Twice a week, members of the University of Maryland’s Terp Lions practice making a massive, two-part lion costume gilded with thick eyelashes and ivory teeth come alive with intricate, precise movements.
Junior fire protection engineering major Brian Chen, who had performed lion dancing for more than 10 years before coming to this university, founded the university’s only lion dancing club in 2023 after he learned there were no options for him to continue.
Lion dancing originally started in the Guangdong Province in China as a practice to scare away evil spirits and has been integrated into diaspora communities in the United States since, according to the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project.
One dancer controls the head while another manages the tail, as others play a rhythmic beat with drums, a gong, cymbals and a woodblock. The lion sways and marches perfectly in sync with the music.
“The drum has to follow the lion, the lion has to follow the drums at the same time,” Chen said. “Everything branches off from there. You have to learn to think in the context of another.”
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The club performs at campus events for Asian cultural organizations, including the Chinese Student Association’s Lunar Banquet, the Taiwanese Student Association’s Night Market and the Vietnamese Student Association’s Family Night. The group has also taken the stage at annual campuswide events such as Maryland Day and Student Entertainment Events’ Homecoming Carnival.
Terp Lions’ dances must be polished, well-rehearsed, and performance-ready for highly publicized events. Lehana Daniel, a new club member, said learning lion dancing was surprisingly not daunting — she just showed up to practice after attending a few shows.
“Lion dance is very nuanced, but I don’t think it’s particularly difficult to learn.” Daniel, a freshman enrolled in letters and sciences, said. “It’s very beginner friendly.”
When watching the intricate dances, it’s hard to believe they’re beginner friendly. The performers, dressed in simple black tops and stylish red pants, focus on the lion dance’s precise choreography.
Though, precise timing doesn’t mean the dancing does not allow for artistic creativity. In fact, it’s the opposite. Sophomore accounting major Sheila Li said she intentionally wanted to be the lion’s head.
“I think I’ve tried every part of lion dancing,” Li said. “I’ve found that I like being in the head more because it’s very energetic and expressive.”
And it is certainly an expressive job. The lion’s head accentuates the features of a real lion, with comically long eyelashes, a wide, toothy mouth and entrancing spiral eyes. As the head of the lion, Li makes the eyelashes blink, opens and closes the mouth and moves the head itself.
Junior public health major Elliot Zang handles the back half’s stunts. Though the audience may overlook this portion, the tail is the cornerstone of the tricks that the lion executes in a performance, he said.
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Zang said he’s often the tail by necessity, as some difficult tricks require strength, such as picking the person in the front up.
“I spend four hours every week getting a crick in my back,” Zang laughed. “Just jokes. These are my good best friends.”
Li had always admired lion dancing before college but never had the chance to try the niche art form growing up, she said. She was excited to see a lion dancing club in her freshman year, and has made many friends since joining, she added.
Chen hopes to expand the lion dancing community as a whole through the club, which serves as a launching point for people into the dance form.
“It’s a very, really, really niche activity that I feel isn’t that much explored among our generation,” Chen said. “This is a really new thing that we’re trying to build, basically just introduce people and help expand the community here.”
