Hi all,

Went to The Hague last Saturday, it was really nice, the liondances started at 13h30, very loud fireworks at every restaurant or shop that was visited. Unfortunately one group couldn't make it, and I normally really enjoy their dancing and drumming sounds, they have really nice variations..

There were 8 lions (not sure didn't really count) or so, and after 3(!)hours of dancing there was a demonstration of Kung Fu.

I arrived late, around 13h45, it had already started, but soon found my teachers group,.. helped out a bit with the music, wasn't dressd to dance (did wear black jeans..), and my KF brothers pushed me ttake off my coat,.. and I danced! Wow, after two years out of it, it's different! They all said it looked okay, .. except for my teacher, who said nothing. And I din't dare ask..afraid of the answer I guess..:-) (you know how Chinese are always hiding the truth etc.. well, when it comes to KF, LD and the likes, my teacher is really direct.. "You did badly!" he wouldn't have trouble saying..:-)

Had lots of fun, even participated in the demo after (first form of Wing Chun, Siu Nim Tao..), then we went to a restaurant and had a great meal; being on exile here in Paris, every time I come back to Holland I make sure I have plenty of chinese food...:-)

When it comes to teachnique, I was surprised too see that my group has also mastered the jumping and standing on the shoulders.. neat! I was never able to do that, but I was also usually playing the head, and too heavy for the person behind..

Gotta get back to work,

take care,
Rob Teng

>They all said it looked okay, .. except for my teacher, who said nothing.
>And I din't dare ask..afraid of the answer I guess..:-)

I had always just assumed that meant you did a fine job.. maybe I'm wrong.. ;-)

g

>I was wondering if anyone knew if there are any films of traditional
>southern chinese lion dances. I was particularly interested in some of the
>teaser roles, like going into the cave to wake the lions, the husband and
>wife teasers, or related information. It seems like most of the dances I've
>seen are a mix of northern/southern dancing.

I hardly ever see the teaser anymore. I was just at the Los Angeles Chinatown new Year parade last Saturday and only one of the groups had a teaser. But even he was just walking with the group carrying the weapons for the school and not dancing with tthe lions. At least that's what they were doing when the group passed by where I was standing.

Somewhere in my video collection I have a training tape that explains several different performances (lion eating a crab, lion crossing a bridge, drunken lion, etc.) that has a section on the teaser and the teaser's role in each of those performances. I can try to dig this up if you're interested.

Also Sifu Tat Mau Wong has a 2-video set produced by Panther Productions. The second one, Advanced Lion Dance Techniques, has a section on the teaser. I had this tape, but I lent it to someone.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Chris

> I had always just assumed that meant you did a fine job.. maybe I'm wrong..

Tonight before going to sleep I will pray that you are right, in which case I am no doubt a highly skilled liondancer and KF practitioner..:-)

Kidding aside, my teacher often keeps quiet, until asked about the performance; then either he will go "yeah, that was quite okay", or "not too bad, but..." and for the following time he will expand on what to improve; this may either outlast dinner, or he may cut it off to begin later when we're in the car heading home.. (usually a 1.5 hour trip..:-).

In any case, sooner or later he will tell me (or other students) what he thinks about the performance/demonstration or whatnot, so that's okay....

Take care,
Rob

>I hardly ever see the teaser anymore. I was just at the Los Angeles
>Chinatown new Year parade last Saturday and only one of the groups had a
>teaser. But even he was just walking with the group carrying the weapons
>for the school and not dancing with tthe lions. At least that's what they
>were doing when the group passed by where I was standing.

Gee... I gues you're right. I don't get to see many other teams doing lion dance, but when I do, I guess you don't see a teaser very often. We use two teasers when we have our southerns dancing (usually one teaser per lion), and there's one for the northern who does somersaults teases the nornthern with a ball. The teasers are really helpful for us, they can disperse crowds, lead the lion, untangle lycee when it gets tangled up in the head, etc..

>Somewhere in my video collection I have a training tape that explains
>several different performances (lion eating a crab, lion crossing a bridge,

We have done the eating a crab dance, it was fun. I was "volunteered" into doing the tail, since I was about the only guy who knows how to write some chinese characters. It was pretty fun. The lions took turns jumping on the legs of the crab, taking the eyes, pincers, then other legs, one by one. When we finished "disarming" the crab, the head passed the "broken" legs back to me and we "digested" the crab, where I placed the characters onto a red (or yellow?) cloth I put down first, then "wrote" out the character with the legs. The worst part was jumping off without disturbing the character... who knows what you could end up spelling!!

>drunken lion, etc.) that has a section on the teaser and the teaser's role
>in each of those performances. I can try to dig this up if you're interested.

Sounds good to me. Let me know if you have any luck finding it.

Sun Leen Fai Lok!
Sun Tai Geen Hong!
g

I've never really heard of that role... I think you might be thinking of the Buddah? Or the funny Monk?? In my class we have a certain time period where everyone lears the moves for the monk. the basic role for him is to lead the lion. We're tought to tickle the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and horn in the wakening of the lion. Also, he guides the lion here to go. For example, when we're doing the lion dance in chinatown for new years or something, and we miss a store, the monk usually tells the guy doing the lion head to head on over that way. Or when we're about to roll, he'd tell the lions to move over to avoid hitting each other or something.

Jason.

Funny man, Big-headed Buddah, teaser, trickster, lion tamer, monk... I've heard him/her many different things. The thing about Chinese traditions is that China is so big that different regions and different villages even in the same region have their own interpretation of them.

Sometimes I've seen a husband/wife team, and an even more rare thing is an animal - sometimes the animal for that zodiac year. One of the most common roles is for them to subtly direct the lions in the dance.

Chris

>Funny man, Big-headed Buddah, teaser, trickster, lion tamer, monk... I've
>heard him/her many different things.

Hey! I like that one! Lion Tamer... maybe they could go work at a circus!!

>Sometimes I've seen a husband/wife team, and an even more rare thing is an
>animal - sometimes the animal for that zodiac year. One of the most common
>roles is for them to subtly direct the lions in the dance.

That's what I was interested in seeing... I've only heard about the husband/wife team, but I've never seen it. An animal?? That's pretty neat as well... but it might be a lot of work putting the costume together.. at least for 12 years ;-)

g

There is a legend behind the "man", what ever his name may be. If I recall correctly, the lion used to be a rascal. But, as mentioned by someone before, the problem with China is that there are so many different stories about the lion. I've seen countless legends about it's origin. I do know that about the funny man or whatever his/her name might be, it was said that he/she was the only person that could tame the lion. And thus he/she leads the lion around where ever he/she goes. They normally carry either a weapon, like a fan or what not, or a pearl. The pearl attracts the lion, he likes to play with it. So, the funny man thus uses it to tell the lion where to go.

If anyone does do some research on this please share the knowledge. I've been reading up on the origin of the lion, and so far I've come across a few different origins. I have found one legend that seems to be true though. Explains a lot about the lion, and seems to fit in with everything. I'll tell it later if anyone is interested.

-Wilbur

Well... I heard a little more from one of my si-hing's tonight at practice. Of course there are many different stories, but I guess there's some kind of common general story. He thinks the "man" is named Po, and the "wife" he can't remember. The man likes to drink, and often get's scolded by the wife. In some dances Po gets the lion drunk too, and the wife scolds both of them! Man.. I'd stay away from her! He told me that there are tons of different types of dances, and many of them were performed by the opera troupes... but the operas go on for days..

So, that's just a little bit more that I've heard. It's interesting to see that kung fu/opera relationship come up again.

g

Hi Chris,

I am also interested in these training videos too. If you happen to find it, maybe you can show it to me when I get to the Lion Dancer Conference next month in San Francisco.

DVo

>I am also interested in these training videos too. If you happen to find
>it, maybe you can show it to me when I get to the Lion Dancer Conference
>next month in San Francisco.

Unfortunatly I don't think I'll be able to go to the conference next month - I've tried and tried to find a way to clear my schedule and arrange a way up and make arrangements for housing and all that. I would be very interested in getting videos of the conference though. Is anyone planning on videoing the whole thing?

To continue this topic, the "animal" teasers I've seen are monkey, tiger, and boar. They were not full animal costumes dressed like the human teaser with masks painted like the animal's head. I was thinking that the monkey might be a reference to the monkey king, but I'mnot sure since I don't remember the monkey king interacting with the lions anywhere in the "Journey to the West" story.

In the northern lion I've often seen a young girl, not dressed as a monk, playing with a silk ball and doing acrobatics with the lions.

Chris

kung hay fatt choy to all!
re origin and story about the buddha head mask dancer:
from a dance and drama perspective, the lion is so fierce and frightening that "comic relief" was needed. this concept dates back to Greek drama. from a psychological perspective, the buddha head monk holds on one hand something (tangerine, lettuce, herb, etc) that the lion wants and on the other, a fan that has the power to scare the lion away. what the psychologists call a perfect approach/avoidance situation that makes good drama.
Dr. William Hu's book on chinese lion dance has a section on the big head monk which started in the sung dynasty and is more recently acted out with the lion dance or separately in a performance call "yueh-ming ho-shang tou liu-ts'ui" or "monkYueh-ming flirts with the young maid liu-ts'ui". for the full story, read his book which is being offered at a special $40 price for the lion dance conference in san francisco. For details to order: www.liondancer.com
a lion dance performer in san francisco has incorporated magic tricks to this buddha head mask dance while taunting the lion. butterflies are produced fluttering around his fan. this is a very auspicious symbol: a pair off butterflies represents marital bliss (from the story of the butterfly lovers - chinese romero & juliet) or it can be a symbol of longevity at a birthday celebration because the word "dieh" is a homonym for butterfly or "attaining the age of 80". chinese motifs of butterflies with cats (in this case lions) are popular because the word cat or "mao" can also mean "attaining the age of 70". so together "mao dieh" (attaining the ages of 70 and 80) is a rebus for old age or longevity.
david lei - chinese performing arts foundation, san francisco

A while ago someone asked about how much groups charge for performances. For our group in San Diego we don't have set costs, but operate on a donation basis. I think the minimum donation is around $150 to our organization, the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association. Around new year's time we take whatever donations businesses hang out for us. We also do some free work for "good causes" like cultural fairs and elementary schools.

The only thing we have a real set cost on is firecrackers. Since they are illegal in San Diego, the fire department makes us get a license and insurance for every location we use them. Insurance isnow $300 *PER LOCATION* which means if we use firecrackers at 3 restaurants on the same block we need to pay $900. We would go broke if we had to cover the cost, so we pass this fee on to the places that request us to use firecrackers.

I'd be interested to see what other groups in different areas of the US charge for performances.

Chris

<<$300 *PER LOCATION* >>

wow

><<$300 *PER LOCATION* >>
>wow

I agree. It's sad that we don't get to use firecrackers as much as we used to (the new law started about 3 years ago). Before that we used to burn a ton of firecrackers. What's a lion dance without firecrackers?

Aloha from Hawaii !!!!

Why not come to Hawaii during Chinese New Year celebrations!!! We have zillions of firecrackers. More noise, smoke, and good luck rubbish that you can handle!!!

Ernie

If anybody is planning to go to the San Fran seminar you must ask Dr. Hu about playing the big headed monk. He was one of the great ones in his day as a young kid in the streets of Honolulu Chinatown. He explained to me one night about the puppet-like movements of the "funny man". Imagine you were a stick puppet or a shadow puppet. That kind of describes how you body moves. He also explained some of the additional usefulness of the "funny man" as a leader. He would coordinate hand signals with the head player for direction and also utilize a special fanning motion to get fresh air into the head so the head player doesn't get smoked out. I'm sure Dr. Hu will shed a lot of insite on playing the "funny man".

Sherman

The lion dance we did in Seattle's chinatown last weekend had tons of firecrackers. It was for the Bing Kung Assoc. and in addition to the normal bricks of firecrackers they throw right under the feet of the lion, they had three strings of *big* firecrackers... the strings were 3 stories high! The went to the top floor, and they lit it from the bottom. I always bring a pair of ear plugs to stick under my belt! And an old sweatshirt.. that's covered with burns.. ;-)

g

>The only thing we have a real set cost on is firecrackers. Since they are
>illegal in San Diego, the fire department makes us get a license and
>insurance for every location we use them. Insurance isnow ....

My sifu tried to do the right thing once and get a permit etc.. but the fire department kept him going in circles. Around here at Chinese New Year's time, police/fire departments pretty much expect that firecrackers are going to happen, so it's not a problem. We did do a dance once in the summer and someone "sniched" and a fire truck was already on site and told us we couldn't use firecrackers. You're right.. what's a lion dance w/o a bunch of noisy firecrackers!! Anyways, as much as we can, we leave it up to the people getting the dance performed to take care of the firecrackers.. although sometimes we provide them.. ;-)

In a message dated 2/26/99 2:40:09 PM, chrislow@fuller.edu writes:
>What's a lion dance without firecrackers?

like christmas without santa claus or jesus christ!

Hi All,

I am also in Seattle,and this year there were so much firecrackers lit on almost every place we went to. Most of the place we provide the firecrackers. It was fun but very bad to the ears and may not be very healthy if you breath a lot in either. Every year, after each day of performance, when I clean my noise, it's all black! :-)

Have a great new week!

DVo