Once again we have survived what is typically the most busy day of the year for the Lion Dance team. The day began with a frantic rehearsal at 8:30 before the Lil Leopards class. From there Sifus Clements, Davies, and Robertson headed off to Onoway with Kwan Kung for the Heritage Days parade for 10:00 am. Sifus Freitag, Dennis, Playter, Adams, Webb, Edge, Masterson, and myself were off to the Stony Plain Farmers Days Parade with Sihing Harrigan and Mr. Turlock to perform with Liu Bei and Zhang Fei.
What looked to be a potentially very wet day turned out to be incredibly muggy and hot. The parade was exhausting work for the lion dancers judging by the amount of sweat they were generating. Sifu Edge even took a turn as a tail to give everyone a much needed break. Once again being a "walking float" proved to be a challenge when it came to keeping up with the rest of the parade. Creative dancing interjected with all out sprints was the order of the day. Special recognition goes out to Sihing Ben Davies who pulled the drum rickshaw for the entire distance and Ms. Brenda Williams who ferried the candy to Liu Bei and Zhang Fei for the entire parade.
After the Stony Plain parade ended, the Stony Plain team loaded up to join the Onoway team for a demonstration at Heritage Days. Sifus Clements and Robertson performed with Kwan Kung with Sifu Davies performing as the Little Buddha. Myself and Sifus Freitag and Dennis provided the drums, gong, and cymbals. The performance went well with the only hitch being the final negotiation between Sifu Clements and myself to end the dance. Since we hadn't worked together for a while it took us a while to communicate our intentions at the end of the dance. The audience didn't notice a thing while we successfully reached an agreement and finished off the performance. We were lucky to have had our performance take place in the "eye of the storm" - blue sky above us while totally surrounded by massive storm clouds. The Chinese Lion Dance truly brings good luck.
Sifu Jeff Brinker
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