The lion dancing women reinventing a Chinese tradition, showing it’s not just a ‘sport for boys’

Growing up in Philadelphia, Cassandra Liu was entranced by the stories her parents told of the lion dances they watched when they were children in Taiwan. But the versions Liu saw at her school’s Chinese New Year celebrations left something to be desired: performed with good intentions but a limited budget, the “dancers” would parade around draped in a blanket with cardboard boxes over their heads.

When she did finally see a proper lion dance, in Philadelphia’s Chinatown, it was “amazing”, she says. An athletic child, she was eager to join the team. But her mother’s response was a fast and inflexible: no.

“She said it was too far and too dangerous,” Liu says. Her mother’s other big concern was that lion dancing was “a sport made for boys”.

Today, the 26-year-old is living in Southern California. Not only is she a lion dancer, but she is also the captain of her troupe and is using her position to make sure that no aspiring lion dancer is ever discouraged like she was. She insists that no matter what your background or gender, you too can be a lion dancer – if you are willing to sweat.

The proof of her vision is in her team: the Shaolin Entertainment Lion Dance Troupe, owned by Shaolin kung fu master Bruce Wen. The group is as diverse as Southern California itself: 22 dancers of many races and, unheard of for a lion dance team, half of the members are women.

Yukari Koseki is one of them. She was born in Japan but works as a professional dancer in California, and started lion dancing in January this year. Then there’s Ariana Zhang, a Chinese Texan from Dallas who is both a primary schoolteacher and a stuntwoman; and Acela Peña Anaya, a pyrotechnical engineer whose parents immigrated to California from Mexico.