Lion dance, a prominent cultural performing arts in Singapore, breathes life into the lion costume. The bright colours of the lion as it jumps with precision and agility to the beat of the loud banging coming from the Chinese instruments.
DESIGN
Lion dance is an old tradition in China dating back from the Tang Dynasty, which was around the 618 AD – 907 AD (though another story differs from this). Many stories and folklore shrouds the creation of the Lion Costume, the purpose however remains as for prosperity and fortune. The creation of the Lion Costume was to chase away bad fortune and bring in good fortune. Lion Costume are move along with chinese martial arts to further the cultural heritage. Although the story of how the lion costume was created has a controversy as of how it came about. The controversy around it was that there were no lions in the Asia region. The tradition was distributed by the chinese when they move from China to other part of the world.
Who designed it?
One of the most famous story, during the eve of the lunar new year, a beast would appear in a village in China. It leaves a trail of destruction from crops to animals belonging to the village's farmers. The beast was mystery to the village, therefore a name was given to it, Nian, which translates to “year” in Chinese.
The villagers came together to brainstorm on how to stop the ferocious Nian. The villagers discovered that the Nian has a fear of lions, then decided to create a lion out of bamboo and cloth. The night before the lunar new year, the villagers gathered to scare the Nian away with the lion they made, while creating loud piercing noises from pots and pans. The frightened Nian fled from the village and the success story became a tradition ever since. Every lunar new year from then, the people will perform the lion dance accompanied by chinese instruments which includes the drums, cymbals and gongs.
Another popular belief, the Emperor Wen of the Han [during the North and South Dynasties (420–589 CE)] ordered Tan He, the governor of Jiao Zhou, to invade the territory of Lin-yi. Lin-yi's soldiers overpowers Tan He's soldiers with long spears and elephants, while Tan He's soldier had no animals to ride into battle. With Lin-yi's army having the upper hand, Tan He has to come up with a strategy to fulfil Emperor Wen orders. His strategy consist of getting his soldiers to don on cloth and ropes making themselves closely like lions to leave the elephants frightened. The strategy succeed, making the lion dance a performance in the military then a chinese tradition.
Both of its origin story does not show how the lion came about as there were no lions in China. Hence, design has been a big part of China history, with creation of an animal they have never seen but what they believe it would look to be. Now the design of the lion is seen everywhere especially in asian countries with the help of globalisation.
The design of the lion costume is created by the mainland chinese of more than a thousand years ago. The history artifact of the time (Han Dynasty and Tang Dynasty), like paintings as such, helps distinguish how the modern lion costume design is closely related to the art style of the time with many similarities. The attire of Emperor Wen of the Han in paintings shows the same design as the head of the lion costume. With heavenly bells hanging from the top of the head, gold and red lining.
This design relates to the paintings throughout each dynasty, changing the design of the lion ever so slightly to what we have of the modern age.
Stylistic Analysis
The performance requires one to control the movement of the head from the blinking of each eye to the action of the mouth and how the front legs acts, while the other will act as the body and hind legs. Coordinating the dance between the two, with a lion head of about 2 kg and a long cloth for the body. The head consist of a the heavenly bell, eyes and eyelids, nose, mouth, ears and horn. The body consist of a long cloth and the tail ending. Each of the body part represent different meanings after Dian Jing which translates to "dotting of the eyes" in chinese. This tradition is required to be performed by a person of a sort of social standing before the lion dance. The animation of the lion commence after dotting on the eight areas followed with these phrase:
Heavenly bell: “Excellence for all ages”
Eyes: “Vision bright and clear”
Nose: “Energy flows”
Mouth: “Roar in all directions”
Ears: “Hear up to 10,000 li”
Horn: “Tower of strength”
Body: “The gods reside”
Tail: “Inexhaustible might”
The head used to consist of a red bow on its horn but modern day lion costume does not include it. Silk balls and bells are often seen erected from the head, with large round eyes and eyelids which can move independently. The fur of the costume is often made from wool or rabbit fur and rarely of synthetic material. The head of the lion is abnormally larger than the body, accompanied by bright and vibrant colours or a black fur with bright contrasting skin. The mouth of the lion consist of its teeth and tongue, with a long beard hanging down from the bottom of the mouth.
Aside from spectacular acrobatic stances by the lion, the performers’ coordination in bringing life-like movements to the lion adds to the success of the dance.13 A troupe of musicians accompanies the lion dancers, playing cymbals, gongs and drums.14 Every gesture, from the lifting of a leg to the fluttering of an eyelid, is choreographed to a particular beat in the music. Up to eight different stances are performed: happiness, anger, fright, merry-making, suspicion, drunkenness, sleep and wakefulness.15
The performance include a series of agile act that has chinese martial art influences. The lion would often open up a pomelo or lettuce and arranging them into the word Fu translating to prosperity in chinese. Lion dance in Singapore is often practiced by men from a young age, though even girls are picking up on this cultural art. The two style of lion dance differs from Northern and Southern lion dance, both of which have different appearance and performance style.
Northern lion dance
The northern lion has a golden and red fur appearance, performing stunts with another performer dressed as a warrior, these performance includes balancing on balls, see-saws and jumping from one point to another.
Southern lion dance
The southern lion dance is more prominent in Singapore. It first started out in Guangdong, China, the lion is often involved in climbing or jumping to retrieve a whole lettuce way above ground (even up to three storeys high). This is usually achieved with acrobatic skills or the use of poles.
The southern lion's head are in bright vibrant colours. Its body is often striped, which just as covers the top of the performers, this way it does not hinder their movements. The costume is mainly covered in thick red or golden fur, only exposing the performers' legs. The performers would wear pants and boots of similar to the lion's design.
The southern lion's is often designed to be of a famous chinese historical character from the three kingdoms era. These characters consist of the generals like Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and Huang Zhong.
A lion head of orange or with five different colours represents Liu Bei.
A lion head of red colour represents Guan Yu.
A lion head of black colour represents Zhang Fei.
A lion head of green represents Zhao Yun.
A lion head of yellow represents Huang Zhong
Inspiration
The lion are inspired by the era of its creation, from how the lion looks in the painting of the times, to how the colour and influence of the fashions style of the time.
The lion costume travelled from China to many parts of the world with its people. The chinese citizen in Singapore often hires the lion dance troupes to perform during the lunar new year and business grand opening. The belief behind is to ward off bad fortune, allowing good fortune to come in and bring in prosperity. With globalization, chinese business that ventures out to different country will often be celebrated with lion dance performance.
We can learn from the design history of China to how different cultural can be brought with transnationlism. As a culture is not always taken away with development of a country. One of the many is an artifact like? If we were to compare to…
How does it relate to design movements or styles i know?
Evaluation
The lion costume has been influenced by different eras of the three kingdoms, though not much has changed. It retains the same features and style, the performance is ever changing. The western art style has not influence the lion costume over the years and even with globalisation, the lion dance will travel the around the world without changes by western culture.
Transnationalism did not take away the culture of lion dance but instead created more awareness by having it enter different countries and influencing different cultures.