The Way of the Dragon : Performing Traditional Chinese Dance Takes Health, Stamina
For a group of martial arts enthusiasts, everything came to a head in Chinatown on Saturday.
A dragon’s head, that is.
A team of martial arts students and teachers from the Yau Kung Mon Kung-Fu Institute performed at the Chinese New Year Festival and Parade in Chinatown on Saturday. The group, in colorful red and yellow uniforms, manned a 100-foot golden dragon to enact the ancient ritual of the Chinese dragon dance.
Bob Gin of Los Angeles owns the dragon, which is made of papier-mache, fiber and silk, and is mounted on wire baskets and poles to give it shape. It takes about two dozen people running, bobbing and weaving while holding the poles beneath the material of the dragon to produce the fluid movements of the animal--a task Gin says is not easy.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “After a while it gets very heavy.”
Gin, who is Chinese American, said he has been participating in the parade with his group for 10 years. He is the keeper of the two dragon heads and several lion’s heads that are used in the traditional dance.
The performers run in intricate formation as the dragon, a symbol of guardianship and strength, chases a “pearl,” which represents long life.
Richard Wan, a master kung fu instructor who has been training students in the art of Chinese dragon dancing for 25 years, said strength is what a good dragon dancer needs. The head alone weighs about 85 pounds.
“A person has to train for about a year,” Wan said Saturday as his students prepared to run the 2 1/2 mile trail of the parade. “They have to learn their kung fu and be strong and healthy to do it.”
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Wan has martial arts schools in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and San Mateo. Some of his students and former students traveled from other cities to Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday to participate in the parade.
Dusty Ferreiro, an instructor at Wan’s school in San Diego, has had the honor--and stamina--to be one of the controllers of the dragon head and said it is “a pretty good workout.”
The group performs in parades and festivals as far away as Las Vegas and members have caught glimpses of themselves performing in scenes from television shows such as “Simon and Simon” and movies like Jean Claude Van Damme’s “Double Impact.”
The dancers said Saturday that they enjoy participating in a time-honored tradition even if it is exhausting. Charlie Munday, a student from San Diego, pointed out that the dragon, like all good things, does come to an end.
“Don’t forget to mention the tail,” said Munday, who worked the back. “It gets mighty lonely back there.”