By Donovan Levine
Assistant Freeform Editor

The Chinese Club collaborated with ACE on Monday, Feb. 11 to celebrate the annual Chinese Lunar New Year here at KU.

This unique event was held in the MSU with food and music and was accompanied by men and women of the New York Traditional Arts Center dressed in Chinese attire. This included Hanfu dresses, Tang suits and other century-spanning Chinese attire, allowing for one to feel immersed in the spirit of the holiday.

The event itself consisted of about seven or eight stage acts. The traditional Chinese Lion Dance followed the opening introductions. This dance involves two performers, dressed in golden twin dragon costumes with large, bulbous eyes, flowing manes and embossed in paper mache-like feathers, encircling the stage. They didn’t need any help attracting plenty of laughter from the audience.

Following their act was a hip hop dance performed with choreographed moves backtracked by a Cardi B song duet. The purpose of this was to remind the audience that even hip hop culture has recently begun to slowly mesh with traditional Chinese culture.

Afterward came the “face changing” performance, where a magician dressed in several layers of matador-style cloaks and wore a mask changing in appearance at the wave of a fan.

Following, a Chinese elementary school student performed a piano solo that reminded the audience what young talent looked and felt like. They performed two songs called “The Crossroads Inn” and the “The Monkey King in the Dragon Palace,” each of which depicted a particular story of Chinese folklore of the early 10th century with immersive storytelling.

A magic show with a dazzling variety of tricks, involving interlocking metal rings, coke and paper, mirrors and flags and fire inside a baseless container, followed the student’s piano performance. The event concluded with the chorus from the Traditional Arts Center.

Between the several aesthetic stage acts, the intercultural storytelling, unique soundtrack selection and the enriching cultural experience, ACE and the Chinese Club once again put together a worthwhile event to wish everybody involved a Happy Chinese New Year.