On January 28, 2017, the Confucius Institute at the University of Saskatchewan went to Wadena to perform Chinese arts for the local residents to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival.
Wadena is a town of 1,300 people, about 200 kilometers from Saskatoon. This is the first time for the people there to celebrate the Chinese Spring Festival. Most of the residents had never experienced Chinese traditional culture before. But all of them had heard about the great culture with a history of 5,000 years and had been curious about it. Therefore, the town council decided to invite the Confucius Institute to demonstrate the Chinese culture to the residents there. The coming of the U of S CI performing groups attracted more than 300 audience to flood into the “not-big-enough” Community Legion Hall.
At the start of the celebration, Mr. Greg Linnen, the mayor of the town, welcomed the U of S CI. Then Dr. Li Zong, the Canadian Co-Director of the U of S CI, introduced the U of S CI to the audience and announced the opening of the performance.
The U of S CI performing groups brought onto stage a variety of stereotypical Chinese traditional art performances, including dragon and lion dance, panda dance, Chinese folk dance, Chinese songs, erhu solo, zither solo, Chinese painting, taichi and taichi fan, Qipao show, etc. Their performances aroused floods of cheers and applauses.
With the lively and pleasant performance of “Dance with the Lions”, the celebration came to an end. The celebration has not only brought happiness and entertainment to the local residents, but also provided a chance for the local people to see and experience Chinese culture. It is a great event for cultural exchange and integration.