A student balances on a picnic table in a grassy school courtyard, sweeping a long red ribbon into a loop above her head. Students stand watching in a ring around her, with the school's brick and glass frontage behind.

Asian Culture Club

A ribbon going up in the courtyard, with everyone watching.

Lion dance, fan dance and ribbon dance. Every photograph on this site is the club's own, from something the club was doing.

Lion dance

Lion dance is done at Lunar New Year, and at openings, weddings and anything else that could use some luck: the lion is there to bring it, and to frighten off whatever bad luck was hanging about. Two dancers share one costume, one working the head and one the tail, and they move to a drum, a gong and a pair of cymbals. The lion most often seen outside China is the southern lion, with a single horn, big blinking eyes and a small mirror on its forehead.

Students on a sunlit lawn handling two lion dance costumes. A blue and silver lion is held upright at the centre while a pink and white one crowds the right edge of the frame; a student at the left grins at the camera making a peace sign.
Both lions out on the lawn, waiting to start.
A student holds the head of a pink and white lion dance costume above her own head on grass outside a low brick school building. Two other students stand to the left with their backs to the camera, carrying a second costume.
Getting the lion's head up outside the building.

Fan dance

Fan dances are found right across East Asia. The Chinese fan dance is usually dated to the Han dynasty, about two thousand years ago; in it a folding fan is opened with a snap on the beat, so it is heard as well as seen. The Korean fan dance, buchaechum, is danced in a group, each dancer with a large peony-painted fan in either hand, and the fans are moved together so that they join into one shape: a wave, a flower opening, a butterfly.

A student stands in a school corridor holding a large hand-painted paper fan open in each hand, the fans trimmed with pink feathers. Behind her several more dancers are lined up with their own fans raised and spread wide.
Fans open in the corridor before we go on.
Students gathered around an indoor table holding large hand-painted fans edged in bright pink feathers. One reaches up to point at a small sign on the brick wall while the others look on, laughing.
The fans get painted before anyone dances with them.

Ribbon dance

The ribbon dance is usually traced to the Han dynasty as well. Each ribbon is a long strip of silk on a short rod, and the whole craft is keeping it in the air: a ribbon that stops moving falls, so one figure is drawn straight into the next without a pause, circles into spirals into figures of eight. Red is the usual colour, because red is the colour of luck and of celebration.

Students stand in a loose ring on a polished school lobby floor, each sweeping a long red ribbon through the air so the ribbons arc and loop between them. One dancer is seen from behind in the foreground.
Ribbons going round in a circle on the lobby floor.
Five students stand well apart in a school lobby with their backs to the camera, each whirling a long red ribbon overhead so the ribbons draw wide loops across the brick wall. Another student faces them from across the floor.
Ribbons overhead, spread right across the lobby.
Around a hundred students posed in deep rows on grass outside a long brick school building, bare winter trees behind them. Some wear white martial-arts uniforms with black belts, others sashes or long formal dress.
Almost everyone, out on the grass behind school.
About seventeen students crowded together in a classroom in front of a whiteboard hung with Spanish grammar posters. Many make peace signs or heart shapes with their hands, and one lies stretched across the floor at the front.
A meeting, packed into one classroom.
Around a hundred students packed into rows on the grass in front of a low brick school building under a blue sky with scattered cloud. Many make peace signs; at the left one sits up on another's shoulders.
The same group shot, from further back.
Nine students and an adult stand shoulder to shoulder in a single row across a classroom, a lit smartboard and a whiteboard behind them. Several make small heart signs with their fingers.
Everyone lined up along the front of the room.
A long table in a busy school hallway set with rows of lidded plastic cups of orange drink and bubble tea. Two students stand behind it serving; two more in front are handing over cash, with a crowded corridor stretching away behind them.
Selling drinks in the hallway between classes.
Eleven students posed in two rows in front of a silver fringe curtain hung with a LOVE banner, red heart balloons floating at either side. Each holds a paper photo-booth prop on a stick — lips, a moustache, glasses, a small lion's head.
The photo backdrop, and whatever props were left.

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