Dragon Dance (Zhanjiang Human Dragon Dance)

Zhanjiang's human dragon dance circulates around Donghai Island, originating in the late Ming and early Qing fishing villages where villagers formed a dragon of people to celebrate festivals, gradually growing into a singular "human dragon" dance. In 2006 it entered the first national ICH list under code Ⅲ-4 as a traditional dance.

Dozens to over a hundred performers form a great dragon, with strong men as the body shouldering children as the spine and tail, linked shoulder to shoulder without any prop, dancing the sequences of rousing the dragon, the dragon nodding, threading clouds and rolling waves, sweeping from afar and steady up close.

The dance is the fruit of Donghai Island fishermen's collective memory and island folklore, embodying a spirit of cooperation in which the people are the dragon, hailed as a wonder of the East and valuable for studying the folk dance of the Lingnan coast.

The human dragon dance is performed on Donghai Island and at Zhanjiang festival events.