If you have ever seen a celebration of the Chinese New Year, you may have seen a large, colorful animal dancing to the sounds of drums, cymbals, and gongs. Of course, this is not a real beast (野兽).When these dancers come together, they form the colorful dancing creature!
The lion dance is a traditional part of Chinese culture. It's also performed for other special occasions, like weddings. The dance is thought to bring good luck or success.
While there are many different tales of how lion dance began, one legend traces it back to village in China hundreds of years ago. A lion chased nian away. But a year later, nian returned, and this time the lion was unable to help. So the people of the village created a lion costume of their own. Their fake (伪装) lion danced, pranced, roared and chased nian away.
The lion dance is performed by two dancers. One dancer performs as the lion's head and front legs, and the other performs as the body and back legs. The head of the lion costume is made out of materials like paper-mache (混凝纸) and bamboo. The body of the costume is a long cloth attached to the head.
. In a southern lion dance, the dancers base their performance on a lion's behavior. Their lion may scratch or shake its body. The dance can even be funny. The other style is the northern lion dance. This style is closely related to the martial art form kung fu. It can involve rolling, leaping, and jumping.
Both styles require skill and practice to perform. And both are very entertaining to watch!
| A. It is often performed on the eve of the Chinese New Year (or Spring Festival) B. They gave nian what it wanted C. It's actually skilled dancers in costume, performing a lion dance D. The southern dance requires more skills than the northern dance E. The legend says that the people of the village were attacked by a monster called nian F. For this reason, people perform the lion dance on the night before the Chinese New Year-they chase evil away for another year G. There are two different styles of lion dance |
