Nai-Ni Chen Chinese New Year Celebration

As many of you know, this past Saturday was Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year. It’s now the year of the Golden Rat. My family and I usually do a low key celebration. My mom makes different foods in the days leading up to the holiday and we always have dinner on the day of at my grandpa’s house. Then, next weekend we’ll have a get together with some more extended family.

This year I got to also attend a New Year’s dance performance/celebration at NJPAC. Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company puts on a show every year at the performing arts center and I was lucky enough to be offered tickets to the show! The show took place at the Lizzie & Jonathan Tisch Stage at Victoria Theater at NPAC, which is a small, more intimate theater. NJPAC is also where I saw Harry Potter accompanied by live music from the NJ Symphony, but that was in the larger theater.

Obviously, no photos were allowed during the performance, but I took a few before the show and afterwards when they marched the dragon over to another venue in Newark for a banquet dinner, which I did not attend. The performance photos are ones I was able to get from the dance company.

The show was really entertaining and fun to watch. There were some more traditional dances like the lion dance and dragon dance and then some more modern/contemporary dances. I’m not always a huge fan of contemporary/interpretive dance so the more upbeat fun dances were more my thing at the show. I really liked the lion dance, dragon dance, umbrella dance, and the dance the male performers did with the bamboo sticks – that one was really cool.

Unfortunately, during intermission I learned about the Kobe Bryant, Gigi Bryant tragedy and all the other lives lost so that was weighing heavy on my mind and heart during the second half of the show. I am actually still having a very hard time with it. But, the show definitely helped take my mind off it a little and I really enjoyed it! The performers are all so talented and they put on a great show!

*I was sent complimentary tickets to this show, but all opinions are my own.*