I have been spending Friday, Saturday and also Sunday evenings in Kinta City for the past couple of weeks. I am trying to build my YouTube profile, you see.

Last evening, I was there to catch the Happy Prosperity CNY Dance which started at about 8pm and lasted for about 40 minutes. I wouldn’t say that the show was exceptionally good. What I was afraid of was actually watching the same shows that I watched on previous occasions in Kinta City because Happy Prosperity Chinese New Year Dance sure sounded like the children’s performance sometime back. I was glad that it wasn’t.

This performance was rather funny, especially when two guys wore face masks of clowns. I don’t know what the English name is, but he’s like a jester. You can sometimes see him in a dragon or lion dance as well, though he did not make an appearance in the lion or dragon dance in Kinta City during these pre-Chinese New Year performances.

The show kicked off with a dance by the four dancers, and then it was a song by three lovely ladies. They are also from the same dance school, actually. And their singing were lip-synced but that’s OK, we just wanted to see leng luis (hot chicks)! LOL I sort of felt awful for them when the sound system acted up and threw the ladies off their music performances.

I don’t remember too much but I think there were a total of three dances and three Chinese New Year songs performed. Towards the end, the two “clowns” handed out ang pows (red packets) to children in the audience. I thought I saw them giving ang pows (red packets) to adults as well. I think that nobody would know or even care if children went for a second (or third) helping!

Besides shooting these photos, I also took the chance to shoot videos. Like I said, I am trying to build my YouTube profile. Do check out the Gong Xi dance, ribbon dance and modern Chinese dance videos on YouTube.

I purposely went to Kinta City last evening to video their Wushu demonstration which was held in conjunction with Chinese New Year 2009. Although the programme sheet stated that this series of events will start on Friday, 9th January, 2009, I don’t know why the emcee mentioned that yesterday, 10th January, 2009 was the first day of these Chinese cultural perfomances. Perhaps the events were cancelled on Friday (and I thought I missed them) or maybe it was a slip of the emcee’s tongue.

Anyway, the show, which started at 8pm, kicked off with a few sets of Wushu demonstrations. I liked it that we were not made to wait for long minutes between sets, like what happened during the Chrismas shows in Ipoh Parade last year.

However, there was a couple of boys who sparred with each other in slow motion as if afraid that they would chop off each others hand accidentally. Basically, they looked like they did not have confidence with their equipment.

Then there was a Tai Chi performance. It was slow, but heck, it’s Tai Chi.

Then finally, there was dragon dance. It’s too bad that this wasn’t included in the programme sheet so many people did not know about, although the emcee did mention it at the start of the show.

Unfortunately, by the end of the dragon dance show, I ran out of memory on my camera. But luckily, I have backup! These still shots below were taken with my iPhone and boy, am I glad that they turned out “not bad” worrrr….

This time, I was there slightly early and managed to get a good spot on the second row. I was standing, which was fine with me, but it was jam packed and I couldn’t move AT ALL. What pissed me off was when suddenly the couple who sat in front of me suddenly STOOD UP whilst I was recording. Argghh WHY??? Spoilt my dragon dance video!

The dragon dance was very fast paced towards the end which was not captured on video but I am sure you can see the flurry of colours in the series of photos below.

By the way, all these were performed by the martial arts troupe of SMJK (C) Sam Tet, Ipoh, Perak. They perform lion and dragon dances during Chinese New Year or on other auspicious occasions. We used to engage them for lion and dragon dances at our house yearly on the first day of Chinese New Year but had to stop after adopting Snoopy and Dino.

If you are looking for a martial arts troupe to perform lion and/or dragon dance in Ipoh, do support the troupe. You can go to the school to make enquiries.

I did a search and the listed address with the Ministry of Education is No. 5, Jalan Gereja, 30300 Ipoh, Perak. Tel. No. 605-2545457. It’s so weird, all my life, I thought their address was Jalan Sultan Idris Shah. Guess we learn something new every day.

As you could see from the backdrop of these photos, which is the same as my mooncake post, I went to Kinta City again. Well, they have an on-going programme in conjunction with Mid-autumn Festival.

Last evening, I purposely went early to try to get a good spot. I wanted to video their performances. The show started at 8pm and I reached there about twenty minutes earlier but the two rows of seats have already been occupied.

Actually Kinta City’s series of programmes started on 30th August, but I was too busy to go on the first day. But never mind, there will still be similar shows, including magic shows, Chinese opera and “face changing” performances in the coming weekends.

I have to say that I was pretty disappointed with the show. There was no showmanship at all. These two ladies and a young man were so engrossed in their notes that there was no interaction or eye contact with the audience at all. No one smiled too. At one point, there was awful feedback from the speakers which spoilt the already bad show.

This time, I did not use the zoom when capturing the videos to try to preserve their quality. Still uploading to YouTube has drastically reduced the quality. Audio is fine, though. You could even hear small kids chatting away. These kids spoilt my video when they suddenly climbed up chairs or put up their hands, besides chatting away. And then there were people who walked right across the stage.

Check out my videos. These pieces are popular Chinese music, though I do not know their titles, just recognize the tunes. From what I understand, these musicians are from Shanxi, China, but I could be wrong. They certainly look like any other fair complexioned Malaysian.