ICR: Learning the Lion Dance

Last week on Monday, myself and a few other class members that are apart of IACA (Indiana Association of Chinese Americans) for our ICR credit joined Kwan, who is one of the IACA members, to rehearse the lion dance for the international festival that took place this past weekend. It was really interesting to see the lion and see all the small working parts that you never really get to see such as the eyes and ears that move as the person in the lion moves around. It was fun to learn the simple routine that Kwan showed us, making 3 bows to the audience before the performance, moving the lion head up, down, left, and right as you move around the stage, and then bowing three more times at the end of the performance. One thing I didn’t really realize is whoever is the butt of the lion has to stay bent at almost 90 degrees for the whole performance. You have to watch the feet of the person who is the lion head to make sure that you don’t trip and make a fool of yourself. We also got to see a video of a professional lion dance performance, where the performers were able to stand on each others shoulders mid-performance and make movements in the lion costume that I didn’t even know were possible. It was a very fun experience getting to learn bits of this tradition.