Tongliang Dragon Dance to Celebrate the Chinese New Year as the Traditional Folk Culture

Chongqing - On the night of January 2, the Second Tongliang Chinse Dragon Dance & Lantern Art Festival kicked off at Xuantian Late in Tongliang District. The dragon dance team gave several incredible performances to celebrate the new year.

As part of traditional Chinese culture, the dragon dance is used to pray for peace and harvest for the new year. The dragon dance was a crucial new year performance in the past while it is widespread now, becoming the symbol of Chinese culture. Tongliang Dragon Dance emerged in the Ming Dynasty and flourished in the Qing Dynasty. It became a part of the national intangible cultural heritage in 2006. The art of Tongliang Dragon Dance has shined on the stage in domestic and abroad. Meanwhile, it has participated in major national events such as 1984, 1999 and 2009 National Day celebrations, as well as the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and Shanghai World Expo. Moreover, Tongliang Dragon Dace has visited Britain, France, and Japan, South Korea and more than 20 countries and regions to participate in Chinese and foreign cultural exchanges.

For this time, the festival started from January 2 to February 24, with six light exhibition areas in seven themes, covering main scenic spots in Tongliang. Among all exhibition areas, Renmin Park (People Park) has 45 lighting sets to present traditional and local features of Tongliang District, showing the vitality of Tongliang's economic and social development. Besides, visitors can enjoy the dragon dance show at 19:30 every weekend from January 2 to 25 and every night from January 25 to February 8 at Xuantian Lake. It is worth mentioning that the fire dragon is the most magnificent part of the dance. 

The dance team is young now and there are more and more young people are willing to learn the dragon dance. Kuang Wei, the dragon dancer of Tongliang Hongguan Dragon Culture Co. Ltd., is one of the young people, who strive to dance better to spread Chinese culture. After his effort, he got the opportunity to be as the yellow-dragon head of the parade during the Nation Day last year in Beijing. “I hope all Chinese people can reach our Tongliang Dragon Dance and I also hope the world can fall in love with our dance and even our culture. Also, I want to go abroad to play the dragon dance," said Kuang Wei.

Besides, Tongliang Dragon Dance had shown up in Time Square in New York City in 2008’s new year. Ran Tingmin is one of the players in the dragon dance team in Time Square, New York City and also the coach of the dragon dance team. Keeping trying to practice the dragon dance better, his team won lots of awards and this made Tongliang Dragon Dance famous in China. Finally, the team got the chance to be in New York City. “I feel so excited when I was in New York Time to show Chongqing intangible cultural heritage to the world. Additionally, I hope our team can bring Tongliang Dragon Dance to other places in the world if it’s possible,” said Ran Tingmin.

When talked about the experience in New York City, Mr. Huang Tingyan, the Tongliang Dragon Dance Natural Intangible Cultural Heritage Inheritor, said, “Although I was not in New York City at that time, I was so excited and happy and I felt I was with them all the time. I’m so proud of my students that they can have the chance to be there, bringing our culture to the western country.” Meanwhile, he had taught the Chinese Dragon Dance for decades, even in Thailand. There, the people say they will think of him always, and when they see the dragons, they will remember him and think of China.