Chinese New Year Festival flocks Wellington

Chinese New Year Festival flocks Wellington

The Wellington Chinese New Year Festival welcomes in the Year of the Sheep with a flock of sheep featuring in its annual Festival Day street parade on Sunday 15 February.

Leading the Parade will be Ramo, the iconic figurehead of New Zealand's merino design experts, Icebreaker, followed by six dancing sheep designed by Chris Baxter of Cuba St's own Abstract Design and danced by members of the Deirdre Tarrant Dance Theatre and then eight live sheep from the pastures of Pauahatanui.

Making a very significant statement for Chinese luck and prosperity with this 1-6-8 formation of sheep, the Mayor of Wellington will follow on a float with girls dressed in specially hand painted cheongsarms by local artists Stan Chan and Janet Andrews.

Linda Lim, Programme Director for the Chinese New Year Festival says, ‘The number 168 holds special significance for Chinese as phonetically the three numbers in combination translate to forever prosperous. When teamed up with dragons and lions in the parade, the spirit of the Chinese culture will be there for all to see and enjoy bringing good luck to the city for the New Year.’

The parade will start in Courtenay Place at 2pm, and wind its way through Wellington’s streets and onto the waterfront finishing at Frank Kitts Park.

Ramo and the dancing sheep will also feature in a performance piece that will performed in the Festival programme. Produced by Wellington’s own dancing queen Deirdre Tarrant, and titled Sharing, the work was devised by dancers from New Zealand and China, uses music by NZ composers Eden Mulholland and Craig Denham and costumes by Stan Chan and Jane Ferguson.

Deirdre says, ‘All these artists responded to their own ideas of commonality and diversity between our two countries. This is a fantastic example of collaboration, bringing together some of Wellington’s young emerging dancers work with their overseas counterparts.’

The annual ‘New Clothes for the New Year’ fashion show which celebrates it’s 10 anniversary of being in the Festival, will be incorporating sheep in fine form, with merino designs from New Zealand clothing brands Icebreaker, and Mons Royale.

“This is a once in a 12 year opportunity for all New Zealanders to celebrate Chinese New Year together with the sheep being such a iconic symbol of the fabric of NZ. We are thrilled to be able to present a uniquely NZ celebration of Chinese New Year to the city.” says Lim.

ENDS.

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