Lunar New Year celebrations at Eastwood to include The Chicken Dance
SPECTATORS will be encouraged to join in The Chicken Dance as Eastwood’s Lunar New Year celebrations welcome the Year of the Rooster.
Northern District Times
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SPECTATORS will be encouraged to join in The Chicken Dance as Eastwood’s Lunar New Year celebrations welcome the Year of the Rooster.
Visitors to this year’s festival will be invited to flap their arms, clap their hands, and wiggle their bottoms when the well-known melody plays over Eastwood Plaza on festival day.
It will be one of many sights, sounds and activities to appreciate in the ninth annual celebration at Rowe St.
The annual cooking competition on Saturday will again be the opening event.
The contestants will be challenged to produce a chicken dish that will impress the judges, in keeping with the theme.
To further entertain onlookers, there will also be a magic show at this year’s competition. Then, seven days later, the grand celebration will fill the plaza.
Lion dancing, fire crackers, singing and dancing will be on show in Eastwood Mall and Trelawney St to mark one of the biggest days on the Asian calendar.
Organiser Hugh Lee hoped all people who observe the occasion would visit.
“Most of the other events are called Chinese New Year celebrations, but we call this lunar,” he said.
“We want to be inclusive. We hope other ethnic groups such as Koreans, Singaporeans, Malaysians and Indonesians who celebrate the same year in the lunar calendar can join us too.”
The night markets, bolstered last year by the opening of the Taiwan Night Market, provide further incentive to visit.
These open at 4pm, in the last hour of the celebrations, and trade until 10pm.
The Eastwood Chinese Seniors Club, which meets at St Philips Anglican Church, first held the Lunar New Year celebrations.
As the club and its celebrations grew, Ryde Council agreed to allow the festivities in the plaza as a public event.
The council estimates about 10,000 people attend the event.
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