Chongqing students preserve grass dragon heritage

Students perform grass dragon dance after school in the farmland in Chongqing municipality, March 16, 2016. [Photo/IC]

The students, from a grass dragon team of a local primary school, practice the folk art in the blooming canola flower field by waving the grass dragon which they made by themselves. In 2013, the school started a grass dragon dance team and invited the inheritor Liu Yingsheng as a tutor to help preserve the endangered folk craft.

The 71-year-old Liu Yingsheng, is one of the few people who inherited the making and dance technique of the traditional grass dragon. As an intangible cultural heritage, "Cai family grass dragon" is made of straws and has a long tradition dating back to the Qing Dynasty. The whole dragon has three to nine parts and can be played by two or more people.