Come Celebrate The Chinese New Year at the Penn Museum

Come Celebrate The Chinese New Year at the Penn Museum

Swing on into the Year of the Monkey at the Penn Museum’s 35th Annual Chinese New Year Celebration on Saturday, January 30, 2016, from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm. The festive day features traditional music and dance, tai chi and tangram workshops and martial arts presentations, family crafts and much more—with the grand finale drums and the roar of the lion dance and parade. Activities are held in the China Gallery, which houses one of the finest collections of monumental Chinese art in the country, and throughout the international galleries of Museum. A special red envelope of surprises awaits every family who attends the festivities!

The celebration, one of Philadelphia’s oldest, is free with Museum admission donation ($15, general admission; $13, seniors [65+]; $10, children [6-17] and full-time students [with ID]; $2 ACCESS Card holders; free to children under 5, members, active U.S. Military, STAMP and PennCard holders).

EXPLORING ANCIENT AND MODERN TRADITIONS

At 11:00 am

Chinese painting instructor Onlei Annie Jung leads a drop-in painting workshop to teach basic stroke techniques of monkey images. At 2:00 pm, she returns for a separate workshop to explain the seven tans of the tangram, an ancient Chinese puzzle game believed to have been invented in China during the Song Dynasty, and introduced in Europe in the early 19th century.

12:30 pm and 2:45 pm

Take guided family tours at wind through the Museum to find monkeys and primates, exploring how they were valued in other cultures. Tour stops include the Egypt gallery, the Mexico and Central America gallery, and the Human Evolution: The First 200 Million Years exhibition.

Qin Qian and local musician and instructor Kurt Jung perform modern and traditional Chinese melodies on the erhu (Chinese two-string fiddle) and the yangchin (Chinese hammered dulcimer) at 12:30 pm and 2:00 pm. Mr. Jung also discusses the role of music in ancient Chinese society in these sessions.

1:30 pm. At 2:30 pm

Guests can join Falun Gong practitioners from the Greater Philadelphia Falun Dafa Association for sets of gentle and relaxing exercises.

2:15 pm

The award-winning Great Wall Chinese School Little Mulan Dance Troupe performs a selection of traditional and folk dances from China.

Throughout the day, a Chinese Art Marketplace provides activities for families, including a Year of the Monkey craft station, and paper cutting presentations by local artists. Chinese calligraphy painters write on red paper, in the newer Spring Festival tradition of pasting special couplets on every door in the home.

The Celebration is the second in the Museum’s World Culture Day series. Guests can pick up a Passport to Cultures upon arrival, and begin collecting their 10 stamps to earn an invitation to a special Penn Museum Junior Anthropologist ceremony!