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Lion Art really is the expression of the lion as being a life creature.

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The physicality behind it, it takes quite a bit to do it.

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No matter if it's competition or if it's just a random performance on a Tuesday,

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we all love it so much and I feel like that's what makes it really special.

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I'm the chief instructor, also known as Shufu, of the Zhang Yikung Fu Association.

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So I started in Chinese martial arts when I was 14 years old.

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This is our 30th year teaching in traditional martial arts and also lion dance here in Madison.

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Martial arts schools traditionally are linked with lion dance culture in itself

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and they help celebrate the new years.

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When we start a performance, we always like click the rim and it's really loud.

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Everyone starts paying attention.

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Without the music, there's no dancing.

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The Sarping style that my teacher, Chansu Ki, from Singapore teaches us is really important

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because it's a beautiful style. The music is very festive.

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The style itself has prescribed beats.

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We can't modify what that particular beat is because there's a meaning behind the beat

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and there's a movement that the lion does with a beat.

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There's eight emotions that it shows. There's seven different postures, different ways of raising the head.

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And all of those things have to be taught very carefully because a small little detail can make or break

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the way that the structure looks or how the art is performed.

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And it takes a long time to refine that particular movement to trick the audience into believing

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that's a real creature rather than somebody under the lion.

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All of those are emotions that you're supposed to make the lion show through the big heads,

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which is very difficult. That's why it's not just a matter of blinking the eyes or moving the mouth.

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It's actually moving the whole body to express that sort of particular emotion.

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So you kind of have this particular area here that you're going to see.

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And then when you open the mouth, you can see through the mouth.

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But besides that, you can't really see what the eyes are seeing,

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which is difficult because a lot of times when the crowd comes over to play with the lion,

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they look at the lion, they're going like this in front of the eyes.

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The person has no idea what's going on. They can see that there's feet down here,

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but they have no idea what the person is doing in front of them.

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I can see the person's legs in front of me, and then everything else is black.

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Really going backwards. I got you right here. Ready?

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Like that, there you go.

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There's a lot of two-person work, right? So you have a head and you have a tail,

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and they have to communicate with each other and trust each other

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because there's a lot of tricks that they can do.

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If you want to do fun tricks like throwing people over your head or having people standing in your legs.

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The more you trust each other, the more you understand each other,

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the friendship grows and the more fun you have, and then the energy comes up.

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Usually for the viewers, we try to go with a story about the big-headed monk

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and how he plays with the lion and the lion.

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Overcomes several different obstacles, just like we do in daily life,

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and ultimately there's a big payoff in which he grabs some lettuce,

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which the lion is an agent of transformation.

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So he eats lettuce, but he spits out fortune.

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And when he spits out fortune, the idea is that he's being able to spread it to the community

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or trying to share it with everybody.

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We do grab the tangerines and we give them out as gifts to the audience.

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And every time it gives the gift out, it's kind of like the lion is wishing wealth.

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We want the audience to have fun and really enjoy.

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If you watch the performances, a lot of times you just see the kids light up,

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so they usually are like fascinated by it.

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Some of the reactions we've had from the crowd are just how much fun and excitement it was,

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especially hearing the live drums and music you played.

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The concept of equality and equity is really important for our team,

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and everybody and our team understands that, and they all help each other.

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Honestly, I think the main thing I want an audience to take away from lion dance

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is the enjoyment of the show and kind of a celebration of culture.

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We have like a lot of people from Southeast Asia that will come up to us and say,

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oh, watching your show just reminded me of being back at home and missing it so much

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is so great to be able to see it here in Madison, Wisconsin.

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Thank you.