ABSTRACT

With increasingly important role of Chinese traditional culture in the world, the dragon dancing exercise must be inherited and strengthened as a way to advocate the traditional culture. As the essential part to inherit and innovate splendid national culture, and university students also bear an unshakable responsibility to inherit, launch and develop traditional culture. It is particularly critical to stimulate students’ inner needs for the mastery of dragon dance skills and the utilization of dragon dance techniques, so that more college students can participate in dragon dance activities and shoulder the mission of inheriting dragon dance culture. In order to understand the relationship between the students’ extent of engagement in Dragon Dance activities and their level of Dragon Dance skills, the extent of utilization of Dragon Dance techniques. This study selected 147 students who are the members of dragon dance teams while studying at the five universities from Guizhou, exploring the students’ extent of engagement, their Dragon Dance skills and techniques, and the challenges faced. A mixed research approach was employed, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods. Key findings revealed that the extent of engagement in Dragon Dance activities and the utilization of techniques was assessed as to a great extent, the participants’ level of Dragon Dance skills was high. The study also found There are significant relationships between the participants’ extent of engagement in Dragon Dance activities and their extent of utilization of Dragon Dance techniques, their level of skills in performing Dragon Dance. However, participants identified several challenges, including the inadequate curriculum, insufficient investment funds, extensive physical preparation, lack of experienced and expert Dragon dance instructor, lack of Dragon dance venues and equipment.

Keywords: Dragon dance skills, dragon dance techniques, dragon dance activities
https://doi.org/10.57180/vpoh3377