Thousands of young students and adults performed the traditional mask-faced "Qilin Dance" in southwestern China's Yunnan city, with over 300,000 people lining up the streets to watch during this year’s Chinese New Year Festival. The mass dance has been hailed as a powerful means of preserving this intangible cultural heritage.
The "Qilin Dance" in Qilin District, Yunnan's Qujing City, has been a festive custom for generations. In 2024, it was officially included in the eighth batch of district-level representative projects of intangible cultural heritage. Starting this year, it will become an annual grand performance with thousands of participants during the Spring Festival.
During the event, young performers hold an exquisitely crafted mask of the Qilin, a mythical beast believed to vanquish evil. Their voices rose in unison as they performed the "Qilin Chant," a ritual melody passed down through generations.
Yang Wenlong, the director of the Qilin District Cultural Center, has faced challenges in executing this project.
As of Jan 10, registration for 46 performance teams and more than 3,000 participants was basically completed, including 2,000 young people, many of whom are students and migrant workers who returned to their hometowns from other places.
However, the preparation was not all that smooth, as the maker of the Qilin masks rejected the order.
"The manufacturer of the Qilin masks we ordered from another city refused to make them for us. The children have been preparing for this performance for a long time. How can the performance go as normal without these masks? We need to find a way to resolve this issue," said Yang, who served as the chief director of the Thousand-Person Qilin Dance since 2024.
Thanks to the coordination efforts of local cultural, tourism, and education departments, Qujing Special Education School took on this urgent task. Five teachers from the school, along with more than 40 deaf and mute students, completed the making of the Qilin masks in just four days.
"This is the original image. Each of our molds should look like this after production. We widened a bit here for a cute look. It's so big and chubby, especially adorable," said Yu Xuebo, principal of the school.
The mask issue was resolved, but Yang's mind was still on edge, as the schedule was tight for rehearsals. Most of the team members were junior and senior high school students. The young participants had to do their winter break homework in the mornings and only had time to rehearse in the afternoons.
"I'm still very worried and anxious. There is still great room for improvement in our formation and other aspects. The order of appearance should be one where the older performers lead the younger ones," Yang said.
On Feb. 10, students from Yunnan University traveled from Kunming to the rehearsal site to form a skills performance team, and smoothly integrated into the whole performing team.
"With the Yunnan University students joining in and demonstrating their skills, our highlights became apparent. The participation of young people ensured the success of our thousand-person Qilin Dance tradition; only then could its spirit and energy be truly displayed. It represents power, youth, and an interpretation of hard work and struggle," Yang said.
After all the hard practices and challenges, the Qilin Dance performance officially began at 13:30 on Feb. 16, drawing a massive crowd of 300,000 citizens who lined the streets. Yang said he was sure the performance was a great success, as he saw smiles on the faces of both performers and audience members.
Traditional festive dance brought to mass scale for Spring Festival in Yunnan
Traditional festive dance brought to mass scale for Spring Festival in Yunnan
