Thank you all for all the feedback. One thing is for sure, it is through experience is when you learn many things. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how to teach a large group. I have not have 25 people yet, orientation week for the Uni is two weeks time and that's when I'm expecting about 25 or more people to sign up. It's just that I want to prepare and plan on how we can manage a large group.

Once again thanks to all who have advised and for giving me more confidence. One of the future members know how to design web pages and hopefully if he has time will put one up so you dancers out there may see what we're up to.

I'm sorry to say that I'm not much of an email person who can say many things, but I hope to have someone in the future who can do this for me and perhaps get some help or advice from you guys (or girls).

If anyone have anymore to share about teaching a large group please continue sharing. I'm sure that it will benefit the rest of us on the mailing list also.

Peter Liew.

A couple more comments about lion dance practice...

Larry also wrote a very good list of things to do. I want to comment on the strength part. This is not a knock on Larry and if something works for you keep doing it but we have found that doing "outside" strength building during class time is a misuse of the time. There are alot of strength building activities right in the practice. We are a Kung Fu school so we do lots of stance/step work. This builds the leg strength and cardiac as well as improves the look of the lion dance.

Use objects (chairs or the garbage cans that the lids came from :-) and walk through lion movements. Even if you don't have anything to carry, just holding your arms up as if you were holding a lion head helps. Go through all the directions, high/low and jumping.

We use iron rings and our metal shields but if you don't have a kung fu school, these may be hard to find. Just some thoughts.

Stephen.

Lars wrote:
>I have some video clips of some of our tricks with one or two lions and a monk
>at the URL: >http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lars/LionDance/

Very cool video lars. Thanks for putting that up. Does your Lion Dancing come from Ching Woo? Do you know if it is from the Hung Gar tradition? I ask because that's where ours come from and would like to share experiences.

Also, in the rolling video. What is the drum beat that is playing. It sounds like 3 star 7 star but not quite.

Just asking.
Stephen.

Hi Lars,

I think you meant this to go to the list since you asked a pretty general question at the end. So I am forwarding it.

Thanks for your info on lineage. YC Wong is a well known Hung Gar instructor in San Francisco. If your lion dance comes from him, it is from the Hung Gar lineage. How is Anthony Lam associate with it all? Is he also an instructor of Herbert Wong? I guess it's not that important since I now know that your lion dance comes from YC Wong. As for my lineage. I am a student at Wing Lam Kung Fu in Sunnyvale, Ca. I am a Hung Gar student. Our lion dance comes from Lam Sai-Wing, Chiu Kao, Chiu Wai, and Gobert Yeung (my Si-Sook and on this list). Tthough there is nothing on lion dance yet, you can see the kung fu info at www.wle.com

I can't help with the swedish kung fu but there might be people on this list that can.

Stephen.

----- Begin Included Message -----
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 10:21:55 +0100
From: Lars Nooden

Stephen,

Our liondance comes from the hung gar tradition via Y.C. Wong, I'm not sure beyond that. As far as the kung fu practiced, our lineage (from Wong Fei-hung) is Lam Sai-wing, Lam Cho, Y.C. Wong, Herbet Z. Wong, Karl Scott.

However, I moved to Sweden last fall and have not yet found a group to practice with. If anyone's heard of liondance in the Lund/Malmö/Copenhagen area, please send me a message.

About the drum beats, I did not learn the names for them. The one you hear at the beginning of the rolling video is the beat we use for basic stepping. What is the lineage of your kung fu and did your liondance come with it?

-Lars

                        |                           |

                  Lam Sai-Wing                  Ching Hwa

                        |                           |

                     Lam Cho                   Shao-Wen

                       |                   (Jing Wu Assoc.)

                       |

                       +--------------Anthony Lam

                  Y.C. Wong

                     |     \

                     |      Herbert Z. Wong

                     |     /   |        |

                 Karl Scott----+---\    |

                         \     |    Y.Jay Sandweiss, O.D.

                          Matt Fulton

To Whom It May Concern,

Thank you for letting me join your lion dance mailing list. A little introduction about myself.

My name is Ernie Loo. I have been doing lion dancing for over 30 years. Presently, I am getting old so not really in shape for lion dancing. Instead, I am an instructor for my lion dance troupe where I teach the younger students the basic and advanced lion dancing. I belong to the Lung Kong Physical Culture Club which is located in downtown Honolulu in the wonderful state of Hawaii. We play lion dancing all year around, especially for weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, grand openings, parades, etc. I am very interested in getting video tapes of the various styles of lion dancing from all over the world. I have some videos of our club that I would be more than happy to share with other members. I teach the Southern style of lion dancing. My sifu was Sifu Fong Lum Kwai and Sifu Henry Amoy, both deceased. Thank you very much for your time. Please email if you want or need any other information.

Mahalo and Aloha from Hawaii

And I'm studying Hung with Leong sifu up here in Seattle... so I guess we're getting about all of the post-Lam Sai Wing branches about covered... ;-)

G

Hi All,

things are beginning to calm down after News Year. We have one more parade on the 28th but that should be pretty standard stuff. We had a good season with some problems. I'll send a more detailed description later. We know we need to drill more. Stamina was a problem this time around. As I've been emailing, I notice people mention the spider stack. What is that. Can someone describe this in email?

Just curious.
Stephen.

Hi Lars and everyone else on the list.

Being awfully busy these days I hardly find the time to keep myself updated with what is being said on the list, let alone participate very actively. I am lurking around, however, reading the post of the list whenever I find time. For those of you who are new to the list or do not remember (it has been quite a while since I introduced myself), I am Pontus Fredriksson from Gothenburg in Sweden. I run a Kung Fu club in Kinna, some 60 kilometers outside of Gbg. The style that we practice is Fujian Yongchun Baihe - Fukien White Crane (called Tiger-Crane Combination). My instructor is Dennis Kah Swee Ngo, who is based in London and his instructor is the late Mr. Ang Lian Huat of Singapore.

We also have lion dance on the curriculum for the club and we practice the Hok San style. Before opening up the club (in 1991) I stayed in Singapore for a while training, and it was during that time I came in contact with lion dance. I went lion dancing there during the Chinese New Years of 1991 and 1992. Nowadays we do not have any contact with Singapore, however, because of a split in the organization. Now, we have exchanges with mainland China instead.

Being merely a beginner in the art of lion dancing, I have learnt (and still am learning) a lot on this list, and I feel I have also got some inspiring ideas. I am just feeling sorry that I do not have the time to participate more.

Lars Nooden was asking about lion dance groups in the south of Sweden and in Denmark. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be to many of them in this country. The Copenhagen area I do not know about, but in the Malmö region there might be one. There is this guy called Ho who is teaching Five Ancestors Kung Fu, who at least used to have lion dancing in his club(s). I do not know how active they are nowadays, though. Of course, you are most welcome to visit and train with us, should you find the opportunity. We have Kung Fu classes 2-3 times a week and lion dance sessions 1-2 times a week. It might be a bit far to go for regular practice, though.

All the best
Pontus

hi guys,

Sorry this is so late but there is a new black light dragon in town.. SF bay area. a dance group called FEI yang. is performing tonight feb 22 at the the San Jose center for the performing arts.

This group performed last night at the SF palace of fine arts.. Fei yang is make up of a group of pro dancers originally from the prc... This black light dragon was first performed by student from Stanford many moons ago..

The dragon in this show is a new dragon bought from China with fluorescent colors..I think it was make in DA Lian..

The idea is the stage is blacked out and the eyes are painted with a white glove and brush and the two eyes come alive and the then the dragon grows as the lights flash on the dragon.. Can you beleive I missed this show last night . I hope someone in the south bay can catch it and give us a report..

thanks layton

Once again, I'm organziing the 1998 Han Wei National Martial Arts Championship, it will be held on October 3rd, 1998 at Cleveland State University's Woodling Gym, Cleveland, Ohio.

This is a bi-annual event organized by Han Wei, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promote Chinese culture and martial arts. in 1996, we had over 2000 people attneding and we had a great time.

At that time, we had 5 Lion Dances performing at the same time, this year, I would like to go bold and ask anyone on this mailing list whom been interested in participating this event to come and perform your Lion Dance with us, I would like to see 10 Lions or more to do it at one time, to have a big party, plus a time of get together and such... If you are interested, please check out the Han Wei website at www.hanwei.com

Thanks
Johnny Wu
www.wushuboy.com/wu

Sorry I haven't been around lately. We have been very busy the past 3 weeks performing all over the Bay Area and other parts of California/Nevada. Layton is right, there is a new dragon in town.

Although it is painted with phosphorescent colors that do glow under UV lights, we just prefer to think of it as a dragon so we won't be thought of as a group that only performs the dragon dance in black light.

Fei Yang also goes by the name of The Chinese Performing Artists of America (CPAA). Fei Yang is made up of members from China, Hong Kong, the US, and probably a few other countries that I am not aware of. Fei Yang performs many different rarely-seen items, traditional Chinese folk dances, contemporary Chinese dances, martial arts, lion dances (northern and southern), and now the dragon dance.

David Lei of Chung Ngai explained to me that a black lit dragon dance was performed at Stanford University decades ago. Just like Layton described. It sounded like a very creative theatrical experience-years ahead of its time. I wish we all had a chance to see that performance, but I don't think I was even born yet!

The dragon dance that Fei Yang performed at the Palace of Fine Arts and the San Jose Center for Performing Arts was different than the one Layton described. More than just a dragon dance, it was a multimedia spectacle. The dragon was only part of that performance! A composer named Phil Young created totally new music with many different sound effects (wind, crashing waves, thunder, the roar of a dragon, men yelling, various Chinese instruments, and of course, drums). His music is simply awesome! Donald Hom was responsible for the spectacular light show that added so much to the performance. He created amazing effects such as rolling waves, starry skies, and lightning flashes that were timed to the music. Oh yeah, he set up the blacklighting that nearly set the dragon on FIRE! The choreographer of the routine was Yong Yao, the artistic director of CPAA. All of his works are magnificent, beautiful, and touching. To me, this one (the dragon dance) was awe-inspiring. Not because of what it is now, but what it will become as the year 2000 (year of the dragon) draws near. He has some big plans that I'm honor-bound not to discuss yet.

The dragon itself performs many patterns that just aren't possible with the heavier, larger, and longer dragons that are more commonly seen in parades. It's not that other people can't perform the same patterns, they can, but it would be extremely difficult with the bigger dragons.

I am so lucky to have learned this art with my friends from some of the best people out there. I can't wait to see what Yong Yao has in store for the future! I hope some of you get to marvel at what this talented man can do!

Gung hay fat choy to you all
Corey

>Thanks Tim,
>If I knew Corey was going to be in it I would have made a special effort
>to see it.. Any chance the dragon will show again.. I got to see a
>program from the show. It has a nice picture of the dragon dancers and
>Corey. Is the choreographer "Young Yao " the main person
>putting this dragon dance together. Will Chinese TV be putting it on the
>air.. ????
>Corey how is the drum piece that Melody of China performed. "flying
>dragons and leaping tigers.??? The drummer PU Hai has been helping my
>group with the drumming.
>
>layton

You are too kind to me, Layton. I'm trying to put together a tape of some of the performances in the future. I'll let you know when I'm done. Yes, Yong Yao is the man most responsible for putting this performance together, but like the dragon dance itself, it was a team effort. Don't forget the music composer, Phil Young, and the technical wizard, Donald Hom.

Will Chinese TV put it on the air? I don't know if they were there to tape the shows.

The drummer you mentioned and his group were COOL! The pieces they performed were great. You're a lucky group to have them sharing with you be extra nice to them and hang on to that talent!

Corey

Hi folks, this is my introduction letter. I found out about this list from my Si-hing, Corey Chan. My name is Keith Soohoo. I'm from the SF Bay Area in California and I belong to the San Francisco Wushu Team, Kei Lun Martial Arts, Mun Mo Martial Arts, Golden Shadows, and the Chinese Performing Artists of America. I've been Lion Dancing for about 9 years nows playing the Northern and Southern Styles (Southern Mostly) and lately I have been fortunate enough to learn to play the Dragon Head in the Northern Dragon Dance routine choreographed by Yong Yao.

My instruction in martial arts training has come from Sifu Bryant Fong of San Francisco, Sifu Wilson Ng of Oakland, and Guru Joe Arriola of Oakland. I've been training in martial arts for about 11 years but in no way consider myself a seasoned veteran as I learn how much about martial arts I really don't know. I hope to have a web page up soon of our team with some pictures of our performances and lions. I look forward to hearing from you all soon. Thanks.

keith

Welcome to the list Keith!

I noticed on your list of organizations a reference to Kei Lun Martial Arts. Do you also know how to dance the kei lun. My club the Chinese Physical Culture Association in Hawaii has had a pair for several years and we've been trying to bring out the kei lun on a few special occassions over the past few years. However, not enough people in our club really know how to play it and end up playing it like a southern lion head. Are there any kei lun in SF?

Sherman Wong