This post was updated Nov. 12 at 1:20 p.m.
A Lion Dance team will be blessing the festivities of an upcoming auspicious occasion.
Held in Los Angeles State Historic Park, the Making Memories Festival – a multicultural event that plans to showcase local bands and eats from LA-based food trucks – will feature a special appearance from the Association of Chinese Americans’ Lion Dance troupe on Nov. 12. To support awareness for Alzheimer’s during the month, the half-day festival intends to celebrate diversity across the city amid its efforts to advocate for families who experience dementia-related diseases, which Laura Kubiatko said she was happy to witness.
“Bringing more awareness (about Alzheimer’s) across the board to different cultures and communities is really important,” said Kubiatko, a coordinator of ACA Lion Dance. “It’s really great to see that a lot of organizations are focusing on that, especially regarding health care and inequities with health care. … This festival is allowing multiculturalism to really shine and be an aspect.”
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Kubiatko, a fourth-year civil engineering student, said the mission of ACA Lion Dance is to encourage Bruins to embrace their Chinese heritage – including second- or third-generation students who may not feel as connected to their culture. Typically performed at martial arts schools, lion dancing has traditionally been a competitive, male-dominated artform, she said. However, the ACA Lion Dance team prioritizes inclusivity and sharing the beauty of the art form through its storytelling, she said.
At the Making Memories Festival, ACA Lion Dance will be performing both of their standard routines, said Samuel Lu, who is also a coordinator of ACA Lion Dance. The first, Namsi, begins with one lion swishing its head over the threshold of the venue three times before jumping through, the third-year applied mathematics and computer science student said, with this process occurring as many times as there are lions. Within the Namsi routine is a move called Sambai in which the lions will create a circular bowing motion toward the ground three times, facing each of three ways, Lu said. These circles pay homage to the three heavenly directions recognized in Chinese culture, Kubiatko said.
Namsi also incorporates interactive elements, with the lions making their way around the audience, who will feed them red envelopes as a symbol of good luck, Lu said. An eating sequence also occurs, where the Buddha character feeds the lions lucky candy or cabbage, Lu added. Members of the crowd who receive an opportunity to touch the cabbage or eat the candy are also granted luck, Lu said.
“Our style of southern Chinese lion dancing is said to be used traditionally to bless venues and scare away evil spirits,” Lu said. “This is an art form that has since then evolved to be used a lot at events to bring good vibes and blessings.”
The second routine ACA Lion Dance will perform, Malay, starts and ends with the Malay bows, three bows to pay respect to both the venue and audience, Lu said. In the storyline of Malay, two lions will first engage in fighting by circling each other, Lu said, which then leads into a sequence surrounding the sawhorse, a form of altar. This sequence depicts the winning lion cleaning the sawhorse before retrieving a flower from the altar and gifting it to the losing lion, Lu added. Usually, the winning lion will perform a stunt by placing a blessing scroll with Chinese characters on its tail, then dropping it, he said.
“We want to represent the energy of the dance form,” Lu said. “Although we are very non-competitive and focus more on just the cultural and social side of lion dancing, the routines … require a certain level of cardio and sports capabilities, which we train the members up to.”
The intensity of the training process to prep mostly novice incoming lion dancers for events like the Making Memories Festival has been a large undertaking for ACA Lion Dance, Kubiatko said. Last year, the dance coordinators struggled with simultaneously teaching Namsi, which primarily new dancers perform, and Malay, which returning dancers perform, Kubiatko said. However, the club has implemented procedures to facilitate learning choreography more efficiently, Kubiatko added, since the moves may be unfamiliar to anyone without martial arts training.
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Live instrumentals will complement the performances by adding energy and setting the atmosphere, Lu said. The drum, in particular, is recognized as the heartbeat of the lion, he said, since the lions typically follow the beat of the drum to guide the course of the show. Lu added that the drums and the cymbals have traditionally been used in Chinese culture to scare away evil spirits, with the instrumentals playing the same role in their performances.
In the past, the organization has performed at a variety of occasions, including birthday parties, weddings and corporate events, said alumnus Brian Le, a former coordinator of ACA Lion Dance. However, for Le, the goal has never been to book as many performances as possible. Rather, he said performances at events similar to the Making Memories Festival connect with the organization’s values and create a greater impact.
“The vision that I always had for the team is for us to create the most well-rounded experience for college students who are interested in or have a passion for lion dance,” Le said. “This festival really tied in well with those values … (by) just caring about these larger issues and having the privilege to spread awareness for these larger issues.”
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