CF Pacific Centre Receives Lion Dance Blessings for Lunar New Year
- Jonathan Lee
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
Downtown Vancouver’s largest mall, CF Pacific Centre hosted Chau Luen Athletics this past weekend with an unforgettable lion dance and dragon dance performance to ring in the Lunar New Year. Plus, a long list of shops within the store signed up to receive Choy Cheng (採青) business blessings to bring prosperity for the Year of the Horse.
With an appearance by Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and a massive crowd of mall patrons, this free community event was one of the most spectacular events to take place in the city.
Plenty of experience performing for both big-name businesses and community events
In the past, Chau Luen Athletics has performed at other malls and large-scale public events. For instance, we headlined Canada Day celebrations in Downtown Vancouver, Lunar New Year celebrations at Coquitlam’s Henderson Place Mall, and performed for internationally renowned businesses like Tiffany & Co., PwC, and various levels of government.
Showcasing our skills in a mall gives us a unique opportunity to connect with the public and bring intimate performances to both local and high-end businesses.
A one-of-a-kind lion dance performance
We opened up the show with a lion dance. Joined by special guests like Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, school board trustee Alfred Chien, and Cadillac Fairview’s Senior Vice President of Retail Operations, Lillian Tummonds, we performed a traditional eye-dotting ceremony.
Starting off in the head were Chantelle and Eva, both veterans of the team. They were paired with another experienced lion dancer, Remi and one of our top disciples, Andrew.
The crowd was packed in nice and tight, giving them a unique experience in that everyone was able to see the lions up close. The best view would probably be had by all of the kids in the front row. Their smiles could be seen through the lion heads' mouths, and their cheers and laughter could almost be heard over the thunderous drumming.
One nice thing that we like about performing at malls is the ceiling height. Space is often restricted at restaurants where we perform wedding lion dances (where we have to dodge chandeliers), as well as the standard ceiling heights at office buildings. In both cases, we don’t often get the opportunity to practice the high lifts and jumps that made our club famous. But this time, we took advantage of the space to send our performers skyward.
We finished the performance with a splash. As we do with nearly all of our performances, we showered the audience with lucky lettuce to give blessings of prosperity and fortune, and displayed some auspicious scrolls to the crowd and the VIPs.
A larger-than-life dragon dance in a small space
As part of the Lunar New Year celebrations, we also brought out our dragon dance team. However, because of the very limited space, we shortened the dragon to only 5 performers instead of the usual 9.
Even with the shortened dragon, we were still able to excite the crowd and put on a good show. We hope that with future opportunities, we will be able to perform even more tricks and use our teamwork to smoothly bring a full-sized dragon to life just as we do outdoors.
A cameo appearance from the God of Fortune
We are proud to offer God of Fortune (財神爺) to our performances because it’s a fun way to connect with even more people! At Pacific Centre, our God of Fortune handed out lucky red pockets to kids with treats inside, and posed for photos with anyone who wanted to.
It really rounds out our family-friendly events and adds that little bit of extra cultural flair, and the kids absolutely love him!
Giving blessings of fortune to all of the stores inside the mall
After a very quick break and a chance for our percussionists and dragon dancers to don some shiny red lion pants, we prepared to go store to store and give individual lion dance blessings.
We have years of experience with business Choy Cheng routines on streets such as Main Street and Fraser Street, as well as working in malls like Henderson Place and Aberdeen Centre, so this was a natural fit for our team.
There were around 30 businesses signed up for this, ranging from clothing retailers, luxury brands, restaurants, and specialty shops. It was a unique mix of businesses that would present a fun challenge for our lion dancers.
We started our business to business performances with some retailers, including:
Coach,
Swarovski,
Ann-Louise Jewellers,
Lululemon,
Purdy’s Chocolatiers,
Oak + Fort,
Maje,
La Vie en Rose,
Nespresso, and
Sandro Paris.
Once we got to the food court area, we blessed a bunch of some of the stalls there, some of whom served up some surprises of their own.
Two highlights here were Vina Vietnamese Cuisine and Flaming Wok. Vina’s staff were some of the most excited we had seen. In addition to making it a challenge for our lion dancers to grab the lettuce, they all cheered and petted the lion when it got up close. That’s the kind of energy we feed off of.
Flaming Wok also brought on the excitement, cheering as they tried to catch as much lettuce as possible, as well as giving our team a tasty treat – a tray of fresh sesame balls!
In addition to some of our experienced performers, we were joined by our Templeton Lion Dance and Kung Fu club, our junior club that trains as part of our community after-school program. This was their fourth public performance, and we couldn’t be more proud of their commitment. Their improvement in such a short period of time is incredible, and we can see them getting even better as they perform more.
Mall lion dances are among our favourite types of performances
Showcasing lion dances in malls is one of the most worthwhile performances because it’s a blend between both community engagement and flaunting our skills for businesses. Putting on a show during the Lunar New Year period is also a great way to bring some culture and colour to our city’s celebrations.
We hope to continue working with other popular malls and markets across Metro Vancouver to spread the joy and enthusiasm of lion dance for many years to come.
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