Feature: African dancers embrace Chinese lion dance

Africa is abundant with lions, but when a group of African art performers visited China in August, they were amazed at how deeply their Chinese peers also love the big cat.

In Dalian, northeast China's Liaoning province, ten trainees from Nigeria and Zimbabwe learned the art of Chinese lion dance, a traditional performance that makes dancers don a lion costume as they stage a joyful dance to bring in luck and scare away evil spirits.

For five weeks, they practiced for at least eight hours a day as part of a cultural exchange program adopted by the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in December 2015.

Leading the Nigerian performers was Adamu Hashimu Ojah, a sports official, who only knew about the lion dance when he arrived in China for the training.

In China, lion dance is usually staged during important traditional festivals or at ceremonies for weddings or business launches.

According to Ojah, the dance not only broadens their horizon, but can also go a long way in bridging the Chinese and African cultures.

Moreover, Ojah observed that apart from being entertaining, the lion dance builds flexibility, strength and coordination between the performers.

"The lion dance strengthens the mind and the body; it fosters cooperation, promotes friendship and cultural integration," he told an audience that welcomed the trainees at the China Cultural Center in Abuja on Tuesday.

The dance is performed by a group. Among them, two performers hide inside a highly stylized costume, work as a team to imitate the lion's movements, including pouncing, tumbling, rolling and leaping.

Another performer, identified as Kunle, wore the lion head which weighed about 20 kilograms at the reception ceremony in Abuja.

The performers said they have ordered for costumes in China so they can teach their interested local colleagues how to perform the dance and stage the performance during important ceremonies in Nigeria.

"We are also working on how to integrate the lion dance into the extracurricular activities in our secondary schools, so that it can fully be part of us," he said. Endit