Closing Ceremony Marks End of "The Lion Dance" Exhibition in Esch-Belval

On Friday 28 February 2025, the closing ceremony of the exhibition titled "The Lion Dance” took place as part of the continued Chinese New Year celebrations, organised by the Confucius Institute at the University of Luxembourg (Uni.lu) with the support of the French Association for Dragon and Lion Dance.

The exhibition is being held at the Maison du Savoir on the University of Luxembourg’s Belval campus. The Chinese lion dance is a spectacular tradition with a rich history and profound cultural and sporting significance. "This exhibition offers an introductory glimpse into the depth of this discipline, allowing visitors to explore the various dimensions of this fascinating tradition - from its historical origins to its cultural importance and its evolution into a recognised sport."

Traditionally, during the Chinese New Year celebrations, the first event in Luxembourg-Ville was the dragon and lion dance, which took place this year on 25 January 2025.

“We try to organise these kinds of events every year in the city centre since this period is appropriate to organise dragon and lion dances, plus a few stands as well about Chinese culture. So this year we collaborated again with the Association Française de Danse du Dragon et Lion Chinois based in Paris and two schools, one from Belgium and one from France, specialised in martial arts. Plus, for the first time this year, a team was built with students from the University of Luxembourg. And so, in total, we had four dragons because one of the schools also prepared a dragon for children. So it was nice,” said Jauffrey Bareille, Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Luxembourg.

According to the organisers, the exhibition “The Lion Dance” at Uni.lu was organised in this format for the first time. “The idea is also to maybe later use this kind of overview to develop more exhibitions, not especially about the lion dance, but maybe about other Chinese cultural aspects.”

The Director of the Confucius Institute also shared with Chronicle.lu the institute’s plans for the near future: “It's an open door. Maybe not from next month, but in, let's say, the midterm or long term, it would be to collaborate more with those schools and that the Confucius Institute could serve as an intermediary to maybe develop with them, in collaboration with them, different sports courses - of course, oriented around, why not, dragon dance or lion dance or martial arts. We already have Tai Chi [Chinese martial art] courses within the Confucius Institute. So why not go further and develop more different kinds of martial arts or sports courses.” 

IK