Text and photographs by Daniel Krieger

A long line stretched around the block and inside the crowd was growing at the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center late Saturday morning. People had come to celebrate the first day of the Lunar New Year — the Year of the Dragon — which fell on February 10, by taking part in Lincoln Center’s first Lunar New Year Family Celebration.

The festivities kicked off with a slew of interactive offerings that included traditional Chinese crafts, such as woodblock printing, rice dough sculpture, and calligraphy, as well as Korean food and a DJ. And, in observance of 2024 being the Year of the Dragon, the atrium was full of dragon imagery.

Next came story time.

A crowd gathered around Brooklyn-based author Michele Wong McSween as red light shone down upon the attendees, some of whom were dressed in red, an auspicious color that brings luck for the new year. She read from her book — Gordon & Li Li: Celebrate Chinese New Year, an instructive guide to the basics of the lunar new year, which she wrote for her own children, she told the audience.

Meanwhile, with his parents on the outer periphery sat Rev, a two-year-old boy who was playing with a paper dragon. His dad, Dan, told WSR that he and his wife, Ida, had been looking for a nearby Lunar New Year event. “It’s great!” he said. “Better than we expected.”

Then came the main attraction of the day — the lion dance, performed by the Tai Look dance group. A tradition of the Lunar New Year celebration, the lion dance serves to scare away bad luck and evil spirits by creating a big ruckus, so we all can start the new year fresh, unburdened by the bad stuff of the prior year.

Three colorfully adorned lions accompanied by a huge drum on wheels and clashing cymbals made their way through the crowd in the atrium and led it outside, passing P.J. Clark’s and in a procession heading toward Lincoln Center Plaza, where hundreds of additional spectators were waiting. There the lions were swarmed by onlookers as they pranced about, boisterously striding across the plaza, around the fountain, and then back toward Columbus Avenue, as they playfully interacted with the people around them.

“We expected a big turnout, but this is more than we anticipated,” said Mengtong Guan, the senior producer of programming at Lincoln Center. She explained that this celebration is part of a series of Lincoln Center’s family-friendly events that include the summer festival, the Big Umbrella, and many other happenings throughout the year.

“It’s an effort to engage with the community by getting people to come out and celebrate together,” she said of the Lunar New Year party.

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