Why lion dancing in Baizhifang is a dying art
The troupe has a 270-year history in the Beijing urban village, but the art form faces extinction there due to a lack of new recruits, writes Xu Donghuan
Shaking its shaggy head from side to side, the black lion follows the ball in his commander's hand to the centre of the stage. Then, with a sudden swish of its tail, the fierce-looking creature hops onto a platform. The long-haired lion, accompanied by a drum, brass cymbals and gongs, executes a routine of powerful kung fu moves, bounces up and down, spins around, lies down, yawns, gnaws its hind paw and then lowers its head to pick up the ball with its mouth.
The audience at the National Theatre of China, in Beijing, applauds.
"Lion dance used to be performed mainly on the streets," says Yang Jingwei, 58, coach of the lion-dance team. "Bringing it to the stage of the National Theatre in front of a large audience is a big step forward for us."
Yang's dancers - the Supreme Lions - hail from Baizhifang, in southwest Beijing, and their repertoire has roots that date back 270 years.
"What's unique about the dancers of Baizhifang is that their steps resemble those of real lions. This is seldom seen in other styles of lion dancing," says Huang Jianmin, author of The Supreme Lions of Baizhifang, a Chinese-language book published in 2013 in Beijing. "They have long been regarded as an authority among northern-style lion dances in China."
In 2008, the Ministry of Culture named the Supreme Lions a constituent of China's intangible cultural heritage, and this dance-drama debut at the National Theatre is an adaptation of their routines, funded by the Cultural Bureau in Beijing to promote the city's heritage. It tells the story of a Baizhifang lion-dance master who wishes to pass his skills on to a grandson but the boy is uninterested.
