Residents in central China's Rucheng have begun to perform the incense dragon dance to pray for a prosperous new year. As a form of national intangible cultural heritage, the incense dragon dance – with a history of more than 1,000 years – is one of the most important Chinese New Year celebrations for Rucheng people held around the Lantern Festival, the fifteenth day of Chinese New Year.
During the incense dragon dance, performers present a dragon made of straw, bamboo poles and incense sticks, with a full body length of 30 meters and weighing 1,500 kilograms. Spectators are encouraged to use torches to light the dragon, and performers will continue to dance with it until it turns into ash.