Dragon to dance at Lions Club event

The Summerlin Lions Club plans to include a dragon performance on Saturday during its seventh annual Chinese New Year Charity Dinner Dance.

Supporters from Nevada, California, and Arizona will participate in the event, to be held at 6 p.m. at the Gold Coast, 4000 W. Flamingo Road.

The gathering also will honor Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman for his record of supporting the club's efforts -- including the Lions Burn Care Center Equipment Fund at University Medical Center, the Blind Center of Nevada, and various eyesight and school projects.

"Money raised on Feb. 23 will allow Lions to meet pressing needs in our community," said Esther Louie, past Lions president.

For more information on the event, visit http://SummerlinLV.lionwap.org.

In October, the Nevada Lions made a donation of more than $290,000 to the UMC Lions Burn Care Center.

Donna Cutler, event coordinator, made it a family tradition to go to Chinatown for the annual festivities when she lived in Southern California. "My kids grew up eating dim sun and getting red envelopes," she said.

The red envelope tradition will be part of the upcoming fundraiser, where each table setting will get one, filled with candy and a shiny new penny. Red envelopes are usually stuffed with money and given socially.

The Summerlin Lions Club has about 40 members. A dozen are of Pan-Asian descent. Bobby Lum, a timeshare salesman, is one of them. He recalled being a boy in Hawaii and watching the parade. Adults would step into the street to put money in the dragon's mouth for luck.

"My father was a practical joker and pretended his hand was caught by the dragon," Lum said. "I got so afraid. I'd be yelling, 'Let go of my father's hand!' "

The club has secured the talents of the nonprofit Lohan School of Shaolin, 3850 Schiff Drive, www.lvlohans.com, to make the dragon come alive. That group's dragon has performed at Summerlin-area facilities including the Suncoast, the Summerlin Performing Arts Center, the Sahara West Library, Ober Elementary School, Palo Verde High School and the Veterans Memorial Leisure Center.

The troupe uses three dragons -- one is 38 feet long, another is 50, and the longest is 162. That one was used on Feb. 17 at Chinatown Plaza, 4255 Spring Mountain Road.

Under Dashi Steven Baugh, more than 40 dancers spend weeks learning the precise steps, done to the beat of a drum. His last-minute instructions include more than following the beat of the drum.

"People will storm the dragon to touch it for good luck," he said. "So I tell the dancers, 'Don't knock into anyone so we don't get sued.' "

Those assigned to the dragon -- seven for the small one and as many as 36 people for the long one -- have to move and sway in a synchronized manner. The two tallest team members take the head and the tail, the better to make the backbone sway.

Other separate performers flank the dragon and are called lion dancers. Each is a solo effort and is said to be nearly as strenuous.

Kate Andaya, age 19 and a UNLV student, is one of the lion performers.

"I've always wanted to do this," she said. "I was 7 when I saw it for the first time. It's something you don't see every day."

Eric Grinstead, 21, said spots one, three, five and the tail are key positions on his team.

"They're choreographed to make it breathe," he said. "But usually, I'm just trying not to mess up."

Others are fighting muscle fatigue. The heads of the three dragons weigh 30 pounds for the small one, 60 for the large. For long performances, dancers can swap out, a tag team kind of relief.

Various moves are called the coil and the pretzel, self-explanatory configurations. Sometimes movements have to be improvised to avoid hitting a structure or the audience, so hand signals and audio cues alert those under the draped dragon as to the next move.

Dragon team captain Sergio Molina, 34 and a former U.S. Marine, has been in martial arts for 20 years.

"Once the team is united and moving together, in a way, you feel that dragon spirit within you and you become one," he said.

Besides Chinese New Year events, the dragon and lions are often enlisted for private parties at Summerlin homes.

The dates of Chinese New Year are set by the lunar calendar. It began on Feb. 7 this year. It is a celebration that lasts until the first day of spring, March 20. This year marks the Year of the Rat.