As part of the opening day’s festivities for Lincoln Center’s Chinese Arts Week, we present a performance of the millennia-old south China theater procession known as Xing Shi or the Awakening Lion (南国醒狮). The charismatic Awakening Lion hails originally from Guangdong, which is also the home of Yingge dance (英歌), a highly stylized and energetic folk dance that merges Chinese opera acrobatics, costuming and make-up with characters from classical novels such as White Snake and Water Margin. Both of these traditional arts will leap to life on The Dance Floor with the Awakening Lion Dance presented by Zhao Family Lion Dance Company, a UNESCO-recognized cultural heritage carrier, accompanied by the gravity-defying Fumei Youth Yingge Team from the town of Puning in Guangdong.