Chinese New Year Workshops at Lakeside Arts Centre

16/2/2022

To follow our amazing outdoor projection show ‘Xīwàng’ (‘Hope’), Nottingham Confucius Institute (NCI) in partnership with Lakeside Arts organised a series of fun, interactive workshops over the 15-day Chinese New Year celebration period (1-15 February) at the University’s arts centre. Over 200 local residents joined us to take part:

• Inspired by Chinese New Year traditions and decorations, our free arts and crafts workshops offered people the chance to learn new skills, ranging from writing Chinese characters using brush and ink on rice paper, tying Chinese knots and making led-lit Chinese paper lanterns.

We also arranged several admission-fee workshops with some talented performers invited by NCI:

• Nottingham-based artist Feng-Ru Lee delivered two brush painting workshops focusing on goldfish (known to bring good fortune) and cherry blossom (symbolising prosperity). At the end of each two-hour workshop, the participants were able to produce some charming pieces of artwork to take home.
• Complete with drum, percussion, and child-sized dragon and lion costumes, local musician and story-teller Ling Peng taught two groups of 20 children aged 6-10 how to perform traditional Chinese dances whilst also creating an accompanying percussive tune. The children demonstrated their dragon and lion dance moves to their parents at the end of the one-hour workshop and won rounds of hearty applause.
• Manchester-based artist Xi Chen delivered two “Tea and Poetry” sessions, accompanied with a live Guzheng performance from Nan Li, one of 18 UoN student volunteers who helped deliver our New Year celebration programme. Many commented on how enjoyable and interesting the session was – the calming authentic tea ceremony was set perfectly with the ‘out of this world’ music, and the tea-based stories evoking Chinese poetry, philosophy, literature and Zen Buddhism captured the imagination of all present.

We would like to thank all NCI and Lakeside staff, student volunteers and artists for their hard work. None of these events would have been possible without their dedication and support! What a huge difference to the Chinese New Year celebrations they made!

~ENDS~