The high-stage lion dance is the most unique art performance integrating sports and dance in Pengshui Miao and Tujia Autonomous County, Chongqing. With a long history of about 150 years and enormous historical and cultural value, it is highly popular among people.
The lion dance can be divided into ground lion dance and high-stage lion dance. The ground lion dances are usually performed during festivals, birthday parties, weddings, funerals, opening ceremonies, and other activities. The high-stage lion dances, requiring the construction of stages, are mostly performed to celebrate important festivals and competitions, and often combined with a ground lion dance. Air performance is its highlight. Square tables are used to set up stages. The number of tables is 7 at least, 15 in general, 24 sometimes, and 108 at most. Led by a guiding person, the performer wearing a 2-meter colorful lion costume ascends layer by layer to the highest table to the beat of the gong, bass drum, side drum, cymbal, jiao, etc. The lion has to cross every square table during its performance at each layer. On the highest table, various breathtaking pile-standing acrobatics will be performed.
The high-stage lion dances include the forms such as stamping, jumping, sparrow hawk somersaulting, chain pulling and turning, tumbling, yellow dragon around the waist, pond-trapped cow, dog playing, bending and hoop-skipping, as well as the movements such as grabbing silk ball on a high pole and moving on a wooden bench. The performances are thrilling, funny, or magnificent in style.
Only performers with outstanding performance skills and great physical strength can qualify for the high-stage lion dance. As current inheritors grow old or pass away and most of the young and middle-aged local people work outside due to the changes in styles of production and life, some of the performance teams are lack of successors and unable to carry out performances, hence the high-stage lion dance is faded away.
In May 2011, the State Council of the P.R.C. approved including the lion dance (high-stage lion dance) in the extension part of the list of the third batch of national intangible cultural heritage.
National-level representative inheritor: Tang Shouyi