Meet Hong Kong’s female lion dancers, who have become a roaring success in a male-dominated dance scene

“Before the dance starts, a Taoist priest consecrates the lion, which involves inviting a deity to enter the lion’s body,” says Kwok Man-lung, the head of Kwok’s Kung Fu and Dragon Lion Dance Team. “Women weren’t allowed to dance because their period was considered ‘unclean’.” He observes that in the 1990s, when he took over his father’s baton to run the company, women who joined the team took up drums and not the dance.

“But I have welcomed students of different genders as long as they want to learn this traditional art form,” he says. His team teaches lion dance as an extra-curricular activity at schools and community centres. “Our classes are popular among both boys and girls.” Right now, his team has ten female and nearly 40 male apprentices.

Three of the female apprentices he has been teaching for more than ten years are Lau, Lam and So. At first, Lau, then a primary school student, was mesmerised by the different dance moves—balancing on tall bamboo pillars, jumping on benches, swinging to the ground to pick up cabbages (a symbol of prosperity)—and became keen to learn these movements. Meanwhile, Lam and So also chose to learn this dance style as they felt it resonated more with their personalities.

The three are trained in the same way as male students. In the first year, they were taught the basics of kung fu, especially footwork, to hone their balancing skills and muscle strength, and lion dance drum-playing to develop their musicality. Gradually, they learnt how to do somersaults, jump on chairs and tables, and lift one another. “Even for boys, it takes around two to three years before they can level up to jumping on pillars,” says Kwok. “Girls may take slightly longer, but there are exceptions, such as So, who learns as fast as boys.”

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Lam, the tallest of the three, plays the tail. She says at first it was quite challenging to lift and hold her partner, Lai. Although the lion’s head is mainly made with paper mesh, it can weigh up to 5kg. As the tail, Lam has to lift Lai in addition to the lion head. The constant back bending also leads to muscle pain. So has had serious injuries in the past but that doesn’t deter her, or any of the other girls.

 “It’s a fun way to work out,” says So. “It also gives me a sense of meaning and something to look forward to after work.” To Lam, it gives her motivation in life. “I’m usually a laid-back person, but lion dance makes me [feel] competitive. As I learn trick after trick, I feel like I am progressing more and more. I’m happy to see that now I can do so much more than just ‘picking up cabbage’ from the ground. Now, I want to win contests. I like that I have new goals in my life.”

“Kwok’s Girls has a motto: we can hustle for our dream, but we cannot put aside our dream because we hustle,” says Lai. As well as carrying on the legacy of this traditional art form in Hong Kong, these “lionesses” are also paving the way for women to break boundaries in a male-dominated world.

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