There are two aspects of Sinulog: the religious ritual and the street spectacle patterned after (but not quite copied from) the South American mardi gras.

Before 1980, sinulog was purely a religious ritual performed within the confines of the Santo Niño church, usually by aging women who hold a candle in each upstretched hand and do alternating forward and backward dance steps with the feet. To enhance the dancing, either a boy or an old man stands nearby with a snare drum strapped around his waist, letting the drumsticks produce that distinctive rhythm now familiar to most Cebuanos, the sinulog beat.

While performing the sinulog, the dancer mumbles prayers of petition, punctuated by shouts of "Pit Senyor!" every now and then. Sometimes, the dancer holds a candle with one hand and a handkerchief in the other. Still at other times, she holds with both hands a copy of the image (statuette) of the original Santo Niño image, keeping it elevated as she performs the dance, to endow it with the blessings of the child Jesus. The dance is performed in front of the altar where the Santo Niño image stands inside a glass casing. The sinulog dancer does not always dance inside the church. At times she dances just outside the front door, but still facing the altar.

In 1980, sinulog took to the streets and assumed the status of a cultural show for visitors and city residents alike. Sinulog became a cultural parade consisting basically of dancers, floats, and higantes. There are now two aspects of Sinulog: the religious ritual and the street spectacle patterned after (but not quite copied from) the South American mardi gras. It became a well-organized annual affair timed to the religious Feast of Santo Niño, which falls on the third weekend of January. There is now a Sinulog Foundation, which manages the cultural aspect of sinulog.

The new aspect of sinulog introduced a change in personality of the sinulog dancer and the sinulog drummer. The dancer is now either a young student or a young professional, male or female. The drummer is usually pulled out from the drum-and-bugle corps of a public or private school in the city.

Unlike the religious sinulog where the number of dancers can be counted by the fingers, the cultural sinulog is participated in by several hundreds of dancers. Unlike the religious sinulog where the dancers wear the same clothes that they wear while buying vegetables and fish from the Carbon market, the cultural sinulog dancers are clad in Igorot costume, Muslim costume, Maria Clara costume, and imaginative variations of these costumes; the sight is really colorful. To add to the drama, the thunder of a hundred drums reverberating to the sinulog beat can be heard kilometers away.