Feedback:
Wanted to say a huge thank you for the workshop last week, Chinese ribbon dance.
It was fantastic and all the children loved it!
The presentation was informative and interesting and engaged all our children, nursery and reception and the dance was spectacular.
Thank you again; I hope we can rebook something similar in the future
Steph Mayar
Hillcross primary school, Surrey.
Red Fan Dance kicked off a China Week at our Infant School. What a brilliant start it was! All the children had huge smiles on their faces as they performed and they loved dancing with the ribbons! They talked about how much they had enjoyed it for the rest of the week! I would not hesitate to book them again.
Katie Briggs
Brimington Manor Infant and Nursery School, Chesterfield
Chinese Ribbon Dance Workshop
One of the most dramatic forms of Chinese dance is the ribbon dance in which a dancer uses hand held ribbons to accentuate her hand and arm movements. The dancer whirls the ribbons around her in large circular movements, snapping them like whips.
According to Chinese Legend, the Ribbon Dance is inspired by the dream of a Chinese Emperor. The Emperor dreamed that he was in the moon palace with many fairies. The fairies were wearing long, flowing, colorful robes and were singing and dancing.
The ribbon dance is based on a colorful, theatrical style of Chinese dance. The flying ribbons are symbols of joy and happiness. Participants learn and perform ribbon dances to traditional Chinese music and, if so desired, the sessions can be linked to Chinese New Year or other important festival.
Ribbon dance is suitable for mixed genders and all levels.
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Chinese Silk Fan Dance
Fans enjoy a long history of about 3 to 4 thousand years in China. Chinese fans today are made of a variety of materials, including bamboo, silk, feathers, leaves and either painted or unpainted paper. In the ancient times, dancers liked to hold fans while dancing, and the preference has been handed down until now. The fan dance has become a dancing art with distinctive Chinese characteristics.
Fan dance is the dance performed with one or two fans. This form has been adapted in various countries.
The Chinese fan dance is known for its beautiful and delicate poses and is an excellent represents of Chinese traditional culture. It represents beauty, grace and delicacy. It also expresses feelings of joy. The dance is composed of consistently changing rhythms paired with consistently changing body positions. Fan dances are generally divided into folk dances and formal classical dances.Feather fans and silk fans both are part of the traditional Chinese dance that has its roots in the Han Dynasty, circa 206 BC.
In the fan dance workshop, participants learn and perform fan dances with traditional Chinese music. It is suitable for mixed genders and all the levels.
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Kung Fu Fan Dance
Kung Fu fan dance, sometimes also called the tai chi fan dance, is an internal art combining elegant Tai Chi moves with Fan technique. These dances add beauty to traditional tai chi chuan exercises or kung fu exercises. Kung fu fan dances are often woven into fighting styles where heavier fans are used as weapons.
The kung fu fan routine we teach is Chen-Style Tai Chi Fan, which is based on the Chen-Style Tai Chi. The whole routine consists of four sections, harmoniously forceful and soft, alternatively fast and slow, particularly simple and elegant. Its practice effect is the same to Chen-Style fist and instruments though they are different in approach. The fan is portable for practice everywhere.
The graceful and easy routine benefits practitioners by strengthening the immune systems, regulating the circulatory systems, improving the respiratory systems, and balancing the nervous. It improves physical strength, calms the mind, releases stress from the nerves and cultivates energy through the flowing Fan Dance.
This course is designed for practitioners of all levels, beginner to advance.
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Chinese Waist Drum Dance
The Waist Drum Dance originated in Northern Shaanxi Province of midwest China, in the middle of the Loess Plateau, cutting off from the surrounding areas either by the Yellow River or by cultural and ethnic factors. Nurtured in such a geographically isolated place, the Waist Drum has developed its own distinct features.
The Waist Drum dance is a unique, large-scale folk dance with a history of more than 2,000 years. Like a hurricane sweeping across the yellow earth, the dance displays the unsophisticated and wild character of peasant life on the Loess Plateau, revealing its unique artistic charm. It can also be found in many ceremonies of important events or festivals, in which people prayed for godly blessings and good harvests.
The Waist Drum dance is an extremely impressive spectacle that consists of vigorous dances and leaps accompanied by frenetic drumming. The dancers brandish drumsticks decorated with red silk-ribbons and beat drums that are tied to their waists while dancing with joy. The dance manifests vigorous movements to the accompaniment of rhythmic drumbeats. At the climax of the dance, dancers beat drums while jumping in the air and yelling "Hai hai!"
Much like the people and landscape of Loess Plateau, the drum dance is straightforward, uninhibited and displays a deep passion for life.
Waist drum dance is suitable for mixed genders and all levels
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Chinese Dragon Dance
The history of the Dragon Dance can be dated back to the Han Dynasty (180-230 AD) in ancient China and, like the lion dance, plays an important part in Chinese culture. The Dragon itself has always been regarded as a Sacred creature, symbolizing power, courage, righteousness and dignity amongst others. For this reason, the Chinese show great respect towards the dragon, and have always referred themselves as being Descendants of the Dragon as a sign of ethnic identity.
The dance signifies the end of the year and welcoming a new start, driving away evil spirits, bringing good luck and fortune to the people.
The Dragon Dance has always been a great spectacle to watch and is usually performed on big occasions or grand openings, especially during the Chinese New Year celebrations.
A Dragon Dance requires many dancers due to its sheer size and length. In the dance, a term of dancers hold poles on the dragon, and the leader hold a pearl. The whole team imitates the movements of a dragon in sinuous, undulating, jumping postures to show Chinese dragon’s power and dignity.
In order to make a Dragon Dance successful and entertaining, the dancers must properly coordinate their movements with each other, thus correct timing is crucial to avoid tangling up or falling over. A mistake from any one person can disrupt other dancers as this creates a "ripple effect", which would spoil the performance. Equally important is the precise timing between the Pearl, Dragon's head and the tail. The Pearl initiates the pattern of moves for the Dragon's head and body, whilst the tail keeps in time with the head movements.
The movements are based on footwork and hand coordination to execute different combination of patterns. Each team member must be able to leap, crouch and change the direction and pace of movements, requiring discipline, stamina and a substantial amount of practice.
Dragon dance is suitable for mixed genders and all levels
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Chinese Long Sleeve Dance
The Long-Sleeve Dance bloomed in ancient China especially in Han Dynasty as a way for royalty, nobles and officials to celebrate any grand occasion. Young women, wearing dresses with long, elegant sleeves, would dance to imitate the movement of fairies, and the ripples of water and air.
In modern times, Peking Opera made long sleeve technique substantial progress, and become to a unique stunt. The long sleeves are the kind of extension of actors’ gesture and the enlargement of the emotion.
There are several hundred kinds of gestures in the long sleeves dance has, too numerous to cite individually. Such as: throw the sleeve, wield the sleeve, flick the sleeve, throw the sleeve, raise the sleeve, swing the sleeve, fling the sleeve, the back sleeve, the pendulum sleeve, brush off the sleeve, fold the sleeve, build the sleeve, circle the sleeve, pull up the sleeve, the booklet sleeve, select the sleeve, turn the sleeve and so on
Long sleeves dance is facing to girls only and in medium and advanced level
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Chinese Round Fan Dance
Round fan is the silk fan populated in Qing Dynasty. The full-moon shape led to it being called the round fan. For a time, this type fan was popular among young ladies in the royal court or who came from wealthy families.
The round fan dance typical characters of finest ladies in Qing dynasty full of the features of Chinese ancient female dance. The main expression is the mellow but veiled movements. In the dance we can imagine the Qing dynasty ladies walk around：their graceful steps, constitutional reserve and peace and stability attitudes. Ladies dance with deliberate steps, bring out a noble and elegant feeling, highlighted by lively and natural movements with constantly changing rhythm.
The round fan dance is for girls only
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Chinese Handkerchief Dance
Handkerchiefs are typical Han Group dance props. Handkerchief dance is a folk dance most representative in China, which is smooth, happy and compact in rhythm. It has jolly scene, abundant dance language, exuberant gestures, and vivid performing style.
The Handkerchief skills and body techniques are originating from a Yangko dance, a song-and-dance duet popular in Northeast China and developed from Jiqu Opera. Traditionally, the handkerchief had either four or eight corners. It can be waved and turned inside out, shaken, held up, kicked, thrown, or propped up with a finger. It is famous for its skilful and difficult motions. In the past few years, this kind of dance has spread all over China, becomes to a popular types of art among ordinary people in their daily lives.
Handkerchief dance is more suitable for girls.
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Chinese Umbrella Dance
In ancient China, the umbrella was not only a day-to-day appliance, but also with sociological significance. In late Wei Dynasty, umbrella was used in official ceremonies and rites. The umbrella dance emerged at that time, generally performed in religious and traditional ceremonies at beginning.
Umbrella dance mainly populated in the south are of China. The basic actions include: roll the umbrella; hold the umbrella and turn the umbrella. The key feature is bending the knees, keep low position and dance lap the umbrella all around. Umbrella dance has a strong Yangzi flavor.
Umbrella dance is suitable for girls only in all levels
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Chinese Dance Workshop for professionals or medium to advanced level
We also offer the dance workshop of professional Chinese classical dance and ethnic dance. For example, all the dances motioned above in a professional level, and also, Peacock dance of Dai group; Chopsticks dance of Mongolia group; skirt dance of Yi group; tambourine dance of Uygur group, and so on
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