Research Topic: Lion Dancing

Coming into this project I tried to think of a topic that I could relate to, something I would feel a passion for. I realized that at this moment my passion is to lion dance. Although I hadn't started lion dancing until this year, it's something I've grown to love and anticipate every week. As a part of my vietnamese culture I thought this would be interesting topic to research about. I am currently a part of one of the lion dance teams here on campus known as VSA's Southern Wind (Gio Nam) Lion Dance team and from my team mates here at UCI I've learned a little history on what this aspect of our tradition is like. Lion dance originated in China and legend has it that it was founded by the villagers in an attempt to scare away a creature, known as the Nian, that was destroying their town. This tradition has continued and today lion dances are used to bring luck to opening businesses and families or to scare away evil and misfortune.


Since I was young, the only times I had ever seen lion dancing was through the old chinese martial arts movies my grandparents use to rent from the video stores down on Bolsa. I knew it required much strength to be able to do all the lifts and work under that lion but what I didn 't realize was the stamina needed. As a lion has two parts, I play the latter half, also known as the butt. My job is to make sure that the lion has life all the way down to its tail. I am also in charge of making sure the base is always stable when we do stunts and jumps.


There are three specific styles of dancing: northern, southern or malaysian. Recently there have also been evolutions of the choreography of dancing routines such as jongs and sawhorses. For my research paper I would like to write about the art movement of lion dancing since the Han Dynasty and its migration from China to America.