Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance

Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance

Nominating Unit: City of Shenzhen

Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance is mainly distributed among the communities in Fuyong Street of Bao’an District of City of Shenzhen, such as Qiaotou, Fuyong, Baishixia, Huaide, Tanwei, etc., with Qiaotou and Tangwei to be most representative. It is told that this type of lion dance originated during the reign of Emperor Jiaqing, in the Qing Dynasty, when the fishermen made lions with bamboo, wood, cloth, or paper, to celebrate harvests, or pray for a safe sailing out. It has flourished ever since and never stopped during 100 years of transmitting along generations.

The performance sequence of Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance consists of “coming out of the lair”, “climbing up the mountain”, “patrolling the mountain and meeting the lions”, “picking up the green” and “going back into the lair”, with “picking up the green” and “pillar dancing” to be the climaxes of the dance. There are routines like “lion over three mountains”,“beauty combing her hair”,“lass mimicking a flower”, “lion crossing a bridge”,“lion on a plain”,“seven stars and one moon”,“spider web”,“fighting the crab”, etc. There are also techniques like “lion on the terrace”, “lion playing a ball”, “lion and lamp”, etc.(https://www.daowen.com)

One noticeable characteristic of the Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance is that stakes, pillars, and steel wires are used as props, to resemble high mountains and iron rope bridges. And crawling, lying, rising, jumping, etc. are used to tell different stories. During the performance, the performers are good at rendering the lion’s emotions, such as joy, anger, sadness, content, with the closing and opening of the eyes and mouths. It fully utilizes the small parts of the lion costumes, thus making up a special feature of the Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance.

Ever-Happiness Waking Lion Dance is an important symbol of the local belief, and has great value in studying the local culture and costumes. However, with the aging and dying of old artists, many exquisite techniques are falling into extinction, and immediate measures need to be taken to rescue it.