Hi people,

I just wanted to find out... Does anyone have any suggestions about re-enforcing the bottom of the lion's mouth? we tried that plaster the comes in a roll. The ones you soak in water then apply it and it dries and becomes hard... we found it to be too heavy. We've tried card board in the past but found that it get's soggy. can anyone help??

Jason.

This was sent by a non-member of the list. I'll forward it for you people :-)

Regards,

Serhat Sakarya

---
we use aluminum sheets to reinforce that area. just find proper thickness and size then apply adhesive to join the aluminum and mouth together. good luck.

 James

Hi, Jason.

We also found the plaster very very heavy (and hard). If you use the lion, then the plaster will also become crumbly.

The best result we got at our school was using fibreglass, but that also adds a bit to the weight. However, we eventually started reinforcing key parts of the lion head on equiment as soon as we got it. Just be careful with spills and/or sharp edges. All the new lions that we have gotten the last few years are made of paper instead of cloth.

In one repair experiment, we tried the fabric and glue for model airplane wings, but that did not hold at all.

-Lars

I've used some light plastic that is a few mm thick. I've seen others use fiberglass.

On Mon, 1 Nov 1999, Jason Lee wrote:
> becomes hard... we found it to be too heavy. We've tried card board
>in the past but found that it get's soggy. can anyone help??

White glue, flour, newspaper is what I use. I forget the ratios...

Greetings,

Does anyone know if a new Dragon has to go through a Hoi Gong ceremony? If so, what is the tradition?

Any help would be appreciate it.

John

The strongest material and longest lasting I have found is the following:

Use oat flour sacks. Can be found at an upscale cooking store like Williams and Sonnoma. They use them for no lint towels to dry wine glasses with...

Go to your local craft store, A.C. Moore or rag shop and buy something called Fabric Stiff Stuff. Pour into bowl and either cut the fabric to the shape you want or use in strips. Get it wet in the bowl and then lay it on lion either inside or out.

Use inside if you are patching a hole outside if you are doing beginning reinforcement.

For the bottom of the mouth I use one solid piece. When dry paint with matching color. Also can be found at A.C. Moore or pearl paint.

Once this is dry seal with Decoupage. This is the stuff your kids use in school to seal pictures on wood. It will go on white but when dry it will be clear.

After 24 hours spray with a clear acrylic spray and let dry.

I have found this to be the best method. Once completed I have literally pounded the jaw with my fist and it will not break!!!! This is REALLY helpful behind the ears where they break first !!!!

Any questions just e-mail me back..... For a fee I will do the heads for you !!

NAHUHH @Aol.com Jennifer

Yes, A dragon's eyes are awakened similar to a lion. A dragon needs to be tamed and dedicated to serve its sifu. The sifu will stand before the new dragon and proclaim its duties on earth. In the process, a padlock is placed in the dragon's mouth because it is believed that the dragon is capable of consuming man and the lock simbolizes man taming the animal. The other significant side of the lock is that the dragon is always lead by the pearl - It chases the pearl but will never capture the pearl because of its jaws being locked.

The other stuff is similar to the lion hoi gong. The dotting of the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and mirror.

Its a great time to get a new dragon - in time for the year of the dragon. They are expensive though and require a lot of players.

Good luck.
Sherman

Yes it does, but with alot more rules. eg. Only a man over 70 years of age or older can dot the eyes. offering on the table are different. and something to db about locking the dragon's jaw? Henry

Dear liondancers of the world!!!!

(this message goes out to those who helped us during our search, and to anyone that would like to read it)

We are the Drawing Man Theater Company, from Spain. Maybe you rememer us.

Our play ("Around the World in 80 Masks") was at last represented for the first time on friday 29 of October. It was a nice show. 300 people saw our play that friday night. We have received fine critics, and the play is going to be represented from now to all along the year 2000 in the main cities of Spain, and maybe in other countries.

The big end of the play starts with the presence between the audience of a chinese lion, danced by two of our actors. We dance the lion and tell the people a story about its meaning. At the very end, the lion climbs to the stage and the play ends with a photo-finish of it.

The arrival of the lion is unexpected to the audience. They leave their seats to have a proper vision of the nice animal. You can see by their faces of joy that it's being a pleasant experience to them.

And that's all that we wanted!

This could be the first time that a spanish teather company (not a group of liondancers) dance a lion on a stage. In fact, you all must remember that finding one was such a problem for us.

In some days, we will put a photo or two of our nice northern lion in our website. You'll be informed. THANK YOU VERY MUCH for your help. This mail list is quoted in the Aknowledgements at the credits of our play.

Thanks a lot.

Jose Maria Martinez
EL TEATRE DE L'HOME DIBUIXAT
http://www.infc.es/~teatre

Jose,

congratulations!

If you are ever in San Francisco, pls give me a call and I will take you out for a meal and if you have time, introduce you to the dance community here. I am also quite active with the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival which annually involves more than 100 dance groups in this area. Our Auditions are in January and the festival is 3 weekends in June. Check out our web site: www.worldartswest.org

David Lei - Chinese Performing Arts Foundation, San Francisco

Dear David,

I am planning to vistit San Francisco for the last two years!! The reason is I have a spanish friend that married a guy from San Francisco and they decided to live in that city after living some months in Spain. I tried to vistit them last august, but I had much work to do here. So maybe this next year 2000 I will take a plane to the States, I'm thinking a lot about it. You will be informed if my travel is made at last. A visit to you and the rest of liondancers would be very pleasant to me! Thanks for your kind invitation!

Jose Maria Martinez - El Teatre de l'Home Dibuixat (The Drawing Man Theater)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 04:40:43 -0500 (EST)
From: Atown888@aol.com
To: owner-liondance@freud.et.tudelft.nl
Subject: job well done
I would like to commend the David Lei and his dedicated staff of volunteers for a job well done in the planning and running of the first International Lion Dance Conference in North America. Thank you.

Dr. Doong Chang

whoops....sorry for resending an old posting by accident. sorry!

dr. doung chang

On Mon, 8 Nov 1999 Atown888@aol.com wrote:
> whoops....sorry for resending an old posting by accident. sorry!

You sent it to liondance-owner@freud.et.tudelft.nl, so I thought I'd just forward it to the list :-)

Regards,

Serhat Sakarya

Hi all!

I'm thinking about reskinning an old drum because the skin is cracking around the edges. I have a few questions about this that maybe someone on the list may have experience with. The drum is about 30 inches (approx 80 cm) in diameter. The body is in fairly good shape, but may need some reinforcing.

1) Will this even be worth trying or is buying a new drum better?

2) Since the old skin is already nailed on, causing a lot of holes in the top of the drum, after I take the old skin off would it be better to put the new skin on what is now the bottom of the drum and patch the holes, or would it be better to cut the layer of nail holes off and just make the drum shorter. Or is there a way to try to "reuse" the old holes? I guess part of the question is "is the top of the drum significantly different from the bottom of the drum?"

3) Is there a specific height/diameter ratio to lion dance drums?

4) When nailing the skin on I heard it was better to drill a hole first so the nails don't crack the wood of the drum. Would it be better to drill through wet skin or dry skin?

5) Is there a way to figure out where to place the tuning springs inside the drum?

6) Is it better to paint the drum before or after the skin is set?

7) On new lion dance drums I've seen the skin is not left "raw" white, but is painted or stained a dark brown color and sometimes there are Chinese characters pained on top of this--how is this achieved?

8) What is a fair price for a piece of cowhide that would be big enough to do the job?

I've read the brief description in Dr. Hu's book and studied the diagram, and also have been reading up on how the Japanese skin their taiko drums. Both seem similar and pretty straightforward and I feel comfortable trying, but are there any "tips or tricks" that people who have been through the process can offer that would make it easier?

Thanks for any offerings!

Chris

-Jj

P.S. Would anyone know the chronological history of the lion dance teams that existed back in Oakland?

Hey Joker,

I think I remember that event! Kwong Fa marketplace was located @ 10th and Webster The man who ran the lion dance performance was a gentleman named Daniel Leung! The only place that might have the pictures would be the Chinese Times newspaper in San Francisco.

" M "

Hi everyone,

My troupe has recently come into a nice amount of money, and we're looking to obtain a new set of liondancing equipment (our old lionhead is tattered, and was never meant for the type of liondancing that we've been performing ;-)). I was wondering if anyone knew where to get competition style liondance equipment complete with the leggings (and maybe those neat claws too!). I'm doubtful that I'll find a place around the New England area or even the east coast or southeast Canada. So, shipping from California seems to be our only option.

Oh, and for anyone who is interested, in the past 4 years, the troupe that I've started at my university has grown from four members with pots and pans to over twenty performing on tables and chairs. Woohoo! Lately, however, it has been quiet...with only on-campus performances.

Thanks in advance. :)

-Paul Hung
http://www.brandeis.edu/~lion

Paul,

Jonie Uniforms has a bunch of new lions. They are very good quality and most come with a set of pants. She has different styles (fat shan, malaysian..) Her number is 415-566-5566. Shipping from California is not that expensive. It will probably run around $90.

Good Luck.

John Wai
www.floridakungfu.com

Hi Folks,

Just some final updates...

There are 38 teams from all around Malaysia attending. All 3 Malaysian teams from the last Genting World Champs will be attending and they are the favourites.

The Competiton wil be held from the 26th to the 28th of November, the last day being the finals. 10 teams will proceed to the finals. The champion and the 1st runner up then will have the right to represent the country in Genting world champs 2000 (in July 2000).

The judges will attend a seminar/briefing last 2 days before the competition to bring everybody up to date on the rules and regulations. There will be 18 judges that will do the work while the others (10) will be observers/judge in training. The toughest job will the 10 point giving judges as they will have to judge through all 48 (38+10) performances!

As the general election for Malaysia is schedule to be held on the 29th of November, there will be some judges and peole who will not be able attend due to their commitments. Hopeful it will not affect the competition too much.

Well, that's all for now. I will be going over(hopefully!) to Genting on the 23rd of November. The 2 teams from my group will be in the competition and I hope they will do their best. I will try to get a report on the competiton as soon as I get to a internet equiped PC. Bye for now.

George,
Sabah, Malaysia

hi chris,

sounds like fun and a labor of love.

thundering taiko web page has a good examples on how to make and skin a tiako drums..

if you have now holes in the drum you could still be ok..

sounds like this drum is very old and dry.. hitting the edge or rim will not help a drum like this.

you can buy a decent drum for 150 to 200 $ in sf.

the bottom rim of the drum my not be as strong as the top. you have to make that call after you open it up.. condition of the wood and size of all the nail holes.

I would think the bottom of the drum is always scraping the ground and would not be perfect enough.

>4) When nailing the skin on I heard it was better to drill a hole first so
>the nails don't crack the wood of the drum. Would it be better to drill
>through wet skin or dry skin?

yes true on the wood part... your skin should be stretched and dry before you tact it down. ( i have no expericence here but this is what i would do)

>5) Is there a way to figure out where to place the tuning springs
>inside the drum?

i do not think it matters that much .. i think center of drum if possible .. if you could move them around and hear a difference go with the sound you like best.

>6) Is it better to paint the drum before or after the skin is set?

dry dry dry.. and set.

>7) On new lion dance drums I've seen the skin is not left "raw" white, but
>is painted or stained a dark brown color and sometimes there are Chinese
>characters pained on top of this--how is this achieved?

i've hear tung oil...... i would use a water base paint.

>8) What is a fair price for a piece of cowhide that would be big enough to
>do the job?

check the thundering taiko page .. he has some links to leather seller on the web

good luck..... chris.. i also have a few drum that need new skins... keep me posted on your progress on this project we can exchange idears.

layton ( yellow river drummer)

chris: you will find the information in these sites helpful.

---Dr. Doung Chang

Taiko Resource: Stretching Drum Heads

Taiko Resource: Making Your Own Taiko