With the Lunar New Year starting on February 10, Canberra Prosperous Mountain Dragon and Lion Dance Group and its founder David Wong are in big demand. 

“In Asian cultures, we follow the lunar calendar, hence the different timings each year.

“We use Lion Dance in our performances as a vehicle to not only raise awareness about the Lunar New Year, but also to bring everybody together.” 

David says it brings him great joy to bring a sense of tradition to the annual festival as many migrants, including himself, feel they lose touch with such cultural experiences when arriving in a new country.

For Aimy Nguyen, this sentiment was very familiar. 

“I watched Michelle Law’s play ‘Miss Peony’ at the Canberra Theatre in August last year. It’s about a Chinese-Australian girl who is trying to better understand her relationship with her culture and her background after her grandmother passed away,” says Aimy.

“I felt inspired by that to try and have a better understanding of my own relationship with my heritage.”

Being half-Chinese, Aimy says lion dancing and dragon dancing during significant cultural holidays was something she grew up around and was always curious about. 

“I literally just jumped on Google, searched ‘Canberra Lion Dancing’ and found these guys,” she says. 

“They were really warm and welcoming.

“Being away from my family and not being able to really connect or speak my mother tongue around anybody made me feel really disconnected, so this is my way of trying to connect and have that relationship with my Chinese background.”

David says he started the group in 2007, due to mainly just homesickness when he moved to Canberra for work. 

“It was very hard in the first five or six years because there wasn’t much of a history around Lion Dance in Canberra but over time it snowballed.

“Lunar New Year is our biggest event in the calendar year, but over the summer period there’s lots of public festivals that we get invited to.

“We also do weddings throughout the year as well, we do a special performance to suit the wedding and to give them good luck.

“We do Harmony Day performances, we do performances for government departments, daycares as well, trying to improve their awareness and share the culture of lion dancing.”

The heads can weigh between four and five kilos, Aimy says.

“It’s full-body puppetry because you’re not only using your hands to control the movements of the head, you’re using the entire body to really mimic the movement of a lion,” she says.

The dragon is multi-person, sometimes seven to nine people, says David. 

“It kind of replicates the movement of a snake, it’s like a serpent that kind of wraps around and weaves and tumbles and all that kind of thing,” he says.

“Second to that is the lion, and that is two people, a front and the back, like a pantomime horse. 

“In terms of its significance, the dragon is a very holy and senior deity, and it’s brought to performances to bring lots of good luck, but also to scare off evil spirits. 

“The lion is doing the same thing as well, but to a more junior position to the dragon.

“Red symbolises prosperity and good health, gold is money, and the white furs symbolise seniority. 

“The drums and the cymbals and the gong add the atmosphere to the performance.

“Whilst the lion can provide some expression through the flapping of the eyes and mouth, the pace of the drumming adds to that emotion, and the whole audience gets that visual and audio experience.” 

David says the tradition of the percussion stems from the story of Nian, a dragon that would come and ravish the city, and so the people used drums, or pots and pans, to scare it off.

The costumes are made from paper mache and fibreglass and are all custom made, says David.

Generally, he says they get about two or three years of life from them.

“Once they’ve retired from performance use, we use them for training, once they’re too old to use for training, historically, you’re meant to burn them. 

“By burning them, you’re bringing the ashes back into the sky and they return back to heaven,” says David.

Upcoming performances are on the Canberra Prosperous Mountain Dragon and Lion Dance facebook page. To get involved, visit canberraliondance.com