Sunday, August 3, 2008

The Lion Dance


Photo taken @ the opening ceremony of the 2nd ABAC (APEC Business Advisory Council) SME summit today in Hangzhou.
I believe you are all too familiar with the lion dance if you know a bit of Chinese culture. But do you know how we put together the whole dance?
One people standing to hold the head, one squating to be the tail, actually it's a very tiring work.
Know more about Lion dance, click its wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_dance
The tail in this photo almost slipped, and we catched this moment. wow...

7 comments:

Maria Verivaki said...

how enlightening!

Kris McCracken said...

One day I was on my way to work here in Hobart and I heard a steady drum beat. In the park, there were two people lifting each other up and jumping about, and on the other side of the par, there was a line of people moving about like a snake.

It took me at least an hour to figure out that it was a Chinese dragon practicing (without any costumes)!

On another note, has 'Olympic fever' hit Hang zhou yet?

Phivos Nicolaides said...

Really interesting!

magiceye said...

oops... must be real tiring! great for spectators though!

HZDP said...

Maria,Magiceye,Phivos
Thank you

Kris,
It's lion dance, different from the dragon dance :)

Hilda said...

We have a very large Chinese and Chinese-Filipino (Chinoy) community here in Metro Manila, so we get the lion dance at least once a year. And I always find it so fascinating!

But the costumes of the dancers in your photo are so much better. I love how the pants are textured like the dragon's scales! Here, they wear plain pants only.

alicesg said...

Very lovely photo. I always love to watch lion and dragon dances.