For Chinese New Year, Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault organized a truly multicultural show, featuring many ethnic performers and musical styles in Vancouver. But more importantly was the intercultural representation. Caucasian Willy Miles is singing in Mandarin Chinese. Non-African ethnic dancers are performing traditional African dance with Jackie Essombe. The stilt walkers are every ethnicity including mixes. And of course the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team features Scottish and Chinese ancestry + everything in-between and everything beyond – photo Deb Martin
Still Moon Arts Stilt walkers meet the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon dancers. The stilt walkers are children and young teens led by Carman Rosen, who has also performed celtic music at the 2005 Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner. – photo Deb Martin.
Kathy Gibler, executive director of Dr. Sun Yat Sen Gardens, Ellen Woodsworth – Vancouver City Councilor, prepare to help make opening speeches with Dr. Jan Walls – MC for the show and performer of Chinese clapper tales – photo Deb Martin
Bonnie Soon leads Uzume Taiko through some very exciting rhythmic drumming perfomances. Uzume Taiko often performs with bagpipers. Bonnie and I talked, and I hope we can feature them at a future Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner one year – photo Todd Wong
Chinese Lion stilt dancers! In one of the crazy moments of beautiful serendipity, I offered my Lion Dance costume to the Sill Moon Arts stilt walkers, for a photo prop… and the next thing we knew, another stilt walker offered to be the tail, and presto! The very first Chinese Lion stilt walkers!!! The kids had so much fun, it is always a joy to see them. – photo Todd Wong
Jessica Jone is a classically trained dancers – she has studied Chinese classical and Chinese folk dancing as well as Western classical and contemporary dancing. She always smiles and has incredible presentation. – photo Todd Wong
Dancers from the Jessica Jone dance school come on stage for a wonderful fan dance. I love the colour and movement. – photo Todd Wong
Jacky Essombe and The Makalas perform traditional African Dance. The weather was so cold you could see Jacky's hot breath steam into the cold air. But they brought so much high energy, you just felt warmer while seeing them work so hard – photo Todd Wong
Here's a group shot with almost everybody on stage. The dancers posed for pictures, and so we brought the dragon to stand behind them. Soon everybody was in the picture!
Here we pose with Qiu Xia He, organizer of this great event. Left to right: Todd Wong, Devon Cooke, Qiu Xia, Dave Samis, hidden are Brooke and Deb – photo Marion
Here's our dedicated group of Dragon Boat paddler dragon dancers! Todd Wong, Deb Martin, Brooke Samis, Dave Samis and Devon Cooke. – photo Marion.