Samba lions are the lion masks we used in street parades; activities performed using the lion head masks have a sense of modern fashion. If we see traditional lion dances as classical music, then our street parades is full of modern fashion, like Samba music. Therefore we call it Samba lion dance.

  While preparing the street parades, Sijhou Township Office found three artists to give us guidance. After they came to the school and were introduced to the school, they knew that lion dances are a feature of our school. They introduced methods for street parades, and then discussed with us, then we decided to make the lion heads into masks, which is modern with the specialties of our school – this is how we created the lion dance costumes. In order to make our lion head costumes more salient, we not only added the elements of traditional lion dances (such as exaggerated appearances), but also added fashionable elements so that our lions are more ostentatious.

  We remember that the artist whom we interviewed and counseled us about the street parades, Wan-ping Wu, told us: “Artistic street parades are like the traditional temple progresses in Taiwan, and dragon and lion dances are traditional formations in temple festivals. Since it’s a street parade at the Sijhou Cultural Festival, we should use traditional formations in Taiwan culture. But we are modern people, why don’t we use modern ways to interpret it. Conversions between these two can be seen in our guardian lions!”

  Our advising teacher also told us that the guardian lions are traditional lion dances of our community becoming a part of the campus, and became a specialty of our school; through the artistic street parades, the school’s Samba lion dance can move beyond the school to become a local specialty of Sijhou Township. After this Xiluo Street Parade Arts and Cultural Festival, we deeply understood that lion heads in Taiwan needs to be passed down, and in this heritage there should also be innovation for continuation. Many people place the lion heads into a pigeonhole, and this is not what we should do; we should remove the restrictions to pass down the lion head tradition. Originally, before street parades, we were afraid that the Samba lion would not be well-received by others. But after street parades, we received wide approval, and we become more confident.