At a law firm in the centre associated with Singapore’s Central Business District, an offer is being struck. Large drums clang such as the opening bell upon Wall Street.
The exchange is made: a heavily bearded lion bounds, bows plus takes a small red packet of money in return for wealth, good fortune and prosperous business for the season ahead.
The particular lion dance, a traditional routine where performers disguised as the auspicious feline perform choreographed moves to bring good fortune, are a familiar part of Singapore’s festive landmarks, Lunar New 12 months, Mid-Autumn Festival, or the launch of a new business.
But for three years the Lion City dropped its lions. Outbreak shutdowns put the halt to the conventional routine and saw many lion dancing troupes hang up their particular maned masks permanently. Now, as company returns in full golf swing to mark the lunar new 12 months, a rise in business clients and dwindling resources mean that inadequate manpower could fail to meet roaring requirement.
“Whenever Chinese Brand new Year comes these people call, ” stated Chan Yekway, a long-time lion dancer, referring to the businesses, families and charities that seek them away during the festive time period. “Clients call me up, but We say ‘not promising, have to confirm. ’ If you have no manpower, no point getting [a lion dance]. That is why manpower is so essential. ”
Chan is element of Singapore’s first lion dance troupe, the particular Hok San Clan troupe, which nevertheless operates out of the terraced shophouse on Kreta Ayer Road which were the clan’s primary headquarters. He has been a lion dancer since he was 12 years old.
Right now 67, he is component of a core group of Hok San family members who business lead lion dances pertaining to businesses, charities, plus residents of Singapore’s Housing Development Table public condominiums. Most of his peers through his most recent occasion, an office visit to have an insurance company, are about his age.
The association has 200-300 committee members, but only about 60 lion dancers. Of these, Chan estimates only about 10 of them are in their particular teens or early twenties.
“Look about, all the others, they are all grey-haired like me, ” he said having a laugh.
Lion dances have been practised in Singapore since the 1st half of the nineteenth century, when labourers who emigrated from China’s southern provinces imported the custom from their home country. Within China, lion dances had been a part of imperial history and well-known culture since the Tang Dynasty (619 – 906 AD).
Much later on in Singapore’s Chinatown, a network of clans, associations plus secret societies set root as a way to create connections and safety amongst the new immigrants. Many of the city-state’s first lion dance troupes were affiliated with a Chinese association. The particular lion dance had not been only a form of entertainment, but an important community event.
Many of the dance’s choreographed moves are motivated by traditional martial arts such as wushu (kung fu). Some martial arts centres also run lion dance classes and everything lion dance troupes are legally needed to register under the Singapore Wushu, Dragon & Lion Dance Federation for a licence to execute.
Amounts of registrations have been continuously falling over the past 10 years: in 2015, worried after a 5% drop in applications, the Nam Sieng Monster and Lion Dance activity centre asked lion dancers through Vietnam, but they were stopped under the Ministry of Manpower’s immigrant policy at Singapore’s customs.
Perceptions of the lion dance as a community-based cultural activity implies that, unlike wushu, this fails to be recognised as a competitive sport at major online games, depriving practitioners associated with opportunities for awards and prize earnings.
Modern schedules also raise hurdles. The majority of Hok San’s artists balance lion dancing commitments with day jobs or research, meaning that when a booking comes in for a weekday, it is left to Chan and other elderly people to take up the hair.
With manpower stretched, demand is at a high. As many households and companies embraced Lunar New Year celebrations for the first time since Covid-19 restrictions were first put in place in 2020, demand for lion dances spiked simply by 30%. With amounts of troupes diminished since the pandemic, existing groupings are overwhelmed, plus some have been forced to turn down requests.
Auspicious times calculated according to feng shui, an ancient Chinese language practice aimed at harmonising individuals with their environment, are hotly contested and can lead to peaks in bookings focused around certain points of the festive two-week period of Lunar Brand new Year.
Chan has additionally seen an increase in popularity from business clients, businesses hiring lion dancers in order to bestow the Five Blessings of historic Chinese spirituality – longevity, wealth, health insurance and composure – on the offices and workers. Hired lion dances will take a visit of the office as well as for a donation of oranges and profit a festive crimson ang-bao packet workers can receive an individual “desk blessing”. The particular lion will “pluck the green” within a lobby or conference room, a practice where the animal mimes eating a lettuce or another green veggie, then spits it out.
Some businesses source “contemporary lion dances” with LED lights, or hip-hop moves.
Edwin Color, director and main instructor of the Pho Leng Lion Dancing Instruction Centre, estimations most of his major clients are huge hotels and large corporations, such as worldwide logistics and shipping company DHL.
A lifelong dancer, he admits that the tough actual nature of the practice makes it a tough profession.
“It’s not easy cash. If you want to be a lion dancer, you have to be extremely aggressive. You have to be extremely firm, ” Bronze said.
Unlike Hok San, which performs many of its lion dances pro bono, and pools the funds from corporate income into the association, Pho Leng operates as being a private company plus commercial business, taking commissions and having to pay their dancers a good hourly rate for each event.
Business is good (“very good – my guys are intending holidays! ”) plus Pho Leng can charge up to $488 for two lions to visit with regard to 15 minutes. A costumed “God of Fortune” can be hired for an additional fee and commissions are earned through ang-bao donations. On an average lunar new year period Tan estimates their troupe can take within about $100, 500.
Though the commercial factors came later, like Chan, Tan had been initiated into lion dancing young.
His father – the businessman who sold jellyfish across Southeast Asia – authorized his sons on with self-defence lessons on the local Wushu fighting techinques centre, which furthermore ran dragon plus lion dance exercising. There, the 12-year-old Alvin “discovered that lion dancing had been my passion”.
He fixed himself a goal to master the art from your centre’s elders. Once his national assistance ended, he set up his own lion dance instruction centre. Today, at 56 years old, he has mentored more than 300 “disciples”, dancers he has trained, a few of whom have long gone on to start their own centres.
He also found a good unconventional recruitment route through his day time job as an detective at the Singapore Police Force. He would meet previous gang members who have been struggling to find employment within Singapore’s hyper-competitive employment market and offer them apprenticeships.
Now when they are overbooked during active festive periods, he refers the business to other lion dancers he has worked with. For your pet, the lasting provides between lion dancers goes deeper than sharing an outfit.
“Whatever problem they have got I am always there for them, ” he said.
For Chan with Hok San, the activity is more than the usual job or sports activity, “it is an talent. ” His very first six months of instruction were unexpected, and didn’t involve just one move, at least on his part.
“I was given a pet cat and a ball of string, ” he recalls. “For six months, they told me to play along with him, watch your pet, study his techniques. Now, when I execute my lion dance, my moves are his. I try to become him. ”
In the years ahead, he recognises the need to adapt for the current modern lifestyle in order to attract new members. The organization partners with youth clubs, charities plus seniors groups along with simplified routines, to teach interested participants the basics.
“This is the long term of the lion dancing, ” he said. “We have to enhance the interest. If you don’t do anything, if you don’t inform them about it, you will expire. ”
For Tan, the approach is more in-line with the direction of a growing modern lion dance market. He or she is already planning for his next commission, a lion dance in order to celebrate the IPO of investment company Singapore Exchange.
“It’s becoming more commercialised, of course it’s become more commercialised, ” he said. “But we have to make money to survive. ”
