Dance and Music

Levels 1-2

Photo watch

Show these photos and video clips of the lion dance.

As a class decide:

• What is the animal?
• How many people are inside helping it dance?
• Would the two dancers need to work together?
• Who else is needed to make it dance?
• Why do you think it is a lion and not another animal like a mouse or a goat or a possum? (The lion is an important Chinese totem, the symbol of power, majesty and courage, capable of warding off evil spirits.)

Find the evidence

Talk about the Lion Dance and look for evidence in the photos, of some of the things below:

• A well performed lion dance is believed to bring good luck and happiness.
• Two dancers are inside the lion. One handles the head, made out of strong but light materials like paper-mache and bamboo. The other person moves the body and the tail under a cloth that is attached to the head.
• Three musicians help the lion dance. One plays a large drum, another the cymbals and the third a gong.
• A Little Buddha teases the lion with a fan or a giant ball.
• The head dancer can move the lion's eyes, mouth and ears to show its moods.
• The performers are usually very good at kung fu and every kind of move has a specific musical rhythm.

For more details look here and here.

Lion dancers

Make up a movement sequence with the students in pairs. You be the drummer with your "lions" making a different movement to every beat of your drum.

Explain how in a real lion dance the drummer follows the moves of the lion. Put the students in groups of three. Have two dancers and a drummer. Get them to make up their own movement sequence with the drummer following the moves of the lion.

Extend this further in groups of five. Now you have two lion dancers, a drummer, a cymbal player and a gong player. The drummer follows the moves of the lion. The cymbals and the drum follow the drummer! Now that's tricky.

Groups can perform their Lion dance to the class. Decide together whether the dance is good enough to bring good luck and happiness.