This documentary shines light on the lion dance program at the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center

The Tucson Chinese Cultural Center is adding a mini film festival to its annual Lunar New Year celebration on Saturday, Feb. 17.

During the day, the center will celebrate the Year of the Dragon with Chinese music and dance that will take you into the rich tapestry of Chinese, Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander cultures. The festival, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the center, 1288 W. River Road, features performances by the Dragon Dance and Yo-yo, Tucson International Academy, Tucson Sino Martial Arts, Tucson Chinese Dance, Tucson Sino Choir, Sunrise Elementary School fifth graders, Tucson Sino Dance and Desert Virtuoso Music Group.

Chinese food and drink will be offered for sale, and kids can participate in arts and craft activities. Admission is $5 at the door.

Later Saturday, the center will host the premiere of Tucson filmmaker Nolan Veneklasen’s short film “Young Lions,” which documents the return of the center’s longstanding lion dance program after the pandemic. It is one of four short films on the lineup for “Night of the Dragon: An Asian American Film Premiere.”

“It’s a subculture of dancers in the Chinese community in Tucson, Arizona, that is not practiced very much. Preserving the culture and keeping that tradition alive is something I really cared about,” Veneklasen said.

For the 26-year-old Tucson native, the project was personal. He and his brother, Jackson, 28, had been involved in the lion dance program since they were 5 or 6; Jackson still teaches at the center.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March 2020, the center was forced to close and remained closed for nearly two years. It transitioned some events and classes online, but the lion dance program, its oldest legacy program, was suspended.

When they regrouped in late 2021, it was almost like starting over. Many of the young dancers had to relearn the movements, including hoisting the heavy lion costume over two dancers while still in motion. The front dancer is the lion’s head, while the second fills out the tail.

But the biggest fear for the center’s longtime volunteer Executive Director Susan Chan and for Veneklasen was that the kids would be so out of the habit of doing lion dancing that they would lose interest.

“When the kids leave, it’s about sustainability and finding people to carry on,” Chan said.

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“It was such a big hurdle to get over in the middle of the pandemic, to try to bring back these classes and to start over,” Veneklasen said.

With a $5,000 grant from Southwest Folklife Alliance and the support of executive producer Robin Blackwood and fellow filmmaker/producer Sara Luu, Veneklasen spent 18 months filming the program’s resurrection.

“I knew I had to make it about the lion dance troupe,” he said. “Being that it was mid-pandemic, the Chinese Cultural Center had closed its doors for over a year and no one was performing at all.”

The film follows Sifu (master) Kevin Lau, who has been leading the troupe since 2008, and his team — Jackson Veneklasen, who has been teaching the lion dance for 15 years; Paisley Crockett, who teaches the little lions class; and Jasper Sorensen, one of the troupe’s young leaders — as they regrouped. We see the kids struggle with the mechanics of the dance, lifting the heavy costumes over their heads and keeping in time with their lion partners. The film takes the audience to the troupe’s first performances post-pandemic and hears the instructors’ honest assessment of what went wrong and what needed to be fixed.

As time went by, the dancers seemed to find their muscle memory, and performances became more seamless. Young leaders also emerged, and you got a feeling that the next generation of Tucson lion dancers was going to carry on the tradition that has been part of the Tucson Chinese community for more than five decades.

“Lion dancing is a dying art, but yet it is so important to our culture and it’s even more important to our children participating, most of them who are being adopted from China,” said Chan, adding that through the ancient dance, these children are able to reconnect with their culture. “This lion dance culture won’t be forgotten.”

Veneklasen, who now lives and works in the Los Angeles film industry, said he hopes “Young Lions” shines a light on the program and the center.

“We think the lion dance is just a doorway into understanding and experiencing Chinese culture for everyone,” he said.

In addition to “Young Lions,” “Night of the Dragon” will feature short films by filmmakers Sara Luu, Jiaxin Wei and Andy Zhoa. Doors open at 6 p.m., and the show starts at 7; admission is $5 at the door.