Lantern Dance at SGSS

"Dance" of the lanterns in Chinatown (at Temple Street). Pic: March 2013.

NO, I wasn't a lantern. But I was a member of the Lantern Dance "troupe" at SGSS. We travelled to quite a few places to perform this -- at competitions in other schools (one of them was the Aljunied Primary School) and even performed for some celebrations at one temple (somewhere along 5th mile, Upper Serangoon Road) which invited us. So you see, this "troupe" was rather famous!

Each of us holding a lantern in each hand, would danced our way into quite a few formations such as figure of eight, and circles. There was a "generic" step used throughout the dance, with a lot of variations during the different formations (such as raising the lanterns high overhead, or keeping them waist high).

There were two teachers in charge of this "troupe" -- and sometimes we would have rehearsals at one of their homes. While waiting for our turns to rehearse, we explored the lonkangs (drains) outside her house. And we had cakes and soft drinks served to us for tea by our teachers. The benefits of being in a dance troupe. Tremendous fun.