On January 28, the Confucius Institute at the University of Saskatchewan and Saskatoon Chinese Artists and Musicians Alliance co-organized the “Happy New Year” Chinese Spring Festival Celebration at Broadway Theater. More than 600 audience attended this celebration.
The celebration included three main parts: dances, musical instrument performance, and singing. The dance episode started with “Opening Dance” brought by Saskatoon Chinese Dance Club, followed by Mongolian dance “Swan Geese” performed by the students from Saskatchewan Chinese Dance School.
The climax of the first episode came with the dance “The Four Seasons” brought by the Confucius Institute Dance Group. The performers changed their costumes according to the change of seasons. All the audience was amazed by the magic-like performance of the dancers and cheered for them.
The first episode also included Chinese dance “Half Pot Yarn” by Saskatoon Chinese Dance Club, Dai Ethnic Group dance “Bamboo Forest” by Saskatoon Chinese School, “Red Lantern” by Saskatchewan Chinese Dance School, Hip-hop, and Belly dance.
The second part was the Chinese musical instrument performance part. The musicians from Vancouver and the amateurs in Saskatoon played a variety of tunes like “The Moonlit Night on the Spring River”, “Horse Racing”, “Blue and White Porcelain”, etc. with many different instruments such as zither, erhu, pipa, etc.
The last part of the celebration was the singing part. Several well-known songs in Chinese and English were sung by singers from Saskatoon community, such as “The Limit Is the Sky”, “North of the Anhe Bridge”, “Yes or No”, etc.
The celebration was a great success. Long after the celebration ended, the audience was still unwilling to leave. They cheered and applauded for the performers and the organizers again and again.