Article by Laura Ohata, Photos by Yoshio Ohata and Scott Stanfield (courtesy of Chinatown Center)
Firecrackers pop filling the air with smoke. A drum beats and cymbals clang with the movements of lion dancers. It is hard to imagine Chinese New Year without these magical beasts performing pranks on streets in cities all across the globe. Even Austin, Texas is no exception where members of the Texas Dragon/Lion Dance Team (TDDT) dress in sequined costumes and perform acrobatic antics to ring in the Lunar New Year. Yet new audiences are often left wondering, “What does it all mean?”
“Firecrackers are lit and performances such as the one we do, the lion dancing, are done to celebrate the traditions and ward away evil spirits. It’s just a very fun and festive time,” says Nhan Nguyen, team leader of TDDT. “This is something that is almost bigger than us because it represents that mystical creature coming down from the heavens,” says Nguyen, “so it is something that is very special for the kids who see it. They are very awed and sometimes scared of the creature that we bring to life. For the adults it represents something special to them because it is a good luck charm.”
Often confused with the dragon dance, the lion dance requires two martial artists, one to wear the head of the costume and the other to play the part of the tail. The dragon dance, on the other hand, requires many participants who prop the dragon puppet up on poles, then run through the crowd lifting it up and down, mimicking the movements of the mythical creature. Lion dance teams often perform the dragon dance as a part of their repertoire.
Nguyen has been team lead off and on since the founding of the TDDT club at The University of Texas at Austin back in 2000. “There was a group of people that wanted to do lion dancing,” says Nguyen. “So, at that time we set it up there was one person who kind of knew it; he’d learned it when he was younger. We learned from him as well as Chinese movies and videos.” As a result, the TDDT has developed its own style, incorporating the martial arts skills of different members who join the team.
“The lion starts off and it is respectful, so it does a bow to the audiences or in some cases the altar that the store or business puts out, and the lion bows to that,” says Nguyen. “Then it goes through the dance portion or what we call the ‘play,’ when the lion is inquisitive.” The lion performs stunts, scratching its ears, sometimes rolling over, and playfully teasing members of the audience.
During Chinese New Year, people fill lucky red envelopes with crisp paper money as gifts for the children of close friends and family. The audience makes similar offerings to the lion dancers as they perform. “It is said that if the lion eats your pouch, that is very good luck,” says Nguyen. “And, if the lion comes up to you that is very good luck. So, parents will always hand the envelope over to their child and say, ‘Oh! Go feed the lion,’ because if that lion comes and eats that child’s red envelope then it is very good luck.”
Naturally after eating a heavy meal they begin to feel drowsy, “That’s when the lion starts falling asleep,” says Nguyen, “then it sits down, flutters its eyes. The sleep is not as restful as you might want. So the lion will jerk its head around. And the drum rises up in volume and the lion will kind of snap at something that is not there to signify that it is dreaming.” Afterward the lion wakes up and the dance continues.
While Lion dancers are most famous for their part in Chinese New Year festivals, they also perform at the grand opening of a new business. Sometimes the owners of the business will tie the red envelopes to a cabbage or head of lettuce suspended ten feet off of the ground. Nguyen says, “The reason behind that is that it is almost like putting together a puzzle for the lion to solve. And the way that our team does it usually is that we will do some kind of stunt and get up on each other’s shoulders and we will go and eat the cabbage that way.”
Danny Ngoo, a member of TDDT since 2003, started studying martial arts at the age of seven “If there is an error, I know how to correct it instantly based on my martial arts background. We were taught how to fall and how to make it safe to avoid any harmful injuries to ourselves. It can be really dangerous if you don’t know how to handle that situation. I am usually the one on top…climbing stuff and going upside down.”
Ngoo says that because his family is Cantonese and comes from Hong Kong, practicing the lion dance makes him feel more at home. “It’s all about being polite, being humble with one another, humility, working hard together, learning to solve puzzles and family too,” says Ngoo. “In Hong Kong, they are just out there in the streets free styling; and showcasing their martial arts moves in the lion. That’s how I saw it in Hong Kong. It’s like all of these kung fu schools just came out. They were so respectful. They were never going into one another’s faces like, ‘I’m better than you’ and stuff like that. It was like, ‘Hi there. I’m from the Li school.’ ‘Oh, I’m from the Leung school. Nice to meet you. Let’s have a good lion dancing rivalry together.’ They respect each other. They acknowledge each other. And, they showcase all of their lion dance moves to one another.”
The celebrations of Chinese New Year can be grueling for TDDT, which performs once or twice per day for several days straight. Members of the team exercise year-round to stay in shape. “It involves a lot of practice and training, and there are times on a Sunday morning when you wake up and you are like, ‘Do I really have to go?’” says Mario Chapa, who has been a member of the team for three years. “But, once I get out here, I really enjoy it and it’s fun and I’ve just stuck with it because of the fun people to be around. There is a lot of positivity that it brings out in everybody. It’s a great cultural experience. Me, being one of the non-Asians here, it’s an interesting experience to be around and learn about new cultures.”
Aaron Reiser, who joined TDDT in 2005 says, “Some of my best and closest friends I have made through this team. We exercise together; we suffer together; we experience pain together. Some of the stunts we do are also dangerous, so it requires a certain level of trust in each other. And that really does help to build very strong bonds.”
According to Reiser, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan and many other Asian countries have a lion dance in one form or another. “So, it is something that every East Asian culture has in common and really ties them together,” says Reiser. “And, that is one of the great things about dragon dance, about the Lunar New Year. A lot of Asian cultures, especially due to the history, they have a lot of reasons for maintaining distance from one another. But, especially when the Lunar New Year comes around there is a lot of community, there is a lot of shared ground. There is a lot of, ‘Let’s get luck for the New Year. Let’s start over again. And let’s work towards improving everyone’s lives.’ So it’s really one of these things that helps unite everybody, especially for the really large performances, when everybody in the entire city is welcome. They are open and free to the public, so we get absolutely everybody from every culture, every background, every creed, Asian or otherwise.
One of the top Austin venues for lion dance is at Chinatown Center on North Lamar. “This year, we’ve got two traditional dragon and lion dance teams,” says Cindy Lo, owner of Red Velvet of events and event coordinator for Chinatown Center. When asked about the tradition of having firecrackers and lion dancers during Chinese New Year, Lo says, “The superstition is that if you let the firecrackers go, it will scare away the evil spirits. So hopefully that will bring good luck. So, anything evil or bad lingering would go away. The loud music and the drumming are to bring in a festive feeling, just something happy to get people excited about the New Year. In the past, the dragon and lion actually represented good fighting warriors. You know they are tough. They can fight off battles and that kind of thing. But, now it has just become a symbol of Chinese New Year.
To see lion dancers perform in Austin, attend one of the following events–free and open to the public: http://www.theasiafiles.com/2012/01/chinese-new-year-celebrations-2012/
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