Lanterns as a traditional folk art, has been inherited. China's lanterns around the color of many flowers, different styles, exquisite and beautiful, glittering. Lantern Festival, many places have to

Lanterns as a traditional folk art, has been inherited. China's lanterns around the color of many flowers, different styles, exquisite and beautiful, glittering. Lantern Festival, many places have to hold a colorful lantern exhibition, lanterns will be. Lanterns of the Lantern Festival, there are hanging lanterns, rolling dragon lanterns, welcome sedan chair lights, horse lanterns, water lanterns, show ice lanterns ....... Like Beijing's Palace Lanterns, Tianjin's Baolian Lanterns, Shanghai's Golden Dragon Playing with Pearls Lanterns, Suzhou and Hangzhou's Glazed Lanterns, Guangzhou's Mandarin Ducks Playing with Lotus Lanterns, and Northeast China's Ice Lanterns, all of them have obvious local characteristics and unique artistic styles. On the night of the Lantern Festival, children are carrying lanterns and wandering around to play. Along with the lantern night market, there have been many traditional customs and programs: social fire, dragon lanterns, lion dance, rowing dry boat, stilt walkers, twisting rice-planting songs, riddles, etc., lanterns shine at night, ten thousand households, people on the streets to watch the lanterns on the moon, juggling games, have fun. The social fire, is a traditional folk entertainment, has a long history. In the Spring and Autumn Period, there is a record of Confucius watching the social fire. From a broad sense, social fire program has more than seventy kinds, play dragon lanterns, lion dance, dry boat, stilts, bamboo horse, big head dolls, dumb old back wife, etc., all belong to the scope of social fire, the form of colorful. From a narrow point of view, it refers specifically to Rui Zi, Rui Zi development to the present, there are car Rui Zi, horse Rui Zi, high platform Rui Zi, acting up to the mysterious and bizarre, giving people a sense of thrill and beauty.

Circulating in various parts of the folk social fire performance, play method is not the same, but the style of technology has its own characteristics. Juggling dragon lanterns, also known as dragon lantern dance or dragon dance. Its origin can be traced back to ancient times. Legend has it that as early as in the period of the Yellow Emperor, in a large-scale song and dance called "Qingjiao", there was an image of a dragon with a bird's head and body played by a human being, and then six auger dragons were choreographed to dance in each other's paths. See in the written records of the dragon dance, is the Han Dynasty Zhang Heng's "Xijing Fu", the author of the hundred plays in the narrative of the dragon dance made a vivid depiction. According to the "sui book - music" records, sui yang emperor similar to the dragon dance in the performance of the "yellow dragon change" is also very wonderful "dragon dance is popular in many parts of our country. The Chinese people revere the dragon as a symbol of good luck. Li Shizhen "Compendium of Materia Medica" said: "the dragon, its shape has nine: body like a snake, face like a horse, horns like a deer, eyes like a rabbit, ears like a cow, belly like a mirage, scales like a carp, claws like an eagle, palms like a tiger is also." In the minds of the ancients, the dragon has the function of calling the wind and rain, eliminating disasters and epidemics, and our country since ancient times, that is, to agriculture as a country, the wind and rain for the production of life has an extremely important significance, so the ancients desperately hoping to get the blessing of the dragon, which formed the dragon dance in the festival and in the Lantern Festival Dragon Dance custom. Wu Zimu in the Song Dynasty, "Dream sorghum record" records: the night of the Lantern Festival, "the grass bound into a dragon, with a green screen to cover the grass, the dense set of lamps and candles ten thousand, looking at the winding, such as the double dragons flying away from the shape." In the long-term development and evolution, the dragon dance has also formed many different styles, mainly dragon lanterns, cloth dragons and so on. The dragon lantern, also known as the "fire dragon", is one of the most popular dragon dances. This kind of dragon is made of gabion bamboo and tied into the head, body and tail of the dragon, on which paper is glued and then painted with colors. The dragon body has many sections, the number of sections can be more or less; but it must be singular.

Candles are lit in each section; some places do not light candles, but use tung oil, cotton yarn or lampstraw made of "oil twist". This oil twist burning power is very long-lasting, the dragon lantern dance colorful, never go out. Below is equipped with a wooden handle for the dancers to hold. There is also a hand in front of the dragon to raise the red silk beads to direct the dragon dance. Such as Yangjiang, Guangdong Province, "Carp into a dragon", flexible and clever, good at changing, the dragon dancers dressed in open and close the carp skin, the audience initially saw a fish playing in the water, with the bright music suddenly changed, the fish into a dragon, and then a fire-breathing carp in the mouth leaped over the body of the dragon to symbolize the "Carp Jump Dragon Gate" meaning. Cloth dragon, also known as "color dragon", mainly performed during the day, the festival does not burn candles, so the performance of flying and leaping, like the river and the sea waves, the momentum is extraordinary and majestic, and have a merit. The dragon dance follows the trend of coherent performance of the dragon circling joyfully, the movement is very complex.

There are places where the Lantern Festival, the various dragon lanterns converge up to more than a hundred, the team as long as two or three miles. Each dragon lantern is accompanied by ten gongs and drums, the sound of ten miles, very spectacular. Overseas, there are still many Chinese associations retaining the ancient tradition of dragon lanterns, often performed for local festivals.