Keung Wai-chi
Keung Wai-chi is the co-owner of Keung’s Dragon and Lion Dance Team. Born into a family of lion dance performers, Keung is out to take the sport mainstream. He tells Yannie Chan about updating lion dances for the modern age.
HK Magazine: How did you get into lion dancing?
Keung Wai-chi: My father owned a kung fu school and taught his disciples lion dancing. My big brother was already lion dancing by the time I was born. Other kids played with toy guns and cars, but my brothers and I played with lion heads. My father would make mini lion heads for my brothers and I, and we formed a little dance troupe. I was 16 when I started teaching classes at schools, and later I became a full-time lion dance coach and performer.
HK: Your father must be proud!
KWC: Not at all! He was extremely unwilling to pass the team down to me and my brothers. My father had wanted us to become lawyers. Kung fu was not considered a proper career—it was only something people did outside of a full-time job. People learn to lion dance to become healthier. No one expects to earn money from it.
HK: What was lion dancing’s reputation at the time?
KWC: In the 70s, people believed that triads were a big part of lion dancing and that we fought a lot. Some also complained about performers having a lot of tattoos. Because lion dancing was considered so uncool, I collaborated with people like [hip-hop artist] Eric Kot to make lion head art. We grew from having only a dozen of students to now having about 1,200.
HK: So are you a master?
KWC: I see myself more as a coach. My father was a “sifu” in the most traditional sense—he didn’t only teach lion dancing, but life lessons as well. His mantra was that guiding students is more important than teaching lion dancing. That’s too much pressure for me and my generation. Of course I also form similar relationships with my students, but more as a friend.
HK: Do dancers fight to play the head?
KWC: I used to think that being the lion head was really cool. They definitely have the best skills and experience—only senior disciples get the part. But I’ve come to learn that the two performers, the head and the tail, are really a team. It’s somewhat like a romantic relationship, because they need to thoroughly trust each other. During my early days of lion dancing, I was on 6-foot-tall poles with my brother. We were practicing a move called “the lion drinking water.” I jumped up and he was supposed to catch my legs, but he forgot, and I fell head-first into the ground.