The lights in the auditorium flashed as students scrambled to their seats. Everyone sat, watching eagerly with full bellies from the previous Chinese luncheon as a spotlight appeared on stage, illuminating where Ms. Sara Tsai stood. She was about to introduce the 2016 Chinese Lunar New Year performance. From traditional dancing to Kung fu, hip hop to Chinese Yo- yo, both the Chinese language students and the rest of the student body excitedly anticipated the performance welcoming the new year.

Choreographer and performer Sara Tin- U, a sophomore, was excited about playing such a huge part in the performance. In addition to her acts, there was a dragon dance, multiple traditional Chinese dances, and an exciting display of Chinese Yo- yo- ing.

“I did hip hop, a fan dance, and Kung fu,” Tin- U said. “I choreographed the hip hop dance alongside Sara Tao and Juho Kim.”

In addition to celebrating the Lunar New Year, it was hoped that the performance would present and introduce Chinese culture to the school. It was thought that there was no better way of doing this than through entertainment that simultaneously contained many Chinese cultural aspects.

“The performance benefitted the school by showing what we’ve learned culturally from Bellaire’s magnet program,” Tin- U said. “The performance also benefitted the Chinese program by making us a little more known.”

Chinese students were also given the opportunity to connect to their own culture and present it to the rest of the school that previously did not have the ability to see what was important to such a large portion of the student population.

“I got the chance to wear traditional Chinese garb during Kung fu,” Tin- U said. “I was also able to enjoy the great food from the luncheon.”

Although the performance took a lot of time away from the Chinese language students to put together, they were pleased with the results and the reaction they received from their performance. It was agreed that all of their hard work payed off as the audience cheered on the acts and students continued to fill the auditorium throughout the day.

“This performance took a lot of work,” Tin- U said. “We had a very short amount of time to put this together and we had to make sure everything looked good on stage. It turned out to be a successful Lunar New Year though.”

The time constraints proved to not limit the ability of the performers as every act was followed by wild applause and flashes from cameras trying to capture the moments of excitement. With the success of the performance, it seemed that the year of the monkey was already off to a great start within the school.