Chen Siqi

vankochensq@163.com

AS the sun rose higher in the sky, the Ninth Track and Field Sports Meeting of the Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen (HITSZ) kicked off with an opening ceremony Saturday. The event began at 8 a.m., with performances from teams of students and staff.

“Every team performed so perfectly. It was really amazing,” said Assiya Tukanova, a freshman in the School of Architecture.

One of the standout performances came from the School of Future Studies. A team of 96 students delivered a spectacular show featuring lion and dragon dances, accompanied by robotic dogs. A total of 14 students took part in the dances, seven from overseas.

With steady steps, the players filed to the center of the track. As they reached their positions, most of the students knelt down, ready to begin. The show started when the leader of the dragon dance began waving the dragon ball. Following the ball’s lead, nine other students maneuvered the dragon from the back of the formation to the front, weaving in a circle around the performance area.

As they returned to the back, the square of students parted, creating a pathway for the lion dance. At that moment, two student-operated lions, along with two robotic dogs in lion costumes, moved to the center and danced to lively music.

“It was pretty fun!” said Edou Kelly David Adriana, from Cameroon, who performed the lion dance. She laughed as she showed the yellow fur on her hair, a souvenir from the fuzzy costume that shed during her performance.

“Lion dance is not new to me. We see such performances each year during Chinese New Year in Indonesia,” said Indonesian student Raya Dhevari Salsabiela, who operated the head of one lion.

However, this was her first time experiencing how physically demanding and coordination-heavy the dance is firsthand.

“I had a really good partner. My partner couldn’t see behind me, so she had to rely on my instructions to turn left or right and move forward. We cooperated very well,” Salsabiela explained.

Lion dance is a traditional Chinese art where performers mimic a lion’s movements in an elaborate costume. Similarly, the dragon dance, often seen during festive celebrations, is performed by a team manipulating a long, flexible dragon puppet using poles.

“This is amazing. I plan to continue doing it,” said Azerbaijani student Aliyev Elman, who was part of the dragon dance team. He said that they had practiced for over a month.