Lion Dance Stories Updates (General) |
History
Difference in Lion Dance
Revolution of Lion making
Transformation(Tech,Skills,Competition)
Revolution (Ethics)
Superstitious & Taboo
The Crafting Behind the Art
Branching Out From The Cantonese Lions
Lion Dancers Column (Coming Soon) |
- The Basics For Lion Dancing
- Advance Lion Dancing Move
- The Basics For Musician
-Simple Equipment Repairing
|
DESIGNS AND THE ARTS OF LION MAKING
During the early days, the lion costumes were not like what we see today. They project a very fierce and rough appearance of the lion. The length of the lion was between 10 to 15 feet long. This had made the movements of the lion a bit cumbersome. During that time there were only four standardized types of lion costume available. Each type of lion costume was named after the four famous warriors of the “Three Kingdom”. They were Liu Bei, Kwan Gung, Zhang Fei,and Zhao Zhi Lung and each of them have their own color scheme. Please refer to the pictures for the images of the four types of lion costumes.
LIU BEI – The Colourful Lion with White Fur
KWAN GUNG - The Red Face Lion with Black Fur
ZHANG FEI – The Black Face Lion with Black Fur
ZHAO ZHI LONG – The Green Face Lion with White Fur
LIU BEI
|
KWAN GUNG
|
ZHANG FEI
|
ZHAO ZHI LONG
|
THE LIMITED EDITION "LEOPARD"
|
When the Malaysian had acquired the acknowledge of making the lion , they revolutionized the whole art of making the lion head and its costumes. They also revolutionized the design and appearance of the lion head and its costumes, so as to give the lion a more colorful, shinier, pleasant and an elegant look. The lion images of the past were fierce and rough looking, longer in size, and had limited coloration and design for the lion head and its costumes. After the revolution, the lions of today are more elegant and pleasant looking, shorter in size, and they appeared in many forms of colors and designs. Some of the popular lions created after the revolutionary period are the BATIK LION, LEPOARD LION, SILVER BLUE THEME LION, SILVER GREEN THEME LION, and the GOLD PURPLE THEME LION. Please refer to the video clip and pictures of the above lions on this page.
It took many hard and sweaty years for the Malaysian lion manufacturers to produce such high quality standard of lions today. They have gone through many aggressive and gruesome paths of Research and Development programs before such high standards were achieved. Today, Malaysia has earned its reputation as one of best manufacturer of lion heads and gears in the world. So, if you want to purchase high quality Lion head and its gear , be absolutely sure that it is from MALAYSIA, THE LAND OF “THE LION DANCE KING.”.In fact Malaysians were the first to use the sheep fur to replaced the eyelashes and the moustache on the lion head. Then they used the shinning colored laser paper to represent the skin on the lion head. Initially, gold and silver colored laser were used. But later, red, blue, green, orange and purple colored laser were added to the color scheme. Such revolutionized creation have given the lion head a more colorful, shinier and puffier look. The past lions have very long tail, between 10 to 15 feet in length. This was modified to about 7 feet, and it comes with pants and claws. These changes and modifications were done for the purpose of better and easier movement and nicer appearance for the lion.
 |
|
|
Laser Paper Skins
SILVER BLUE COLOUR THEME
|
SILVER GREN COLOUR THEME
|
WHEN CULTURE MEETS MODERNIZATION
From The Left, Master Siow, Lee Kim Yew (The Person Who Suggested Batik On Lions)
The creation of the BATIK LION was dated back to the year 1994 when Tan Sri Lee Kim Yew, the Managing Director of the Mines Berhad, suggested that someone should think of something that can be combined together to form a Malaysian Chinese culture. This had prompted Master H. P. Siow, the owner of WSH Lion & Dragon Arts--the world renown lion heads and lion dance’s costumes manufacturer in Malaysia, to make a lion with the Malaysian Batik design. The Batik design was perfectly crafted on to the lion head and its costumes and thus, the BATIK LION WAS CREATED INTO EXISTENCE. You can catch a glimpse of the Batik Lion’s image in this page. Awesome?
In 1996, the Batik Lion was exposed to the world when the Kun Seng Keng Lion Dance team used the Batik Lion to compete in the World Lion Dance Championship held in Shanghai, China. And sure enough ,the BATIK LION did not fail the Kun Seng Keng lion dance team to captured the World Lion Dance Title. From then on, the BATIK LION was well accepted nationally as well as internationally and was highly in demand. CONGRATULATIONS to the Batik Lion and its creator , Master H.P.Siow for your awesome achievement.
Witness the first time, THE BATIK LION been
expose to the world as World Champion Kun Seng Keng,
use this Malaysian symbolic lion head to represent Malaysia.
(A MALAY LANGUAGE PROGRAME)
This video basically introduces on batik lion
on how the inspiration came about,
how it was actually craft and how long it takes to craft. |
