Chongqing - Xiushan Festive Lantern is one of the most well-known schools of lantern art in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, which was added to the country's first batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage list back in 2006.
A male artist points in the direction of downtown Chongqing while rehearsing lines for a show.
Most practitioner of this unique form of art, professional or not, was first deeply impressed by its integration of religious elements, folk customs, distinctive singing, and dancing techniques, and jaw-dropping acrobatics skills.
Artists of Xiushan Festive Lantern perform an episode called "dragon coils around a lamp."
As the most representative lantern art in the southeastern Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County, it's sometimes also called dancing lantern, playing lantern, and lantern opera.
Xiushan Festive Lantern is listed as one of the top 10 folk arts in Chongqing Municipality.
Records show that Xiushan Festive Lantern has a long history that can be traced back to as early as the Tang and Song dynasties, and continued to flourish as a popular folk art form in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties.