the audience that it was filmed and broadcasted live by the CCTV and Guangdong TV for many times.

Feng Puzhai fire dragon is now nationally known. 1999 Lantern Festival, in Shenzhen Miqing Lake fire dragon, smoke frame and Yumen, tens of thousands of spectators. Unprecedented spectacle, the whole audience applauded. After watching it, a reporter from Heilongjiang Province went to the Fire Dragon production team's premises the next day. He said happily; I have seen most of the various dragon dance performances in China. Today, I just watched the dragon dance performance. It was a feast for my eyes. There were hundreds of performers, and the warriors were bare-chested. In the dazzling firelight, they were magnificent, brave and strong. The scene was spectacular and thrilling, and the performance was unique. It was really amazing. He also asked the artist to introduce the process of making fire dragons.

In recent years, in order to incorporate the celebrations, the burning of 'colorful doors' before the performance of various programs is one of the artist's important innovations. The colorful doors are decorated with dragons, winds, big red lamps, banners and couplets (which only look glorious when set off). When they set off, they began with a "mouse tour of the beams" (made of rockets). When it was lit by the podium, it quickly shot the fuse at the colorful door. At once, the colorful doors radiate brilliant sparks, and the dragon dances in the wind. Then there were red lights, banners, and couplets, accompanied by colorful Buddha beads, which slowly fell down, with large golden letters protruding out.