Alana's Travels: Olympic Dragon Dancing for Chinese New Year

Happy year of the tiger everyone!

What's the best way to ring in the new year? Hmmm how about running around waving a gigantic silk dragon with 20ish of your new best friends for an audience of 20,000?

Things last Sunday definitely went awesome. In addition to perfect weather, everyone who saw us really had a good time. The Taoist Tai Chi website is keeping tract of the websites that are posting about the event HERE.

The weekend started off like last week
- up early to catch the bus to the ferry to the mainland and then an all-day practice in the warehouse in Richmond. Things were a bit more anxious with the countdown into the mere hours before the two dragons' west-coast debut, but everyone was working hard. I left with sore feet and feeling excited about the next day.

In the morning, we were greeted with clearing skies - a great sign for us as dragons are considered the controllers of the weather. Amongst other things, a visit by a dragon brings the town good weather for the year. I was just glad I wasn't going to have to do the dancing in the rain and cold =^_^=

The little dragon, since it was easier to organize, was busy before the performance doing previews for a couple different media groups, I think NBS Sports among them. It was a bit muddy, but everyone was in good spirits. Then around 2:45 everyone started making their way down to the O Zone. The African drums and the little dragon went in first, diving and swooping and playing around. It was way tiring. I was in the middle in a key place to do the flip for the Pretzel move, so I really couldn't switch off that much. I was thankful when the big dragon made it's way to the stage so we could take a break.

There were also very cute lion dancers that accompanied us. The dragons and lions bowed to each other, then to the mayor. A proclamation was read in three languages to ask permission for the dragons to enter the city, a long standing custom of the dragons. Also, the mayor and city councilors dotted the eyes of the dragons and lions to "bring them to life". Once brought to life, the dragons did a spiral and sat down to watch the few hundred tai chi practitioners do a demonstration of the 108 move tai chi form.

Here's a video from inside the dragon:

I didn't have much opportunity to take pictures, so I tried while the demo was going on. When it finished, the big dragon headed back to the theatre nearby where it would get loaded back into the truck, while the little dragon had an extra photo-op to attend. The mayor asked to be escorted back to city hall by the dragon and lions. It was fun to go through the crowd and down the street and see all the excited kids. Lots of people whipped out their cameras to film us.

Not only did we go to City Hall, we went THROUGH it. Lion dancers, Chinese percussion, and the 50 m dragon all barged in on an invite-only party. Many a dignitary, council member and media watched, martini glass of cranberry juice in hand, interested, amused, or unsure of the scene passing before them. We finished off the display with some playing in the courtyard outside and a group picture.

Completely amazing day, and what a great experience. Xin Nian Kuai Le! 新年快乐!

More pictures: