|

The Haiyan rolling lamp dance - a folk dance originating in Haiyan county in Jiaxing, Zhejiang province - has a long and venerable history stretching back 800 years.

Devotees over the centuries have adapted it into a square dance -- and stage dance performances are now usually performed during the Lantern Festival.

The rolling lamp dance, graceful and heroic - as a group dance with strong acrobatic and competitive characteristics - needs high skills and various complicated movements in different sequences.

Some highlight strength, while some need techniques, so the performers should ideally have some knowledge of martial arts. 

Fans say the Haiyan rolling lamp is for both performance and competition, in which people can scramble for the lamps. It is vigorous and highly skilled and characterized by acrobatics and a traditional Chinese "sense of the round".

That is, all the movements are performed in the direction of a cycle, with hands, legs and the waist all engaged.

Its distinguishing style is  powerful, doughty, natural and unrestrained.

The vigor and skill shown in the rolling lamp dance display the beauty of masculinity and the warrior spirit of China.

The Haiyan rolling lamp dance has been shortlisted in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage expansion list.