*Mat Lion Dance

*Mat Lion Dance

Nominating Unit: City of Meizhou

Mat Lion Dance is also called “Mat Lion”, which is a traditional dance form only existent among the locals on the outskirts of Meijiang District, City of Meizhou. It is an important performance program on the Buddhist ceremonies when local Hakka people hold funeral ceremonies. Thus it bears strong characteristics of religious dance, and is closely linked with the popularity of Buddhism among Hakka people in eastern Guangdong Province.

As early as the years of Taihe ( approximately 832 A.D.) during the Reign of Emperor Wenzong in the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism has been introduced into the old Meizhou area. It was later called “Fragrant Flower” Buddhism, and the ceremonies hosted by monks and nuns were called fragrant Buddhist ceremonies. Because the Hakka people at that time liked lion dance, the monks and nuns introduced lion dance on civil funerals, accompanied by the rhythms of Buddhist percussion music. Mat Lion Dance therefore was transformed into a unique dancing style from the fragrant Buddhist ceremonies.

The uniqueness of Mat Lion Dance is that the lion is played by a straw mat. At the beginning of the dance, someone would roll the straw mat into a long tube, and tie the upper end over and over again in “∞” shape to form the lion’s head, and the lower part of the mat would be used as the back of the lion. Then the lion would be worn on the dancer’s body before he begins to dance. The other performers would hold the longevity grass as the “green” in one hand and a fan in the other. The main movements include shaking the lion’s head, sticking out, then drawing back the lion’s neck, squatting, lying, fan swinging and jumping, and teasing the lion and backing up, etc. The rhythms are somewhat free. There are also routines like enticing the lion, lion coming out the lair, lion dancing, stealing the green, snatching the green, teasing the lion, lion going back into its lair, etc. The whole dance is like lions and not, because the costume does not look like a lion, but the performance is like a lion very much. The mimicking is achieved not by the appearance.(https://www.daowen.com)

The performers and the band of the Mat Lion Dance are all composed of monks. The musical instruments that are used include hall drums, bronze gongs, cymbals, etc., which are all Buddhist instruments. The music is relatively simple and dull, and repetitive. On special occasions of a funeral when the Buddhist ceremonies are served as a means to escort the spirit of the dead into another world, a Mat Lion Dance can be performed during it to symbolize warding off the evil and embracing the fortune, expressing the family’s condolences and consoling their spirit out of misery.

Mat Lion Dance bears strong local Hakka characteristics in Meizhou area. As a special activity on the fragrant fl ower Buddhist ceremonies, it carries a special function on civil funeral customs, and possesses a very unique form. It bears great historical value in studying the propagation of Buddhism, traditional customs, social psychologies, and the evolution of lion dances.

With the social transformation over time, especially the reform in funerals and interments, the Mat Lion Dance is losing its ground for survival. Urgent measures need to be taken to protect and preserve it.

In 2008, it was enlisted into the second batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage.