The 9th Genting World Lion Dance Championship was held at Genting Highland Resort, Malaysia, from the 23rd to the 25th of July 2010. It is the most established and most highly regarded high-stilt lion dance championship in the world. Since 1994, entry to this prestigious competition is only granted to the top teams of individual countries and this year saw 25 aspiring teams from 12 countries and territories(namely: Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States of America) battling it out to earn the right to be crowned World Lion King 2010.

High-stilt (or sometimes called Pole Jumping) lion dance started in the 1980’s and became an International sporting event with the first World Championship held in 1992. It involves a lion performing acrobatic stunts on top of stilts 1-3 meters high while still dancing in concert with the music all the time. Points are given for form, coordination, execution and difficulty of stunts as well as the overall look of the performance. It represents the peak in the development and the most recent evolution to the ancient art of Southern Chinese Lion Dance, blending dance, music, martial art, acrobatic moves, drama and sports.

The event ran for 3 days(2 for the preliminaries and 1 for the final). Opening with a 45 combine lion dance performance, the competition went off smoothly with all teams performing sleek and impressive stunts while dancing to the lively and loud music. A number of teams did made mistakes and a few fell down from the poles tough no injury was reported. For them it was the end of the road as with such high stakes a minor mistake meant they will not proceed to the finals.

Only 8 teams from the preliminaries went trough to the finals. They were join by the returning World Champions and all 9 teams put on an exciting and exhilarating show to the capacity crowd of 7,000. Among the audiences were also many members of lion dance teams from around the world, hoping not just to get inspiration from these top performances, but also to renew old acquaintances and meet new friends among the lion dance fellowship.

The crown was eventually won by Kung Seng Keng of Malaysia, whom as a team has never lost in these championships since it began in 1994. Even tough they were a pairing of relatively young dancers they performed many highly difficult moves effortlessly while dancing beautifully. The 1st and 2nd runner ups were also won by Malaysian teams, with China taking out the 3rd runner up spot. As expected the standard of the teams were very high and even minor teams were able to make an impact on the competition.  With the success of this event all eyes are now looking towards the 10th Genting World Lion Dance Championship in 2012.



A very special thanks to the Asia New Zealand Foundation for helping our head coach, George Chan, attend this special event.




 A detail report can also be found  at our Facebook site:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=121888851154733