The lion dance is part of traditional Chinese culture. People often perform it the night before the Chinese New Year. They 1 perform it for other happy occasions. People think the lion dance can 2 good luck and success.
There are many different stories 3 how the lion dance began. One of them is like this: Hundreds of years ago, a monster called Nian came to a village in China. The villagers were 4. A lion chased Nian away. A year later, Nian came back again, but this time the lion couldn't 5. So the villagers made a "lion" by themselves. Their "lion" danced, jumped and chased Nian away. For this 6, people began to perform the lion dance before the Spring Festival to chase bad luck away.
There are 7 different kinds of lion dances. In the southern lion dance, the dancers 8 hard to perform like a real lion. Their "lion" may shake its body. The dance can be funny. The 9 kind is the northern lion dance. It has more martial art skills like rolling, leaping and jumping. Both kinds are very interesting to watch, but it takes a lot of 10 to perform well.
