The Lion Dance’s Origin And Evolvement Of Study

The lion in "lion dance" is not original from China. Actually, the lion comes into China in the Han dynasty as an alien species. And the image of lion evolves from the sacred animal which wards off evil to the blending of reality and art nowadays.Chinese lion dance recordation begins from the annotation for the elephant man in 《han shu》.Performance of lion dance in buddhist activities was clearly recorded in the Wei and Jin dynasty. After the introduction to China, lion dance was popular with both government class and common people.However, lion dance was merely one of the "Hundreds of Performances" including acrobatics、kung fu etc. Not until the Tang dynasty, as one part of 《Li Bu Ji》, lion dance was classified as an independent drama——《Tai ping yue》 during which it spread to Japan along with music dance. And Japanese literal files about lion dance were preserved. With the development of history, the folk played the main stage for lion dance and had been fully developed.Up to now, styles of lion dance differs from each other. In southern China, martial lions’ performances are breathtaking. While in northern China, gentle lions have good disposition.