Growing up in a small Vietnamese community in Albany, New York, Vien Le, \u201829, said she wanted to join the Lehigh Lions before she even arrived on campus.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Founded in spring 2023, the Lehigh Lions club shares knowledge, promotes awareness and aims to spread festivity around Chinese culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe lion dances were my childhood magic,\u201d Le said. \u201cI never felt ashamed of my identity, because I had learned to associate my culture with all these awesome traditions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The club meets two or three times each week for dance rehearsal, focusing on immersing members in the basics of lion dance and teaching choreography for upcoming performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ranni Torrez, \u201827, president of the Lehigh Lions, said the organization has expanded since its founding. She said the club began with only four members and has since grown to about 10.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After joining fall 2023, Torrez said she quickly became more involved in the organization, specifically with choreography.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like seeing and learning how to find ways to make new stories, but also rework old stories,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said the choreography process is collaborative, and dancers inside the lion costumes help determine which movements are best for performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe people who will be in the lion\u2019s head and tail are very important in the choreography process,\u201d Torrez said. \u201cThey tell me what is actually visibly possible within the performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Babka, \u201828, is one of the club\u2019s main performers and the external chair on the executive board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He had a family member who participated in lion dance as a kid, which he said sparked his decision to join the Lehigh Lions. <\/p>\n
As the external chair, Babka helps coordinate performances both on and in the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want this club to be able to grow on campus and spread festivity,\u201d Babka said. \u201cI want to help out to make sure everything continues to run into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most recently, the club collaborated on joint dance practices with the lion dance group at the University of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince we\u2019re a young group and (the University of Pennsylvania Lion Dance Club) has many years of experience, we can learn a lot from them,\u201d Babka said.<\/p>\n
Last year, the club also did an exhibition performance at the East Coast Intercollegiate Lion Dance Competition at Cornell University. This year, they\u2019re competing again. On April 11, the Lehigh Lions will face University of Maryland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a little scary competing as a young club against clubs that have had many years of experience and have much larger member counts, but it will definitely be rewarding,\u201d Babka said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around the Lunar New Year, Babka said the group also performs at local Bethlehem restaurants. He said he enjoys bringing good fortune to local restaurants and seeing the excitement of community members during \u00a0performances.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe customers in the restaurant are usually surprised when they see us come in and perform, but they always love it,\u201d Babka said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These partnerships are just one part of the club\u2019s outreach. The Lehigh Lions perform at a variety of events each year, including Lehigh FUSION, the International Bazaar and other cultural events for various campus organizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Le said bringing the tradition beyond campus and engaging with the local community around the Lunar New Year is particularly meaningful to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She said her favorite event so far was Lunar New Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCelebrating Lunar New Year at Lehigh through lions has given me a nice perspective,\u201d Le said. \u201cGrowing up, I was just enjoying the festivities, but now I get to coordinate them and be a part of it for other people\u2019s experiences,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
She also said she hopes to join the executive board for the club soon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMy vision for our club going forward is connecting more with different organizations on campus,\u201d Le said. \u201cI want to keep up with the club\u2019s mission of sharing culture with the broader community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Growing up in a small Vietnamese community in Albany, New York, Vien Le, \u201829, said she wanted to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[48710,153,155,154,6033,68072],"class_list":{"0":"post-149084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-3-min-read","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-culture","13":"tag-dance-team"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}