page_title: Dragon dance
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Dragon dance / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Parade on Fifth Avenue, Seattle, Washington, featuring Chinese dragon, ca. 1909. According to Paul Dorpat, the dragon's tail is crossing Pine Street; the image is looking roughly southeast. Photographer: Unknown Subjects (LCSH): Parades--Washington (State)--Seattle Hotel Shirley--Washington (State)--Seattle Fifth Avenue (Seattle, Wash.) Central business districts--Washington (State)--Seattle Digital Collection: Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition Collection http://content.lib.washington.edu/aypweb/index.html Item Number: SEA1633 Persistent URL: http://content.lib.washington.edu/u?/seattle,1445 University of Washington Libraries. Digital Collections [#//content.lib.washington.edu%20 http://content.lib.washington.edu]
context_page_description: Dragon dance is a form of traditional dance and performance in Chinese culture. Like the lion dance, it is most often seen in festive celebrations. The dance is performed by a team of experienced dancers who manipulate a long flexible figure of a dragon using poles positioned at regular intervals along the length of the dragon. The dance team simulates the imagined movements of this river spirit in a sinuous, undulating manner.
  The dragon dance is often performed during Chinese New Year. Chinese dragons are a symbol of China's culture, and they are believed to bring good luck to people, therefore the longer the dragon is in the dance, the more luck it will bring to the community. The dragons are believed to possess qualities that include great power, dignity, fertility, wisdom and auspiciousness. The appearance of a dragon is both fearsome and bold but it has a benevolent disposition, and it was an emblem to represent imperial authority. The movements in a performance traditionally symbolize historical roles of dragons demonstrating power and dignity.
context_section_description: During the Han Dynasty, different forms of the dragon dance were described in ancient texts.  Rain dance performed at times of drought may involve the use of figures of dragon as Chinese dragon was associated with rain in ancient China, for example the dragon Yinglong was considered a rain deity, and the Shenlong had the power to determine how much wind and rain to bring.  According to the Han Dynasty text Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals by Dong Zhongshu, as part of a ritual to appeal for rain, clay figures of the dragons were made and children or adults may then perform a dance.  The number of dragons, their length and color, as well as the performers may vary according to the time of year.  Other dances involving dragons may be found in a popular form of entertainment during the Han Dynasty, the baixi (百戲) variety shows, where performers called "mime people" (象人) dressed up as various creatures such as beasts, fish and dragons. In his Lyric Essay on Western Capital (西京賦) Zhang Heng recorded various performances such as performers who dressed as a green dragon playing a flute, and a fish-dragon act where fish transformed into a dragon. A version of the fish-dragon dance called "fish-dragon extending" (魚龍曼延) was also performed at the Han court to entertain foreign guests – in this dance a mythical beast of Shenli (舍利之獸) transforms into flounder, then to a dragon. These ancient dances however do not resemble modern Dragon Dance in their descriptions, and depictions of dragon dance in Han Dynasty stone relief engravings suggest that the props used may also be cumbersome, unlike modern Dragon Dance where light-weight dragons are manipulated by performers.  
  The dragon acts of the Han Dynasty were also mentioned in the Tang and Song Dynasty.  Figures similar to the dragon lantern (龍燈) used during Lantern Festival were described in the Song Dynasty work Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital, where figures of dragon mounted for display were constructed out of grass and cloth and inside which numerous candle lights may be placed. Such dragon lanterns may also be carried and paraded by performers in the street during the Lantern festival at nighttime.  A wide variety of dragon dances have developed in various regions in China, for example, the Fenghua Cloth Dragon (奉化布龙) from Zhejiang was made with bamboo frame and covered with cloth, and is said to have been developed in the 1200s. A form of dragon dance from Tongliang County (铜梁龙舞), which originated as snake totem worship, began during the Ming Dynasty and became popular in the Qing Dynasty. In the modern era, the government of People's Republic of China adapted and promoted various traditional folk dances, which contributed to the popularity of the current form of the dragon dance now found widely in China as well as Chinese communities around the world.
  Aside from the popular form of dragon dance, other regional dragon dances include one from Zhanjiang, Guangdong province whereby the body of the dragon is formed entirely of a human chain of dozens to hundreds of performers, and in Pujiang County, Zhejiang Province, the body of the dragon is formed using wooden stools. The number of different dragon dances has been put at over 700.
  Typically, retired dragons are burned and not saved. The head of the oldest surviving dragon, dating back to 1878 and named Moo Lung, is preserved and on display at the Bok Kai Temple in Marysville, California. Other fragments of dragons of similar age are kept at the Sweetwater County Historical Museum in Green River, Wyoming (1893, eyes only), Gold Museum in Ballarat (1897, head only), and the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo (1901, the oldest complete dragon, named Loong). Bendigo's Loong was used regularly in that city's Easter parade until 1970, and occasionally has come out of storage since then to welcome newer dragons to Bendigo.
caption: Parade of a Chinese dragon in Seattle, c. 1909
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