How To Write An Essay About Chinese Lion Dance

Chinese lion dance, 舞狮, is recognizing as a popular art form of traditional dance in Chinese culture. It is also a physical training generally associated with ascetic expressions and martial arts.

The Chinese Lion consists of a highly decorated of lion head with ears, eye lids, horn, mouth and a tail. Basically, the dance will be performed by two dancers, one at the head of the lion, one at the tail of the lion, to imitate a lion's movements and actions in a lion costume with the music instruments such as drum and gong. The dancers are wearing a t-shirt with the lion dance association’s logo and a special pair of pants with the design looks like lion’s feet. The design of the pants will match with the color of lion’s tail.

The Chinese

Today, Chinese lion dance becoming an excellent Chinese folk art performance and cultural sport which has diffused into many countries across the world, such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. Thus, with that diffusion, there are different variations of the lion dance from different countries where each region possess their own styles to represent their country.

Generally, Chinese lion dance can be categorized into two types of lion dance which is Northern lion dance, 北獅and Southern lion dance, 南獅. The Northern lion dance originated from Northeast China. Originally, the dance was used for the imperial court as entertainment. Northern lion has red, orange, yellow shaggy hair with a golden head that looks alike with Pekinese dog.

The Chinese Southern lion dance originated from Guangdong. It is performed as a ceremony to chase away evil spirits and to bring fortune. Southern lion have longer tails and larger heads with various colours and

Its lion heads are range in sizes and consist of sharper horn and squared mouth. The tails also range in lengths. Fut Shan style is a style often adopted by many kung fu schools.

On the other hands, Hok Shan Lion Dance is the style created after Fut Shan Lion Dance. Its style is more contemporary which combine the Southern lion head with Northern lion movements. The lion heads are usually smaller in size; consist of a rounder mouth, and a rounded horn like a fist on top of the head. The tails are shorter and it is often used by competing teams or troupes. It is a popular lion used by lion dance association in Malaysia to compete in International Lion Dance Competition.

There are various visual aspects can be found from the Hok Shan Lion. On the lion head, we can noticed that there are various colors, patterns (motive/stripe), decoration accessories are being used to form a nice composition and arrangement to make it look more contemporary. There are various types of symbolism used to symbolize colors which are mysticism (Taoistic theory of the Five Elements), animals and historical character (heroes of the ‘Three