Hot Springs celebrates Chinese New Year
Hot Springs residents celebrated the Chinese New Year Saturday afternoon with a parade featuring a 30 foot hand made dragon. A group of people carried the dragon, led by Matt Lonergan, as others danced and paraded down Main Street to Circle Square Park.
Community members in Hot Springs celebrated the Chinese New Year with a parade that featured a 30-foot dragon dancing down Main Street on Saturday afternoon, followed by an Asian potluck dinner and family lantern event at Circle Square Park.
The Chinese New Year starts on the beginning of the new moon in January or February and ends on the full moon towards the end of the month. This is the third year Hot Springs has unofficially celebrated the Chinese New Year.
About 50 people gathered before the parade, including dancers, and banner carriers.
A gong marked the start of the parade as the group marched down Main Street about two blocks as locals watched from the sidewalks. A drumming circle awaited the parade near the V.F.W. at the end of Main Street.
“We put this event on for the sake of creating art for our community to enjoy. This is a celebration of art, it’s not about money, publicity or commerce,” said Janell Clarke who helped spearhead the project. Clarke, who works in real estate, has a background and passion for community art from living in Seattle, Washington where she helped organize the “Fremont Summer Solstice Parade.”
Everything in the parade was hand made and came from volunteers and donations. The dragon was made of paper mâché, and covered in fabricwhich was stretched out and painted. Paper lanterns and Asian-style hats were handmade by about 12 volunteers at the Hot Springs Senior Citizens Center leading up to the event.
“This dragon is above and beyond any art project we have done before,” said Clarke “My aspiration is to keep making community art and to create our own little circus troop.”
Curt Kruse was the leader in making the multicolored dragon. Kruse said he suspects about 30 people and at least 1,000 hours went in to making the dragon.
“I basically didn’t do anything besides build and paint for the last two weeks,” he said. “Some people talked about wanting a new dragon. I thought it would be a really fun project, so I volunteered to make one.”
The dragon will be available for special events, and an upcoming juried art show, said Clarke.
“It’s not just about what we did today. We also made a candle luminary for the winter solstice and it was a community event, for the community by the community just as this event is,” said Clarke. “This dragon represents something that’s bigger than ourselves.”