32.5° north latitude, the approximate latitude of China's north-south dividing line, a magical latitude.
Various cultural symbols cross this dividing line, and the taste of the north and south changes. For example, landscape painting, such as Zen Buddhism, and then today's lion dance. Just as the two styles of "ink painting" and "green green" in landscape painting are divided into north and south sects, Zen Buddhism divides the north and south schools with "epiphany" and "gradual cultivation", and the lion dance also has a north and south division.
Guangdong lion dance performance. Photo/Visual China
Coincidentally, in the battle between the Northern and Southern Sects of Landscape Painting and Zen, the Northern Sect invariably lost to the Southern Sect. Although it is too early to make a conclusion about the advantages and disadvantages of the Southern Lion and the Northern Lion, in terms of the current exposure and circulation range, the Southern Lion seems to have a stable and stable pressure on the Northern Lion.
What is more coincidental is that the three "Southern Sects" were all born in the north, and more precisely, before the division of the North and the South, the center of gravity of landscape painting, Zen Buddhism, and lion dance was in the north.
In the recently released realist Chinese comic movie "Lion Boy", when the old man sweeping the floor of the lion hall said the sentence "Forget how I came to drip" to the three people who want to learn the art with a thick Shandong accent, it seems that there is a deep meaning of tracing back to the source...
Stills from "The Lion Boy"
In fact, whether it is landscape painting, Zen Buddhism or lion dance, the reason for the "strong south wind" may not lie in the skill, the southern sect gets rid of the shackles of "imitation", and the high level of individual life conveyed by its "light spirit" quality seems to give it a natural mass base. It can be said that the characteristics of "Southern Lion" and the inspirational theme of "Salted Fish Turning Over" are a natural pair.
The difference between north and south is actually not small
"Lion Boy" begins with a clear meaning, and the lion dance is divided into north and south. The southern lion rewrites the meaning to show the image of the lion's high and mighty strength; the northern lion rewrites the shape, mainly showing the habits of the lion, including many felines "cute" life image (if Ah Juan dances the northern lion, then the picture is too beautiful, please indulge in imagination).
Poster for the movie "The Lion Boy"
Originally the Northern Lion was more popular in the north of the Yangtze River, its shape, structure, color, decoration and performance to imitate the lion,Hebei Xushui was the "Sect of the Northern Lion"; and the Southern Lion was popular in South China, and the relevant historical records recorded that the Guangdong South China Sea was the earliest and most authentic birthplace of the Southern Lion, the Southern Lion was born from the Northern Lion, and the Southern Lion had a horn on its head, which was mighty and rough, and the drum music was exciting, which was alarming, so the Southern Lion was also known as the Awakening Lion.
In terms of perception, the difference between the Southern Lion and the Northern Lion is mainly reflected in two aspects:
First, there is a strict difference in the shape of the southern lion and the northern lion.
The northern lion is based on realism, the shape resembles a real lion, the lion's head is relatively simple, the whole body is covered with golden yellow hair; the pants and shoes of the lion dancers will be covered with hair, looking like a wonderful lion, the lion head has a red knot for the male lion, and the green knot has a female.
Xushui Northern Lion. Xinhua News Agency data map
The Southern Lion is powerful and more romantic. The lion's head is based on the opera mask, the colors are gorgeous, the manufacturing is exquisite, and the eyes and mouth can be moved. The southern lion's lion head also has a horn, which is rumored to have been made of iron in the past to cope with the martial arts that often occur during lion dances.
The traditional southern lion head is divided into "Liu Bei", "Guan Yu" and "Zhang Fei". The three kinds of lion heads are not only different in color and decoration, but also different in dance according to the personalities of the three. In addition to the different shapes of the southern lions, there are still different personalities. The white-bearded lion dance method is not wide, and there are not many varieties of flower colors, but it is calm and strong, majestic and powerful, and is known as "Liu Bei Lion" in the folk. The black-bearded red-faced lion, known as the "Guan Gong Lion", dances bravely and majestically, and has extraordinary spirit. Gray and white bearded lion, rough and belligerent, commonly known as "Zhang Fei Lion".
Second, the Southern Lion and the Northern Lion perform in different forms.
The performance of the Southern Lion focuses on "conveying the divine portrayal", combined with martial arts, focusing on mighty and swift, and its image is not as delicate as that of the Northern Lion, but the emphasis is on light spirit and agility, rigidity and softness.
Because of this, the dancing movements of the southern lion are much richer than those of the northern lion: the dance style has eight kinds of postures, such as starting, normal, rising, doubting, scratching, welcoming, giving gifts, jumping, examining, sleeping, going out of the hole, threatening, crossing the mountain, going up the stairs, etc.; in the dance, it is also necessary to express the eight kinds of attitudes of the lion, such as joy, anger, mourning, music, movement, stillness, surprise, and doubt, taking the green as its own responsibility, and with the rhythm of the gong and drum, it has gone through hardships and adventures to achieve victory.
Southern Lion Show. Xinhua News Agency data map
The Northern Lion imitates heavily, and the performance strives to be exquisite, closer to juggling. In terms of movements, the Northern Lion Dance is mainly based on fluttering, falling, flipping, rolling, jumping, rubbing and other actions. Generally male and female pairs appear, sometimes a pair of northern lions will be paired with a pair of small northern lions, small lions play big lions, big lions make small lions, full of heavenly fun.
In the northern lion, the big lion dressed up by the two is called "Taishi", by a person wearing a lion's head mask, wearing a lion skin dressed as a small lion, called "young lion"; the person holding a hydrangea to tease the lion is called "lead lion lang", not only requires heroic spirit, but also has good martial arts, can perform "front flip over the lion", "backflip on the high table", "turn over the plum blossom pile in the clouds" and other stunts, lead the lion lang and the lion tacit cooperation, forming an important feature of the northern lion dance.
The Northern Lion Lion Dance is divided into WenShi and Wushi: Wenshi focuses on showing the life habits of lions, with delicate and realistic movements, funny and cute looks; Wushi focuses on portraying the personality of lions, and its routines include "high table skills", "plum blossom piles", "stepping on the ball and crossing the bridge" and so on. During the performance, the wen lion and the martial lion alternately, and the baby lion intersperses the performance.
Because the Northern Lion has less "competitive" meaning and more performance meaning, the physical requirements for performers are not so high, and many old men over sixty years old can also go up and dance twice. If "Lion Boy" is a story about the Northern Lion, "Ah Juan" may not need to throw down her bag to rush to the rescue, and "Salty Fish Qiang" is also very likely to win the championship with years of accumulated skill.
Northern Lion Show. Xinhua News Agency data map
In addition, in the Northern Lion drum, in addition to the drum beat, it should also be fast, slow, rigid, soft, dense, sparse, long and short to match the various forms of waking up the lion, and there is also a single performance method - fancy drum (flower drum, off-hand drum, "throwing drumstick"). During the drumming process, the performers throw a pair of drumsticks in their hands and exchange them left and right, making the audience feel that the drumsticks are beating, rotating, and flickering, which is very visual.
Although the difference between the southern lion and the northern lion is not small, the north-south boundary has long been less clear, and now many southern regions have formed a northern lion team, and many northern regions also have a southern lion team. In recent years, the dance method of integrating the northern and southern lions is also quite popular, mainly using the lion head of the southern lion supplemented by the footwork of the northern lion, called the "Southern Lion North Dance".
And this is only a small aspect of the integration of traditional lion dances.
Lions stay in the ocean and feed back to the country
Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, as the people of the Pearl River Delta went to Nanyang to make a living, the Southern Lion was also taken across the ocean by people, becoming an important cultural link that maintains the Chinese world today.
"Where there are Chinese, there is a lion dance", in the Chinese school in Chinatown, Yokohama, Japan, the lion dance is a compulsory kung fu for boys; in 2007, the "lion dance" was officially listed by Malaysia as one of the country's top 50 national cultural heritage sites, and was supported by the government's fixed funding; in Malaysia, the United States and other places, the world lion awakening (Southern Lion) competition will be held every year, and the more famous international competitions have been held in Malaysia once every two years.
Genting World Lion King Tournament competition scene. Xinhua News Agency data map
In turn, lion dances that have spread overseas are also promoting the renewal of Chinese lion dances. For example, the high-staked lion dance we saw in "The Lion Boy" is a typical case of overseas "new play" returning to China.
At the end of the 20th century, the Chinese lion dance circles in Malaysia, Singapore and other places have refined the Chinese lion dance and created a thrilling and more ornamental high-pile lion dance. This form of competition returned to China, giving birth to the "High Pile Southern Lion".
Compared with the traditional lion art, although the high-pile southern lion is also difficult to move, the requirements for the connotation of the action are not so high, and it is easier to learn. The main actions are upper legs, standing shoulders, sitting head, upper pile, pile flying, pile shuttle back and forth, pile loop back and forth, clamp waist, gecko gong, flip, steel cable, bridge crossing, suspension and so on. The high pile South Lion pile array is 16 meters long from the pile head to the end of the pile, and the highest pile is 3 meters. With the sound of gongs and drums, the Southern Lion flew on the pile, sat on the upper shoulder, leaped on the pile, shuttled back and forth, drank water from the waist, and hung to collect green.
Nowadays, the arena of various lion dance competitions, performing thrilling action scenes on high piles of 2.5 meters to 3 meters, has become the most powerful magic weapon to win the championship.
In recent years, domestic lion art innovation has not stopped. Lion dance troupes such as Xuwu and Taiping Town in Zhanjiang have even integrated lion dances with circuses to develop the unique skills of high-pile single lions "leaping through the fire ring"; in the domestic Lion King Championship, many Southern Lion teams have innovated new routines such as flying lions on the water and double lions.
The above "new gameplay" is almost reflected in "Lion Boy".
The blessing of the national comic, the rise of the lion dance
In the movie "Lion Boy", the artistic image of "salted fish strong" is also a true portrayal of the life experience of the previous generation of lion dance team members. He was once the best lion dancer in town, and was forced to give up the lion dance after marriage.
Salted fish strong. Stills from "The Lion Boy"
According to statistics, around 1990 alone, there were more than 1800 lion awakening teams in the South China Sea. Even in some towns, primary schools have begun to form "lion awakening teams", taking Nanhai as an example, and all the towns under its jurisdiction have family teams, and the performers are generations of the family, and the ancestors have passed down this craft for generations.
However, with the development of the times, the lion dance is not optimistic in the inheritance, not only the number of lion dances and families are decreasing, but people are also worried about the career prospects of lion dances.
According to a survey in 2018, 75 percent of the surveyed residents of the South China Sea said that the economic benefits brought by the lion dance were not optimistic, while half of the young people said that the lion dance culture has been slowly forgotten, and the lion dance culture is "ancient" and "backward", and it is the same and unappealing.
On the other hand, the movie is a movie after all, in reality, the lion dance skills are not "fast" and "shortcut", the cultivation of excellent players often takes several years of effort, and with the local youth flocking to the city, the inheritance of the lion dance in the north and south is also facing the problem of difficulty in selecting talents to varying degrees.
Fortunately, with the hot screening of "Male Lion Boy", with the joint blessing of "National Tide" and "National Comic", "Lion Dance" has greatly enhanced its awareness among Chinese people, and the day of "the rise of the sick cat" is probably not too far away.
Resources:
Gu Cheng: The social characteristics and functions of Chinese lion dances
Wang Junqi: Chinese and Western folk sports culture
Feng Shiqi: A brief analysis of the innovation and change of the traditional culture of the Southern Lion Movement: Taking the dance drama "The Dream of the Southern Lion" as an example
Liu Xiao, Huang Dongjiao, Tang Minghuan: Lion Dance ASEAN Communication and Historical Experience from the Perspective of Literature
Li Ranran, Li Lei, Zuo Kuiyong: A brief analysis of the integration of drum music and lion dance
Source | Yangcheng Evening News, Golden Sheep Network, Yangcheng Pie
Text | Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Lu Hang
Edit | Wooden words
Proofreading | Zhou Yong
Audit | Shum Jay Chang
Issue | Sun Chaofang