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(Mail Tribune / Jim Craven) Welcome, Year of the Pig Jacksonville celebrates Chinese New Year in style By Anita Burke Mail Tribune Capping off months of after-school practice, five girls from St. Mary's School dipped and twirled across the stage in a traditional dance from Taiwan at Jacksonville's 2007 Chinese New Year celebration. Red feathers on their headdresses bobbing and bells on the hems of their skirts jingling, Heather Bladek, Piper Galt, Lacey Hall, Jenessa Hren and Sarah Miller danced while their school's choir sang Saturday afternoon at the U.S. Hotel ballroom. "It is a very fun festival, so rich and colorful," said Kathy Greene, who choreographed the dance for the St. Mary's students and one for a group from Ashland High School and also danced herself to a traditional love song. The dancers wore costumes on loan from the Chinese Cultural Center in Seattle, as did several other performers in the program that ushered in the Year of the Pig. "This is like Chinese Culture 101," said Jeresa Hren, president of the Southern Oregon Chinese Cultural Association, who emceed the event. "We are trying to pack everything in today." Advertisement After a morning parade with lion and dragon dancers and a full day of demonstrations of Chinese cooking, calligraphy, acupuncture, martial arts and more, the association presented a special program of song, dance, instrumental music and opera. "We try to do something different each year to highlight different things from our culture," said Meiwen Richards, another association member and organizer. The afternoon performance opened with drumming and the dramatic entry of a lion dance team. After the folk dances choreographed by Greene, local musicians played Chinese instruments on loan from the Jack and Dorinda Schuman Collection at Southern Oregon University. Musicians Stephen Bacon, Bo Leyden, and Louis Leger dubbed themselves Who's Hu, a playful take on the Chinese word "hu," which means foreigner or barbarian. They were joined by Bora Ju, a Korean student studying English at SOU. She played the gayageum, a complex stringed instrument from which she coaxed an array of subtle sounds as part of the ensemble and in a solo performance. Another SOU student, Tang Di, played traditional Chinese songs alone and with three other SOU students on saxophones. The saxophone is very popular in China, where listeners first hooked on Kenny G-style smooth jazz have begun to explore more sophisticated music and adapt their own traditional music for the instrument, said SOU Associate Professor Rhett Bender. Bender, who teaches saxophone, clarinet and music theory, has traveled to the Sichuan Conservatory in Chengdu, China, where Di had studied. Di, 20, wanted to study saxophone in the United States and came to SOU in August to start a four-year program. "This is my first time to spend New Year in another country without my family and friends," Di said. "This is special. It will be a very good year." Already, it was different than a celebration at home, as Di wore traditional Chinese clothing — a long turquoise silk tunic and a red vest. "In China, I would never wear this," he said, with a laugh as his fellow saxophone students, clad in black, admired his sharp look. Wildly elaborate costumes and headdresses were a key part of a presentation by the Northern California Taiwanese Opera, of San Jose, Calif. Three performers offered a brief excerpt from an opera recounting the tale of a young Romeo smitten by a beautiful woman he spotted at a street festival and his plot to meet her. Then they let audience members come up to the stage and try on costumes featuring beautiful silks and colorful embroidery. In another taste of Chinese-style opera, Janice Chi, of Austin, Texas, sang artistic folk arias, contemporary versions of folk love songs arranged for operatically trained singers. Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2007 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems Online Casino Reviews Fundraisers UK Homeowner Loans Casinos Canada Cord Blood Banking Entertainment Guide Texas Electric Choice Compare Electric rates in Texas Windermere Van Vleet Trunks, Footlocker Men's Clothing Debt Help