Lion Dance

舞獅: The lion dance is a tradition art performed with drums, gongs, and cymbals. The lions express joy and happiness. Both lions and dragons are figures in New Year parades and other celebrations throughout the year. There are now many lion dance competitions featuring troupes from various Asian countries. 

Believe it or not, the lion dance is often mistakenly referred to as a dragon dance. An easy way to tell the difference is that the lion is performed by only two people, while a dragon requires many people and often times has a leader who wields a "dragon ball" to entice the dragon to follow them in unique patterns. A lion dance has the performers' faces covered, since they "become" the lion. In a dragon dance, the performers are seen since the dragon is held up by poles. Incidentally, the lion dance almost always is performed in pairs or even numbers, sometimes as "families" with two adult lions and two young ones. 

The lion dance isn't really a lion though, it is more akin to a dog, Fu Dog. The behavior of the lion is playful and requires physical finesse because basic lion dance movements are based on Chinese martial arts: WuShu. There also has to be complete coordination between the two performers, especially when on the high pedestals for competitions or for more circus like tricks such as balancing on a ball.

There are two types of lions: the northern lion and the southern lion. The southern lion is more common than the northern one, it is especially used in competitions.  

Northern Lion

The Northern lion was used as entertainment for the imperial court. It is usually red, orange, and yellow. It has a very furry mane, and a golden head (my take as it to why it is furrier than its southern counterpart, is that because it is colder up north). The northern dance is acrobatic and is mainly performed as entertainment. It has strong ties to wushu (Chinese martial arts). They usually debut in acrobatic shows where the performers balance on balls or perform high end tricks on balancing boards. The northern lion is typically more realistic to a playful animal than the southern lion. Young lions are performed by one person and adult lions are performed by two. Performers wear furry trousers to match the drape of the lion. The northern lion makes use of prancing legs and shaking like a dog.

Southern Lion

The Southern lion originated in Guangdong and is more symbolic. It plays an important role in scaring away evil spirits or for performances for various events such as opening ceremonies, weddings, festivals, temples, competitions, etc. The southern lion has many colors and a distinctive head with large eyes, and a horn at center of the head. It is said that the appearance of the southern lion is based on the New Year Monster "Nian." The southern lion’s head is shaped more like a dragon’s but without two horns or a long snout. The southern lion makes dramatic head thrusts to the sound of drums and gongs. Supposedly the movement basis for the southern came out of observing actual lions. So it is most likely to see pantomimes of scracthing, shaking, licking fur, and chasing/nuzzling the other lion. 

Fun fact: A new lion should not be used in a lion dance until it goes through the eye opening/dotting awakening ceremony.

Here's a video of what you would most likely see at a lion dance competition:

Here's a video I particularly like because there's so many lions performing together (which is unusual since typically there are only 1 to 4 lions that perform together). There are also some really impressive tricks involved as well.