Lion Dance Performance with Chris Young and Steel Dragon Lion Dance Troupe

Join Chris Young , owner of Gong Lung or Steel Dragon, a martial arts and lion dance studio in Ice House Studios in Lawrenceville, along with his Lions Dance troupe for an outdoor live Lion Dance performance on the Manse lawn across from Mt. Lebanon Public Library, 16 Castle Shannon Blvd, Pittsburgh, PA 15228.

The lion dance has a continuous history of over one thousand years, and its origins may reach back more than two thousand years. Many stories surround the lion dance and its origins. One of the more popular ones is that an Emperor of China had a dream where a creature resembling a lion saved his life from evil spirits. When he woke, he declared the lion a symbol of good fortune. However, since lions are not native to China, artisans had no idea what they look like. As a result, they fashioned an animal with the attributes of other fortunate creatures: the dragon, the phoenix and the dog.

There is perhaps no art that encompasses Chinese culture, history and philosophy more comprehensively than lion dance. Over its long history, lion dance has incorporated elements of Chinese opera, classics of Chinese literature, Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian philosophies, Five Element theory, all sorts of varieties of symbolism from Chinese (and most specifically Cantonese) society, and Chinese martial arts.

The lion dance is now an integral part of not just Chinese culture, but of many Southeast Asian cultures such as Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese. In fact, the most famous teams are probably from Malaysia.