As the world entered the year of the sheep, a performance to remember throughout this lunar year was put on by the students of the Chinese Student Association. The family oriented performance, which took place in Edison Theater this past Friday and Saturday, celebrated the arrival of the New Year with an eclectic blend of ancient tradition, seasoned with a healthy dollop of urban sensibility and hip hop-influenced modern dance and fashion. Viewers were left breathless and awestruck by the caliber of production, performance, and talent of the individual performers. The festival was quite a success, overcoming its moments of tackiness with a plethora of tastefully done performances.
The show opened somewhat meekly, with televised messages from Chancellor Wrighton, who missed the event due to other obligations, and a few other University figures, none of whom were actually present. When the actual performance began, however, all traces of mediocrity were quickly forgotten. The opening number was a traditional Lion Dance. This ancient ritual, which most people have seen in some form or another, consisted of two two-man dance teams that collaborated to pilot a large dragon costume. With one man under the head and another shepherding the body, the performers worked together deftly, displaying both elegant choreography and athletic exuberance. The performance was particularly well complimented by the tightly unified drumming of two percussionists, whose stylings combined traditional rhythms with moments of urban hip-hop sound. The first act represented the main theme of the night, a tasteful fusion of traditional eastern and that of the west.
The acts were tied together with short skits, hybrids between sketch comedy and factoids about Chinese culture. Although not terrible, these were the low points of the show, perhaps because they seemed to attempt to appeal to a younger demographic and create a family mood. Somehow, the sketches seemed to be somewhat contrived. Elementary school humor prevailed, but not the squeaky clean variety, as performers resorted to butt slapping, nipple pinching, and even, in one particularly unfortunate scene, an exclamation of “Not my balls!” The sketches did, however, lighten the mood a bit.
Several other dance numbers followed the Lion Dance throughout the evening. The second of the evening, the Hip-Hop dance, was perhaps the least “Chinese” in the traditional sense, but provided an interesting contrast to many of the more traditional performances. With impressive student choreography done by Nancy Kim and Noah Park, the Hip-Hop performance looked like something straight out of a top-forty pop video. I must admit it was odd to hear “Aww Naw” by the Nappy Roots mixed into a medley of Chinese music, but the performance was pulled off by the charismatic “guy-girl” interplay that characterizes so much of modern pop and hip hop dancing.
Other successful dance numbers included a Lantern Dance and an elegant Chopstick Dance, in which utensils where turned into nifty percussion instruments. A Modern Dance and a Male Comedy Dance segment were also performed impressively and without a hitch. A true highlight of the dancing evening, however, was undoubtedly the Ribbon Dance, a traditional performance featuring female performers with long silky strips of fabric that were manipulated to create a somewhat surreal, dreamy effect. Choreographed by Jessica Lin and Juliet Fong, the piece was the culmination of work that began long before the New Year was even in sight. According to Fong, the work started last fall with the dancers meeting twice a week to work on the routine. This semester they continued practicing nearly every night up until the performance. The hard work and dedication of everyone involved in all aspects of the performance showed throughout the evening, and the ribbon dance was no exception.
To break up all the dancing, the evening was interspersed with other facets of traditional Chinese culture. A martial arts section of the evening featured a Tai Chi sword routine, which blended graceful elegance of motion with the use of weaponry. The slow, refined Tai Chi served as a warm up for the energetic martial arts performance. Although there were a few silly moments, the martial arts segment proved titillating.
The neatest part of the show, though, was certainly the Chinese yo-yo portion. An age-old form of both entertainment and performance art, the Chinese yo-yo consists a of a string with two handles and a loose wooden yo-yo which can be spun, tossed, and swirled every which way to create a rather striking visual display. A few small errors in the performance were more than made up for by the technical difficulty of some of the throws and tricks attempted, to which writing can hardly do justice. The yo-yo performance, appropriately in the middle of the show, could easily be considered the production’s climax.
Overall, it could not be said that this years Chinese New Year Festival was anything other than a success. Mixing old with new, this year’s performance was smart and modern while respectful of tradition. For those of you who missed it, I recommend seeing it next year, and I wish you all a very happy Year of the Sheep.

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