Lion Dance

Lion, the king of animal symbolized daring and brave. Thousand years ago during the Han Dynasty, the qualities and characteristic of lion was impressed by the emperor, Majesty Han Wu Ti. However, lion did not exist in China. The story about lion only spreading in China from India through Buddhism. Due to great impression of the emperor towards the animal, lion dance was started as a performance in palace. It was performed by 2 person wearing masks of lion. Many years later along with cultural change, lion dance was divided into two groups, the Northern and Southern lions. 

Northern Lion Dance

The Northern Lions looks pretty much like a Peking dog, with its whole body covered with long fur. The Northern Lion normally perform in pairs with another person holding a ball for the pair of lion to chase after. Sometimes, to make things more exciting, two lion kids will join in to perform together with the two adult Lions. The pair of adult Northern Lions is made up of a female and male. The gender is differentiated by the colour of their fur, where green for female, red for male.

The Northern Lion Dance shows a very active, happy and playful movement. In their performance, they will joyously and actively chase after the ball, leaping over tables, chairs and rolling over.

Southern Lion Dance

 The Southern Lions have a single horn, and is associated with the legend of a mythical monster called Nian. Southern Lion Dance requires power in moves and strength in posture, mainly for a lot of stunts. It was created by kungfu schools and not only practise as performance, but also competition with another schools. Southern Lions perform more dangerous stunts compared to Northern Lions such as jumping on poles, climbing and standing on two legs. Not only dangerous, Southern Lion Dance requires synchronization between footwork of both performers as the dance steps are much more complicated.

Nowadays, Southern Lion Dance are more popular especially in Malaysia. It often performed during Chinese New Year and also opening ceremony of some special events among Chinese society. Malaysia had also won the International Lion Dance Championship for four times since 2004.

Below are the photos of Lion Dance Performance during Teachers Day.

Posted by Ng Chang Ren.
Group members Meegandran and Arvin Prasath.