It’s January, and Lunar New Year celebrations have rolled in again this weekend for the Chinese community in Leicester.

 

On Saturday (February 1) and Sunday, Cosmopolitan Arts will hold a Lunar New Year festival in the heart of the city centre, Highcross.

 

The founder and director of Cosmopolitan Arts, Amanda Leandro, said several make-and-take workshops are also planned along with the activities for the Lunar New Year festival.

 

“It helps engage with the Chinese community and break down cultural barriers,” said Amanda.

 

In China, they call it the Chinese New Year, but it has become more inclusive due to the new year encompassing different countries that celebrate it, so it is now referred to as the Lunar New Year.

 

The Love of Jazz Festival was started in 2022 to promote women in jazz. 

Music lessons and school holiday provision are available to culturally diverse, deprived children free every day during the festival.

 

On Saturday, the festival will take place from 1 to 6 pm in the Highcross along with a show.

 

It will include traditional dances, musicians, singing, martial arts, lion dance, acrobats, and a wide range of activities.

 

On Sunday, a lion dance performance will take place at 2.30pm outside the food village at DMU.

 

At 3pm everyone will congregate at Jubilee Square, and they will prepare to do a procession around the city centre from 3:20 to 4:30pm.

 

It will have a range of different activities to celebrate the new year, which will culminate in a finale show that includes a fire dance, lion dance, live musicians, and pyrotechnics that will lead into a big finale of firework displays.

 

The festival helps Chinese people become engrossed with their own culture.

 

“The community is very dispersed in Leicester,” said Amanda.

 

She realised that losing the safety of a vibrant community has left people with little to celebrate, especially due to the racism the Chinese community faces continuously.

 

Amanda came from Leeds to Leicester and realised how culturally segregated it was.

 

“I did an event to break down the cultural barriers,” she said.

 

Cosmopolitan Arts were the first people to do research on Chinese migration to Leicester in 2018.

 

“Through doing that, this has become a very big event,” said Amanda.

 

There’s a lot of vibrancy and fascination towards the Chinese culture, which led to it always being successful.

 

Working with the Chinese community was always a pleasure for Amanda; due to her father being brought up in Hong Kong, she was exposed to many stories about Chinese traditions.

 

“I have a personal passion and fascination with the culture,” she said.

 

Her passion since 2011 remains strong to this day.

 

For 14 years Cosmopolitan Arts have been working with every imaginable culture, and since 2016 they have been working with the Chinese community.

 

The festival has evolved ever since they started doing it, and people have travelled from further distances to celebrate Lunar New Year in Leicester.

 

Thousands of people came to the festival last year, and due to the large success, some people even got turned away.

 

“Thousands of people attended the performances the following day,” said Amanda.

 

The expected crowd for the upcoming Lunar New Year festival is in the thousands, as it will be a large event.

 

“We get a lot of publicity, and people like to learn about Chinese culture,” Amanda added.

 

Cosmopolitan Arts celebrates cultural diversity through the arts and transcends language barriers to promote integration.

 

“People being exposed to Chinese culture and understanding it better can only be a good thing,” Amanda explained.

 

There have been improvements made since their last festival, which includes artists from all over the country doing performances.

 

Having links with other cultural communities and evolving the quality of the festival was another development Cosmopolitan Arts has focused on.

 

Anyone who is interested and enjoys the Chinese culture is welcome to celebrate the Lunar New Year at Highcross this weekend.

(image credit: cosmopolitan arts)