Plucking the Green in Lion Dance . 采青

Usually, after the lion dance performance for either Chinese New Year or opening ceremony, the related party will pay us the fees, other than events booking.

In traditional and standard lion dance way, the payment will put in the Chinese Red package (红包袋) and tie with green vegetables and then put them on the floor or hang them on bamboo .
All of us see this ‘Lion’ as a live animal; hence we let it ‘eat’ its ‘food’ in an animal’s habit, which was the reason. At the end of the performance, the lion will ‘eat’ it ‘food’, the name given of this ‘food’ is called “青” in Chinese Character, in English is called “Green” while we translate directly.

In pure stage lion dance performances we may not see the lion do any ‘food eating action’, but it will happen commonly during Chinese New Year events and Opening Ceremony.

The ‘food eating action’ in lion dance performance in Chinese word is called “采青”, means “Plucking the Green”, we believe this will bring lucks to everyone especially the related parties.

Northern Lion Dance. 北狮

Since lion dance is a culture of Chinese and developed since from ancient China, it can be divided in northern type (北狮) and southern type (南狮).
Not like Southern Lion Dance, the performers of the Northern Lion Dance usually need 3 persons besides the percussion team to play for the background ‘music’, which 2 person doing the lion dance and one person play the role as a warrior.
The rhythm of the drum beat for Northern Lion Dance was slower than Southern Lion Dance, and some of the music instruments were smaller as well.