First major lion dance performance!

Our lion dance troupe, made it's first major public performance of the year, last night. We performed at the CNY Ball organised annually by the CNY Trust, which is a charity. The money from the ball will go into education funds for school kids in China. However, for us, it only meant one thing. This is our first major performance of the year. Don't screw it up!

The performance went well. For most of us, it was our first time doing it. Although it was not my first time in a performance, it was certainly my first time drumming. It was our lion's first outing and for many of the cymbalists, it was also their first time performing in public. I hoped that I didn't drop my drum sticks.

The performance went quite well. We didn't make any major screw-ups. Heck, I even managed to catch the signal for the bit of the 'qi shi' that we were having trouble with earlier. So, it was all good. I made several drumming blunders. However, unless the audience knew what to listen for, or were looking at my hands drumming, they shouldn't have noticed it. And man was it all very tiring.

The coolest bit of the act was the 'dan jiao', where the lion stands on only it's hind legs. They had so much trouble with it during the practice that when they managed to accomplish it the first time, we were all quite happy. The audience was estatic as well. They kept cheering us on during the act. I was told that the lion was particularly cute. But seeing that I was busy watching out for signals, I didn't really catch much of the show myself! Boo. But I'm fairly certain that we were quite impressive if not excellent!

We had many friends among the audience as well. And they were all fairly supportive. I heard some people call my name but couldn't really see anyone seeing that the stage lights were on. Apologies to my friends who didn't get any response from me. Since I didn't even know who/where you were! And thanks for the grand applause anyway!

Okay, now I've got to look forward to the other half a dozen or so performances that we have left for this month. I hope that I won't screw-up so much in the future. As a former music teacher and piano performer, I know what needs to be done to work out the kinks. It just takes a little more practice and a little more getting used to.

** image from wikipedia **