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Performing the Dragon Dance
The body of the dragon image may be made up of nine sections, eleven sections or thirteen sections, each a little bit shorter than two meters; at the juncture of every two sections is a lantern; these lanterns, the head and the tail are linked up with cloth, forming into an integrated imaginary dragon; each lantern, like the head and the tail, has a handle for the dancer to hold. The Dragon Dance, first seen in the Han Dynasty (206B.C-220A.D), is still popular to this day. This shows the great vitality of the splendid Chinese culture.
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The dragon is described in legend as a miraculous animal able to create clouds and fogs. A symbol of auspiciousness, it was worshipped as a totem by the Han people¡¯s ancestors. However, the dragon has never been seen. Its imaginary image is something that has a camel-head-like head, two dearhorn-like horns, a snake-body-like body, some fish-scale-like scales, some hawk-claw-like claws, and a caudal-fin-like tail. In the Spring Festival or on other joyous occasions, people dance, playing in varied manners with an image of dragon made from imagination so as to make the air more jubilant. This is known as performing the Dragon Dance.