Dragon Dance (Luzhou Yutan colorful dragon)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Dragon Dance

Applicant: Luxian County, Sichuan Province

Item No.: 107

Project No.: Ⅲ - 4

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: traditional dance

Region: Sichuan Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Luxian County, Sichuan Province

Protection unit: Luxian Cultural Museum (Luxian Art Museum)

Introduction to Dragon Dance (Luzhou Yutan colorful dragon)

Applicant: Luxian County, Sichuan Province

Dragon dance, also known as "Dragon Dance", is also called "Dragon Dance", "dragon lantern dance" or "dragon lantern dance" among the people. It is widely distributed in all parts of the country and among all ethnic groups. Its variety of forms is incomparable to any other folk dance. As early as the Shang Dynasty, oracle bone inscriptions have been used to offer sacrifices to the dragon and pray for rain by several people; the records of Dong Zhongshu's Chunqiu Fanlu in the Han Dynasty have clearly recorded all kinds of dragon dances to pray for rain; since then, it has been common to record the palace or folk dragon dances in the poems of all dynasties. Until now, dragon dance is still one of the popular dance forms in folk festivals. The basic performance means of dragon dance are its props modeling, composition changes and action routines. According to the different materials of dragon shaped props, they are divided into cloth dragon, yarn dragon, paper dragon, grass dragon, Qian dragon, bamboo dragon, brown dragon, bench dragon, shutter dragon, lotus dragon, fire dragon, chicken feather dragon, meat dragon and so on; the northern dragon dance is generally tall and thick, with simple and vigorous style; the southern dragon dance is exquisite and delicate, lively and agile. Dragon dance can be divided into yellow, white, green, red, black and so on in color, and Huanglong is the most noble. The composition and action of dragon dance generally have the characteristics of "round song", "tumbling", "entanglement", "interpenetration" and "jumping". The traditional performance procedures of dragon dance are generally: "invite the dragon", "give the dragon", "dance the dragon" and "send the dragon". There is a folk saying that "seven or eight years old play grass dragon, fifteen or sixteen play little dragon, young adults dance big dragon". When the number of dragon dancers is small, one person will dance two dragons, and when the number of dragon dancers is large, one hundred people will dance one dragon.

Dragon is the totem and ancestor of the Chinese nation; dragon dance is the symbol of the Chinese spirit, which embodies the spirit of unity and development of the Chinese nation, and contains the cultural connotation of harmony between man and nature and the benefit of mankind. It is the most common way of entertainment for the Chinese people in auspicious and blessing seasons. The atmosphere is warm and inspiring. It is a very precious cultural heritage of the Chinese nation.

Yutan colorful dragon in Luzhou, Sichuan Province is known as "Oriental living dragon" for its long history and romantic dragon dance performance art. Around the 18th year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, local artists changed the original "grass dragon" into colored dragon. In 1919, the first Yutan colored dragon appeared. Since then, every new year's day or wedding, local people have to dance dragon.

The performance of Yutan colorful dragon focuses on the word "live" and "the unity of man and dragon". During the performance, the dancers "move in the middle and form outside", "have temperament in the heart and look like hands", "the hands move with the eyes and the eyes move with the heart". Accompanied by the percussion music of Sichuan Opera, the dragon and "treasure" are intertwined and closely echoed, vividly depicting the dragon's personality and life mode in the dragon dance. The colorful dragon in Yutan performs according to the continuous Tai Chi patterns. The routine is unpredictable. The performance is lively and flexible. It shows the dragon's temperament by stripping, rolling, sighing or scratching. In this process, the dancer and the dragon's emotion are integrated.

In the long performance practice, the successors of Yutan colorful dragon constantly updated and enriched the performance content, forming a complete performance routine and classic action modeling, such as dragon out of the hole, dragon grabbing treasure, dragon stripping, dragon back sword, dragon sighing, dragon building tower, dragon holding column, yellow dragon rolling, upside down golden hook, prince riding dragon, etc., which showed people's imagination of dragon to the greatest extent.

The unique shape of Yutan dragon's head is mainly based on the head design of longnaoqiao, a national key cultural relic protection unit in Luxian county. It has a high forehead, a short mouth, prominent eyes and movable jaw. Its image is both powerful and divine, and simple, stupid and amiable. The dragon's body is made into a skeleton with bamboo strips, which can be divided into groups and segments, and can be long or short. The whole dragon body is tied into a circle with bamboo strips, connected in series with each other, and flexible after putting on the Dragon clothes. Dragon tail is also different from the general torch tail, snake tail, silver carp shaped, very interesting.

Represented by artist Luo yinkun and other Luo brothers, it constitutes the inheritor system of Yutan color dragon. In modern times, this system has been greatly expanded. Not only a group of young people have joined in, but also Chongqing, Tongliang, Chengdu and other places have sent people to study arts. As a result, the distribution area of Yutan colorful dragon has been expanded. Nowadays, Yutan color dragon is also facing the challenge of the new era, and it is urgent to establish a protection and inheritance mechanism.

Chinese PinYin : Long Wu Lu Zhou Yu Tan Cai Long