Report on Cultural Activities 2007

Dancing & Wushu Groups

The students of both the Chinese Cultural Dancing Group and the Wushu Group presented their learning on various occasions in 2007. The Groups were fortunate to have some of the activities sponsored by City of Sydney under their Grants & Sponsorships Program announced in late 2006. The grant concluded in June 2007. This grant, being a Tier 2 – City Relationships Support, has been a recognition of the Groups being able to provide measurable benefits back to communities within Sydney, building a greater sense of community and providing cultural resources, contributing to a vibrant cultural and community life.

The 2007 dancing classes were instructed by Ms. Susan Xu. Susan choreographed a number of new dances for the classes this year. They included “I love you, my homeland” (Mongolian), “Snow Lotus from Highland” (Tibetan), “Straw Hat Dance” (Dai), “China Roses” (Han), “Peakcock Dance” (Bai), “Umbrella Dance” (Han), and “Celebrating Spring Festival” (Han).

Under new arrangement in 2007, Wushu classes were coached by Mr Andrew Fu. Classes were conducted in two streams, novice and squad, to meet different needs. Andrew coached the students various wushu forms, including contemporary and traditional individual and group forms, and bare-hand and weapons.

On 10 & 11 February 2007, CYL organised the Year of the Pig Chinese New Year Celebration for the City of Sydney at Belmore Park, Central. The Dancing Group and the Wushu Group attracted a large audience. The Dancing Group was able to present the debut of a range of new dances choreographed under the City of Sydney Grant.

On 17 & 18 February 2007,CYL organised the Chinese New Year Celebration for the Market City. It was another successful occasion and paved our way to organise the 2nd Lion Dance & Martial Art Festival on 7 July. The senior students of the Dancing Group presented a sword dance in special support for the festival.

On 22 September, both groups performed at the Chinatown Moon Festival celebrations at Darling harbour and at the Market City. The Dancing Group was in time to perform their first presentations of “China Roses” and “Celebrating Spring Festival”.

On 7 October, CYL held the 68th CYL Annual Dinner at Burwood RSL Club. Both the Dancing and the Wushu Groups performed to showcase their work. During that day, Dr Leng Tan, the CYL Vice President and the cultural director of CYL, was congratulated for the award of NSW Government commendation for her contribution to the community.

The Dancing group is well received by the Sydneysiders. The group was invited to perform at NSW Art Galley Family Day, also in support of the exhibition “Chinese Jade from the Forbidden City” and the Dragon Boat Racing at Darling Harbour. Early in the year, the group was prepared to combine the dance “Stepping into Songs & Rising to Dance” and the Lion and Dragon Dances into one integrated performance of some 40 people and put forward as an item for Tattoo Spectacular 2007 for their Sydney presentation on 5 May. Choreography and rehearsals have been undertaken but the show was unfortunately cancelled hours before the full dress rehearsal at Acer Arena (formerly the Sydney Superdome) on the day before the show due to the producer’s financial problem.

The class members and some parents worked closely with the Sub-committee in making these presentations possible and all the dancing class members did a very good job in making all the performances successful. The subcommittee also organised various events. In mid June, the Subcommittee organised the annual rice dumpling making as part of the Dragon Festival celebration. Since July, a new class for the senior members on health care exercises based on cultural dance themes was organised for Saturday. In October, a bush walk at Manly Dam was organised in conjunction with the Cantonese Opera Group. Many thanks to all the parents and friends who gave up their time and joined in attending the events.

In summary, 2007 was an eventful year for both the Dancing and Wushu Groups with many performances, new challenges and great support!