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Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance

Today it is Mid Autumn Festival. Time of the year to enjoy family, lanterns and mooncakes under a full moon.

In Hong Kong the two main locations and events are the lantern show in Victoria Park and the Fire Dragon Dance in the streets of Tai Hang, a neighborhood not far from Victoria Park.

Yesterday we went to see both.

This post is about the Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance which impressed me most.

I read about this very old tradition, e.g. in this newspaper article:

Making the dragon head out of straw, with metal teeth.
The head in action, with all the burning incense stuck into it.

Let’s first look at the history of this tradition.

“In the 19th century, the people of Tai Hang began performing a dragon dance to stop a run of bad luck afflicting their village. More than a century later, their village has been all but swallowed up by Hong Kong’s fast-growing city. But the dragon keeps on dancing. It has even danced its way onto China’s third national list of intangible cultural heritage.
All this started a few days before the Mid-Autumn Festival, sometime around 100 years ago. First a typhoon slammed into the fishing and farming community of Tai Hang, this was followed by a plague, and then when a python ate the villagers’ livestock, they said enough was enough. A soothsayer decreed the only way to stop the chaos was to stage a fire dance for three days and nights during the upcoming festival. The villagers made a huge dragon from straw and covered it with incense sticks, which they then lit. Accompanied by drummers and erupting firecrackers, they did what they were told and danced for three days and three nights – and the plague disappeared.
The people of Tai Hang no longer fish or farm for a living, but they still perform the fire dragon dance on the three days that straddle the Mid-Autumn Festival. The event involves 300 performers, 72,000 incense sticks and a 67-metre-long dragon producing a spectacle of fire, smoke and dynamic fury as it dances and winds its way through the narrow backstreets of Tai Hang. Traditional, timeless and vibrant: this is Hong Kong as you dreamed it would be.

Source: http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/see-do/culture-heritage/living-culture/tai-hang-fire-dragon-dance.jsp#ixzz2fJEvMLPm“

The dance is held on three nights for three hours each time. Yesterday was the first of the three nights.

Leading the way to the Tai Hang neighborhood where the dragon dances.

We arrived quite late, so we only caught the last 40 minutes.

Nope, we were not the only ones who came to watch;-).
The dragon approaches. You can see the head coming.



The head alone weighs 48 kg!!!



The tail looks nice too!

We will have a look at the body of the dragon in a minute, but let’s first check out the entourage.

There is the music:

And there are a lot of women and girls who have a role that is not entirely clear to me. They carry lanterns and the girls are dressed up cute.

Sometimes the dragon comes along and envelops the women and children. Maybe to protect them??? There IS a storyline, which is from time to time explained to the audience. Even tiny bits in english as well!

OK, let’s look at the body of the dragon. It is 67 meters long, is carried by 300 performers and is made out of straw. In the straw they stick around 72.000 incense sticks that are then lit.
This creates a burning, glowing effect and a whole lotta incense smoke!!!
Ofcourse someone had to make the V-sign.
From time to time the dragon kneels down…..
…or circles around itself….

Towards the end this man started taking incense sticks out and handing them over to people in the audience who were reaching out for them.

For the finale it got a bit wild….

At the end the dragon came so close that the incense burned in my eyes, so I decided it had been enough. We left.


Very happy to have seen this!

It is clearly a neighborhood tradition that is bonding as well. People either participate or they cheer along the road. They live along with the story that is being performed.

It is still on tonight and tomorrow night. Tonight the dragon will also make an appearance at Victoria Park at 10.30 pm. Before that (from 7.30 p.m. onwards) it dances in the streets of Tai Hang.

Be sure not to miss this. It is awesome!

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