On Friday February 23rd two men named Phil and Paul came to the school to demonstrate Chinese Lion dancing. Pupils went in turns per class. At the beginning, Paul did an elaborate dance using one of the three lions: the biggest one was purple, the middle one was blue and the smallest one was red and yellow. Paul used the purple one to do his dance. Then we practised different stances. After that, we were split into two groups.  The first group went with Phil to use the drums. The drum was made out of pigskin, and, as Phil said, the outside was like cracklings, but cooked differently. The surface had three Chinese characters on it. The inside of the drum was hollow, with springs inside to vibrate the sound. The beaters were like thick curvy sticks. Phil taught us a simple drum tune, which had beats that went like 3 3 7. Everyone had a go and it was really fun. Then Phil said we could branch out and do our own beats. Then we went to do lion dancing.

Paul’s group did the dance first. We all took turns walking around in the front and back of the lion and controlling it. It was really fun and we were taught how to make the lion blink and open and close its mouth. Finally,  they picked people to do a finale and move around in the lions. It was really fun and all the pupils of GEMS enjoyed themselves tremendously.

By Mina 5SL