China News Service, Ningde, March 17 (Lv Qiaoqin and Wu Yunjie) In front of the stage, the sound of gongs and drums ended, and the majestic line lion that was moving around a moment ago suddenly stopped and quietly crawled on the table.
Behind the stage, a group of teenagers walked out slowly, with big beads of sweat on their young faces.
"Dancing with thread lions is our hobby, and it is also our love and inheritance of traditional intangible cultural heritage skills." Chen Jihong, the leader of the "Xingxian Junior Line Lion Team", said in a recent interview with a reporter from China News Service.
Among the "Xingxian Youth Lions Team" rooted in Xingxian Village, Huotong Town, Jiaocheng District, Ningde City, Fujian Province, the oldest member is 24 years old, the youngest is only 13 years old, and the average age is 18 years old.
They beat the gongs and drums with hand hammers and danced the line lions with ropes in their hands.
The picture shows members of the "Xingxian Junior Line Lion Team" making line lions.
Photographed by Chu Ziqiang
The Huotong Line Lion, also known as the "Pumping Lion", which has been handed down in Huotong Town, inherits the thousand-year culture of Chinese lion dance and has rich performance content and production skills. It is a traditional folk culture that integrates literary and martial arts. It is known as Known as "one of the best in China".
In 2006, Huotong Line Lion was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists.
"The Line Lion Team was spontaneously established by me and a few friends in 2014." Chen Jihong told reporters that when watching Huo Tong's Line Lion performance, they became very interested, so they set up their own Line Lion Team and started "Lion Lion Boy" pursues his dream journey.
The bamboo must be older, have longer sunshine hours, and have longer bamboo joints... Selecting bamboo for making line lions is the first complicated project, and then the processes such as framing, roasting, filling, shaping, coloring, and decoration are even more complicated. As a matter of fact, it usually takes one to two months to make a line lion.
With love, Chen Jihong and his friends taught themselves bamboo craftsmanship. With the help of their parents and reference to other production methods, they made their own line lions and began training in the village.
The picture shows the members of the "Xingxian Junior Line Lion Team" practicing various skills of dancing the line lion.
Photographed by Chu Ziqiang
However, Huotong's line lion family inheritance rules are strict and it is difficult to find a master.
"There is no master to teach us the movements, so we go to the performances in the town and watch the videos of the line lion performances. We learn while watching and slowly master the skills." Chen Jihong said.
When the Huo Tong Line Lion performer pulls the string, he cannot see the lion on the stage, and controls the lion's dance entirely based on the priority of the gongs and drums.
A large line lion can weigh more than 40 kilograms, and a small one can weigh more than 20 kilograms. It is not easy to make it jump and dance through ropes. It is a big test of physical strength and tacit understanding, and it also requires a lot of practice.
During the production of the line lion, his palms were scratched by bamboo and covered with scars. His ears were whipped with a rope, causing tinnitus. He couldn't control the weight of the line lion and fell from a high platform... In the past 10 years, injuries to the team members during practice are inevitable.
But with tenacity and love, their skills quickly improved.
During this period, they experienced confusion from relatives and friends, but also felt full of warmth; there were old masters from the village doing woodworking for them, and there were also local sages who raised travel expenses for them to go out to perform.
"For a career you love, the pain of injury is only temporary, but the joy of mastering skills can last for a long time." Team member Chen Chao said that they will also do odd jobs to subsidize the manual costs of line lion production and the food and accommodation expenses for performances. Wait for expenses.
The persistence and hard work of the "Xingxian Youth Line Lions Team" attract "little teenagers" to continue to join.
Today, the team has grown from the initial 8 to 30 people, with improved skills and expanded scale.
Song Jiacheng, 14 years old this year, has been studying with this line lion team for 4 years.
"It's fun to learn the line lion. The atmosphere in the team is very good. I also admire Brother Jihong and the others for their persistence over the years."
For Chen Jihong, the happiest moment is the moment when the performance wins applause and praise from the audience, and he feels that everything is worth it.
He hopes to lead this group of friends to grow together and make their line lion dream the pride of the whole village.
The picture shows the "Xingxian Youth Line Lion Team" entering Qinyu Village, Yangzhong Town, Jiaocheng District, Ningde City to perform Huo Tong Line Lion during the 2024 Spring Festival.
Photographed by Chu Ziqiang
Nowadays, Chen Jihong and his team members are also exploring the road of disseminating intangible cultural heritage belonging to Generation Z.
They record daily life through live broadcast, and constantly try to add popular elements into the explanation, so that more people can understand and like Huotong Line Lion.
They also discussed with the village the inclusion of watching the line lion performances in research activities, and prepared to build the line lion team’s webpage and WeChat public account to create a home for line lion lovers.
"The organic combination of contemporary trends and traditional culture is the greatest advantage of our generation in inheriting intangible cultural heritage." Chen Jihong said that he will continue the dream-chasing journey of the "Line Lion Youth" and lead the team members to be disseminators of traditional culture .
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