[gong music]
- Nelson Ferreira: Lion art really is the expression
of the lion as being a live creature.
The physicality behind it, it takes quite a bit to do it.
- No matter if it's competition
or if it's just a random performance on a Tuesday,
we all love it so much,
and I feel like that's what makes it really special.
- Nelson: Four, five, six, start it from the beat.
Ready?
[counting in Chinese]
I'm the chief instructor, also known as shifu,
of the Zhong Yi Kung Fu Association.
So, I started in Chinese martial arts when I was 14 years old.
This is our 30th year teaching traditional martial arts
and also lion dance here in Madison.
[drumming]
Martial arts schools traditionally are linked
with lion dance culture in itself
and they help celebrate the new years.
[drumming and gong]
- Laila Jenkins: When we start a performance,
we always, like, click the rim and it's really loud.
Everyone starts paying attention.
- Ong Lee Ping: Without the music, there's no dancing.
- Nelson: The Sar Ping style that my teacher,
Chan Siew Kee from Singapore, teaches us
is really important 'cause it's a beautiful style.
The music is very festive.
The style itself has prescribed beats.
We can't modify what that particular beat is
because there's a meaning behind the beat
and there's a movement that the lion does with the beat.
There's eight emotions that it shows.
There's seven different postures,
different ways of raising the head.
And all of those things have to be taught very carefully
because a small little detail can make or break the way
that the structure looks or how the art is performed.
And it takes a long time to refine that particular movement
to trick the audience into believing
that's a real creature rather than somebody under the lion.
All of those are emotions
that you're supposed to make the lion show through the big heads,
which, you know, is very, it's difficult.
That's why it's not just a matter of blinking the eyes
or moving the mouth.
It's actually moving the whole body
to express that sort of particular emotion.
So, you kind of have this particular area here
that you can kinda see.
And then when you open the mouth,
you can see through the mouth.
But besides that,
you can't really see what the eyes are seeing,
which is difficult 'cause a lot of times
when the crowd comes over to play with the lion,
they look at the lion,
they're going like this in front of the eyes.
The person has no idea what's going on.
They can see that there's feet down here,
but they have no idea what the person is doing
in front of them.
- I can see the person's legs in front of me,
and then everything else, just, is black.
- Nelson: Really jump backwards, I got you right here, okay?
Ready?
Like that, there you go. [students cheer]
There's a lot of two-person work, right?
So, you have a head and you have a tail,
and they have to communicate with each other
and trust each other
because there's a lot of tricks that they can do.
And the knee out, out, out.
- Ong Lee: If you wanna do fun tricks,
like throwing people over your head
or having people stand on your legs.
[students applaud] - Nelson: Very good, nice job.
The more you trust each other,
the more you understand each other,
the friendship grows and the more fun you have,
and then the energy comes up. [students applaud]
[upbeat percussion music]
Usual for the viewers,
we try to go with the story about the big-headed monk
and how he plays with the lion,
and the lion overcomes several different obstacles,
just like we do in daily life, and ultimately,
there's a big payoff in which he grabs some lettuce,
which the lion is an agent of transformation.
So, he eats lettuce, but he spits out fortune.
And when he spits out fortune,
the idea is that he's being able to spread it to the community
or trying to share it with everybody.
We do grab the tangerines
and we give 'em out as gifts to the audience.
And every time it gives the gift out,
it's kind of like the lion is wishing wealth.
We want the audience to have fun and really enjoy.
If you watch the performances,
a lot of times, you just see the kids light up,
so they usually are, like, fascinated by it.
Some of the reactions we've had from the crowd
are just how much fun and excitement it was,
especially hearing the live drums and music being played.
The concept of equality and equity is really important
for our team, and everybody on our team understands that,
and they all help each other.
- Olivia Yee: Honestly, I think the main thing
I want an audience to take away from lion dance
is, like, the enjoyment of the show and kind of, like,
a celebration of culture.
[group cheers]
- We have, like, a lot of people from Southeast Asia
that will come up to us and say, "Oh, watching your show
"just reminded me of being back at home.
"I miss it so much.
It's so great to be able to see it here in Madison, Wisconsin."
[upbeat percussion music]