Dragon Dance (Drunken Dragon)

The drunken dragon is a folk dance unique to ancient Zhongshan in Guangdong, originating in the Song dynasty and flourishing through the Ming and Qing, first an improvised spirit-trance dance and later a prop-based performance. It is danced at the procession following the Bathing-the-Buddha rite on the eighth day of the fourth lunar month, and is one of Zhongshan's most representative folk dances. In 2008 the dragon dance (drunken dragon) entered the second national ICH list.

Dancers wielding a carved wooden dragon head and tail drink rice wine as they dance, drunk in form yet clear in spirit, their staggering steps charged with surging energy, set to gongs and drums and bursts of sprayed wine, the "drunken" state interwoven with the dragon's ferocity for a vivid spectacle. Its transmission centres on the Huang clan of Changzhou, and in 2009 Zhongshan designated the Changzhou Huang Ancestral Hall as the dance's heritage base.

The drunken dragon carries Zhongshan's folk belief, festival custom and clan culture, an important specimen for studying Lingnan procession art and the blending of Buddhist and Daoist folkways; in 2011 its bearer Huang Zhuogen was named among the third batch of national ICH representative inheritors.

The drunken dragon is performed each Bathing-the-Buddha festival (eighth day of the fourth lunar month) in procession around Zhongshan's Changzhou, with its heritage base at the Changzhou Huang Ancestral Hall.