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Celebrate Chinese New Year with us Sunday 22nd in Utrecht

Hello everyone,

This is the 2nd time we celebrate the Chinese New Year in Utrecht city at Rasa world cultural centre. I have been contributing to the programming and the participation of Wudao in this event. For the PR promotion of this event I made  a Teaser video in 3 days. I think this is the first cooperation between Wudao & aCreations. I believe in the near future we will produce more and more creative arts together. During the filming process a lot of people stood by and were curious what we are doing at the ‘Oudegracht’ in Utrecht city. Some were filming us and taking pictures with us.

I was totally focused on the filming part, because I didn’t had enough time to prepare and had a just a few days to deliver the video. Everybody volunteered in this project, so it was hard to count on the attendance that day. But we make the best out of it and it had a great effect. Although the cold weather we still had fun together. I was worrying whether I could finish filming before the sun goes down. The day started with a bad news, a message that the lead actor couldn’t come, he was sick. So we changed a bit of the storyline and I stepped in to play a bigger part in the film. It is stressful because you want to focus on one thing rather than 2 different things, or 3, production, filming and acting. At the end we’re all satisfied and got positive reactions. I can go with it since it was a last minute project.

Moreover

Read Article: http://kosmopolisutrecht.blog.com/2012/01/19/wu-dao-is-klaar-voor-jaar-van-de-draak/

Come and join us @ utrecht Rasa, I am in the programming of this Chinese New Year event and will be performing Kung Fu and giving a workshop that day. Kung Fu panda will be there giving out lucky money! Don’t miss it 😀
This year we focus on the younger generation of Dutch Chinese society. Artists, musicians, filmmakers will show their work at Rasa Utrecht!

Chinese Lunar Party @ RASA Utrecht

3 Feb. 2011 – How do you celebrate the Chinese New Year?

This was one of the questions they asked me on the Dutch National Radio interview. I volunteered bringing people together as a performing artist, co-organizer of this wonderful cultural celebration of Chinese New Year event at RASA, theater for World Cultures bringing them joy and happiness. Of course, Chinese New Year is less amusing then in China. But we try to make the best out of it! We should enrich culture!

Chinese New Year is the most spectacular day of the year. Everybody in China is celebrating it, fireworks, a lot of good food and traditional dishes, snacks and more. The sphere is really nice. Married couples give red envelope with brand new notes inside, known as Hong Bao in Mandarin and Lai See in Cantonese, to unmarried, most of whom are children. A gift which is given during holidays or special occasions. The red color symbolizes good luck and ward off evil, known in Eastern countries. A lot of happiness and joy, family and friends come together and have dinner.

This morning I took Dark Angel to the car-wash. She was dirty, so I took her to a shower. While driving through the wash lane another TV programmer called me. The situation made it quite funny.

Now she’s clean & shiny I immediately drove to a college in Alkmaar, which is about an hour driving from Utrecht. There I had to give a Kungfu workshop to the VWO pupils. They had a China theme and different Chinese cultural workshops.

This college offers the subject; Chinese language. There should be more of these schools in Holland. This is a great opportunity for the new generation. When I was in college I didn’t had this wonderful offer!

Here are some pictures, there were 55 teenagers! Wow, this is amazing. I didn’t had a microphone but still it went really good and they were all enthusiast about this art. I’m happy that I also emphasized on the philosophy and culture of Chinese Kungfu, instead of the physical movements.

It is important that the youth learn to know their body. Balancing the body without errors. That, what is out of balance, is dangerous. This is the same in life. Overdoing or not living in harmony with nature, is risky.

Learning Kungfu keeps them fit and healthy. Purifying the mind, and to be aware of the surroundings by forgetting them. It is an art that comes with a deep philosophy.

First of all, the pupils are all stiff, and not flexible. Except for some girls in the group, but they need strength.

You have to loosen your muscle to relax and adjust to the flow of the movement. If you want to eat, you have to open your mouth right?

It was amazing to see such a big group of Western students practicing Chinese Kungfu, it gives me self-satisfaction. I am proud of you guys!

After this class I had to rush back to Utrecht. The weather was fine, so I enjoyed driving. In Utrecht I had to go to the RASA Theater for the Wu Dao Dragons performance  in the evening. This event was organized by Kosmopolis Utrecht, Rasa, ACSU, Wu Dao Dragons, Stichting Lai Yin and local entrepreneurs. But we had to do the rehearsal and technical stuff. I didn’t had lot of sleep, because I was editing the Music Video for the performance till deep in the night. Everything was a bit in a hurry, but it was a good show. I really appreciated the warm support and enjoyed the sphere.

It was definitely different backstage, but that is the perspective of the performing artist. Although the technical problems and preparation, I have to say Congratulations Wu Dao Dragons! It was really good to see people enjoying the show. If the our music video worked well on the background, it would be even better! You know what, it is always the technical problems,  it is not the first time. Last year with the China Festivals the music also went down when Koon hit the floor. Guess what, this is the second time! And we changed the sequence, but what a coincidence he had problems with the music when he was doing his solo. Yup, I just find it really sad for him but appreciate his professional spirit and persistence. To me it was quite stressful fixing the technical problems with the technician, because you want to concentrate on the performance. It needs a lot of focus. I’m happy to have Leon and Weije here as our presenters, both good friends of mine. In the back of this picture you see Bas as the DJ. We all know each other and that is so beautiful about it when we combine our strength we can make something together, which we should be proud of ourselves.

Later that eve, we had another performance. This was for the club party at the same location.

Finally at 22.30 we can change clothes and have a drink and a chitchat with our friends in the club party. Pack in and time for some pictures 😉 So this was my Lunar year instead of having dinner with family. Stressful but exciting and self satisfying. When I hear the applause and the smiles I’ll forget all the hard work.


I would like to thank everybody who came to see us, our performance and participated the Chinese NY event. The sphere was really great. I love it! Special thanks to my sister & Ck for the help.

It was a heavy day, fully planned, workshop and two performances.. and all the other organisational things and problems between. There are times that I am so stressed by the pressure, but I never had given up for the things I did.

During hectic and stressful times, I’d like to relax my self by taking a hot tube, I try to stay under the water as long as I can hold my breath. This will loosen me completely. This is the way I relax & recharge myself. Another good help is a nice massage. Burn a home scent and put on relaxing music. That will calm you down by feeling, smelling and hearing it. Maybe it will work for you too.

I get my inspiration from the daily life and I’ll think about it when I go to bed. In my sleep, it’s processing the memories and fantasy.

China Festival Show [Backstage]

(Excuse me for blogging back in time, please see it as a flashback right =P )

Well, first of all thanks Kit our networking manager for giving me the opportunity to cooperate with Kosmopolis and so to give you guys a great show. As you know I was in Hong Kong this late summer. I just left my friends apartment at Cathay City in Hong Kong, crossing the Tsing Ma Bridge when he called me up for this event and we talked for half an hour a long distance call. When I was back in Holland, I contacted Kosmopolis who is organising this China Festival. It is a very interesting event because it was the celebration of Chinese overseas who established in Utrecht a 100 years ago and also the Chinese Moonfest, so very meaningful. But the missing part was to involve the younger generation in this event apart from all the traditional activities such as Chinese Opera, Acrobatics, traditional dance and instrumental playings. There were also looking for some modern art etc. So, I was programmed in this big event along with my short film ‘A Single Step’. Then I started to contact our Kungfu Performing team and did the choreography and rehearsal. I was happy to ask around in my network and tip my friends to participate in this event .  . Because you can’t be successful alone, you need each other!

Carmen our hard working volunteer, look how happy she is!

To me, it was very challenging to have a good Kungfu show in front of so many people on stage of Stadschouwburg Theatre. Remembering when I was a kid watching shows in the same theater.           July 1998

I was so excited about it and able to do something for the Chinese community, promoting the culture to different societies is really great! It is meaningful and you can learn so many things and the experience it’s just goood.. It brightens up my life more and more! And I hope you guys are enjoying it too!

Oké, enough talkies, time for some pics right? 😉

Here are some VIP BACKSTAGE PICTURES

wow, this plug is huge!                                                         and the floor was kind of hard . .  ouch

The big day =)

This is the place where we transformed ssssst, and I was wearing my artists bracelet which able me to get access to the backstage and of course the food supply =)

Well, this is my auntie. She has taken care of me for a while when I was kid. I am happy to see her here, sharing the stage with her and our thoughts about the performance. She’s part of the Chinese traditional dance group.

Nervous?  Of course more or less we are, especially the last few minutes before the show, but once on stage you are so focused to your performance that you forget about it. The most exciting moment to me was when we were upstairs at the top row of the balcony looking down on the stage, fully crowded. That was really amazing. It felt like butterflies in your stomach. Standing next to me was Koon, I remember that moment; Koon, we are performing there on stage . . man, that’s amazing, wow!

5 minutes left, we were getting ready backstage. It was quite funny at that special moment, because we all had our own posture. Koon was lying on the ground looking to the cool blue ceiling and David was meditating, the other was lying flat on the floor, everyone has its own way to release, which was quite special. We were waiting for the technical sign, I saw the previous performing group walk by, then I heard one of the Chinese opera performers whispering my name, and I walked to the woman in the beautiful emperor’s costume. At first sight I couldn’t recognize her, but it is another auntie of mine! So I to talked to her spontaneously and she answered immediately: Ssssst.. the microphone on my neck is turned on! So everybody could hear us talking haha

My auntie doing the Make Up

The sphere was great! Really love being on stage entertaining the audience, for the fans and warm applause! Love you guys!

I want to thank everybody for coming. It was a wonderful day and love all  the great responses!