Vaulting to New Heights

A story of how lion dance came to be, and how Malaysian lion dance had made its mark on the global stage

- Koyyi Chin.

On the morning of February 12, 2021, the silence outside my room was deafening as the lockdown approached its one-year anniversary. Though I could hear the tell-tale pop of firecrackers exploding from far away, it was a lonely sound that reverberated across the entire neighbourhood; a stark reminder that things wouldn’t, and couldn’t, remain the same anymore.

Growing up, I was used to the thundering sound of cymbals and drums blasting through my window— it was, much to my younger self’s consternation, a dreaded alarm clock that signalled the ushering of the new year and an abrupt end to my being able to sleep in during the New Year holidays.

A symbol of prosperity and protection against negative energies, I remember the lion dance troupe that used to march their way across my neighbourhood. The vibrant fur and the glittering coat of their costumes searing themselves in my mind’s eye, bright under the hot afternoon sun.

An ang pow (a red envelope containing money that meant fortune for the recipient) would be pressed into my hand as my parents urged me to go greet the lion. Excited at the prospect of being able to see it up close but terrified because of its sheer size—the head approximately more than two metres in length and width—I crept to the front of the crowd that gathered around the lion.

The lion bounded and leapt across the centre of the floor, tucking, rolling, and occasionally windmilling. At some point, it even splayed its two front feet out in a lazy sprawl, almost as if in a resting crouch. Its hind legs were hunched, cheekily swaying back and forth as its short, fuzzy tail wagged.