We are getting ready to welcome in the Year of the Rabbit with the 12th annual Chinese Lantern Festival, taking place in February 2011 in Auckland and Christchurch.

Once again, we are bringing to New Zealand a dazzling array of international performers, who will impress the crowds with a mixture of contemporary and traditional art.

Putting the emphasis on musical performances, we have invited a contemporary rock band with Uyghur and Han Chinese influences. For a taste of jazz with overtones of 1930s Shanghai we have looked further south to invite Shanghai Bai Yulan jazz band. And last but not least, the award-winning Chengdu Puppetry Theatre will bring to life the 2000-year-old Chinese tradition of puppetry.

Mark the dates in your calendar now:

• Auckland - 18, 19 and 20 February 2011 from 5.00pm to 10.30pm at Albert Park
• Christchurch - 26 and 27 February 2011 from 5.00pm to 10.00pm at Victoria Square. Twilight Parade on 25 February.
As always, there will be plenty of local performances, food and craft stalls, and a fireworks display.

International performers
Crowds in Auckland and Christchurch will be spoiled for choice with a varied and very original selection of international performers this year.

Askar Grey Wolf
From the mystical steppes of Xinjiang, on the far western boundaries of the vast Chinese state, comes a band that fuses the old songs of the Silk Road with modern rock guitar riffs.

Headed by lead singer Askar Mamat, an Uyghur by birth, the band are pioneers of Chinese rock music. Askar sings in both Mandarin and Uyghur, his mother tongue. The band members are drawn from both the Han and Uyghur ethnicities.

In addition to the electric guitar the band’s music features a variety of traditional instruments, including the rawap (a plucked Uyghur instrument), the dap (a Uyghur hand drum), the long-necked stringed tambur and the round-bodied fiddle ghijak.

Due to popular demand, Askar Grey Wolf will also perform a show in Wellington on Wednesday 23 February.

Shanghai Bai Yulan
In the 1930s foreigners and Chinese alike danced the night away to American-style jazz bands in the crowded nightclubs and dance halls of Shanghai, 'the Paris of the Orient’. Today, new styles of jazz are once again drawing the crowds.

Back in the 1930s bands from the Philippines dominated Shanghai’s dancehalls. It wasn’t until 1946 that the first Chinese jazz band was formed.

Jazz, like all other forms of so-called decadent bourgeois entertainment, was banned during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. But in the early 1980s the legendary Peace Hotel Old Jazz Band, famous for its performance of classical jazz of the 30s and 40s, was resurrected with six veteran musicians whose average age was over 60.

The 2011 Auckland Lantern Festival features the Shanghai Bai Yulan (White Magnolia) band, which combines Latin American jazz with Chinese folk songs and traditional minority music. Like members of other new jazz bands, the musicians of White Magnolia are graduates of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music.

Chengdu Puppetry Theatre
Puppetry in China dates back some 2,000 years.

Some of the stories told by the Chengdu Puppetry Theatre draw on ancient myths; others borrow from modern dance forms including a stunning Michael Jackson routine.

Puppet performances are held nightly in the traditional tea houses of Chengdu, capital of China’s southwestern province of Sichuan.

The largest rod puppets from northern Sichuan are about 1.4 metres in length and weigh up to five kilograms.

Master puppeteers can make the puppets perform a number of difficult actions such as putting on clothes, lighting a candle, drinking tea, and wirlding weapons.

Best of all, the Chengdu puppets have become famous for their ability to change masks more than ten times in just a few minutes, culminating in a dramatic display of fire-breathing.

The award-winning Chengdu Puppetry Theatre has performed to great acclaim both in China and overseas. A show not to be missed!

Christchurch Chinese Lantern Festival - Twilight Parade
All our international performers will take part in the inaugural musical parade from Rolleston Avenue to Cathedral Square, starting at 8.30pm on Friday 25 February. The procession will be led by the Qiao Yi Lion Dance Team and will feature both international and local performers in traditional costume, community groups, dragon boats and lanterns.

The Year of the Rabbit
People born in the Year of the Rabbit are said to be artistic and reserved, preferring to work behind the scenes.

If you were born in 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, or 2011, you are a Rabbit and this is your year. Find out your Chinese Zodiac animal.

Background
What is the Chinese Lantern Festival all about? Click here to find out.

2010 - Year of the Tiger

The Lantern Festival is traditionally held on the 15th day of Chinese Lunar New Year. Each year Asia:NZ commissions new lanterns from our lantern-maker in Zigong in the western Chinese province of Sichuan. These are shipped from Shanghai by sponsor COSCO (New Zealand) Ltd. We also bring in performers from different areas of China with the assistance of sponsor Cathay Pacific. Our core sponsor for the Festivals is HSBC.

ENDS

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