I celebrate new year twice a year.
I celebrate 1st of January and Chinese new year as my husband has Chinese back ground.
When I saw Chinese lion dance for the first time, I thought it was very powerful compare to Japanese one and a lot more gaudy. (My husband said Japanese one looks cheap but anyway)
In Japanese, it's called "Shishi-mai" (獅子舞) The roots of Japanese lion dance said to be from China which I expected but colour of lion, music and dance are very different.
Chinese lion dance is pretty fast and music is loud with a drum. Japanese lion dances follows normal to slow speed and music is relatively quiet with small drums and Japanese traditional flute. Until recently, I didn't know the style of dancing and design of the lion differs by region in Japan.
The one I know is a red wooden face with green cloth body. I do remember Okinawa which is part of Japan but very close to Taiwan has lion with lots of hair. But I really thought the rest of Japan all has the same lion.
Japanese lion dance is not only performed on the new year day, also at regional festivals through out the year.
It looks like the one I know (red face one) is only performed on the new year celebration?
Lion dance in Kanto region which is Tokyo and surrounding regions is very different to the one I know of. It's done by 1 person inside, the head of lion is above eye level and a dancer plays drum while he dances!
I became particulary interested in Sanbiki shishi-mai (Three lions) from Kanto region. Fukushima is famous for that too.
One of the site I visit occasionally had a good details of Sanbiki shishi-mai. It's only available in Japanese but has few pictures to give you ideas of how they look like.
Sanbikishishi-mai at Nagasaki shrine, Tokyo
There are many Japanese lion dance footage available on You Tune. I spent 30 hour browsing different style. Now I feel like visiting different regions to see different lion dances in Japan.
