2025 LSBU Chinese New Year Gala

The Spring Festival, aka the Lunar New Year and the Chinese New Year, was celebrated in Edric Theatre on 29 January 2025. The LSBU community delighted in the jubilant show brought by the professional performance team of their own Confucius Institute for Traditional Chinese Medicine.

A brief but warm speech of Prof Deborah Johnston, Deputy Vice-Chancelor of LSBU, marked the opening of this significant event.Deborah thanked the Confucius Institute Team for their great contributions to LSBU’s diversity and inclusivity and expressed her appreciation of their hard work throughout their busy roadshow in the Spring Festival season. The gala included lively shows of lion dance, captive presentations of classical and folk dance, powerful performances of martial arts, and various pieces of Chinese and western instrumental music and bilingual vocal music. The enthusiastic audience was also brought to an interactive adventure – the dexterous handling of handkerchiefs, a pivotal prop in one of the dances.

The audience were exhilarated by the vibrant performances and especially amazed by the constellation of seemingly unrelated art forms. LSBU executives, senior directors, university staff and students, who enjoyed the performances, all spoke highly of their experience at the end of the gala. One LSBU professor warmly remarked on the “absolutely delightful event celebrating the new lunar year,” who “thoroughly enjoyed the programme which was varied and very well-structured with some really beautiful performances, and the interactive elements made for a warm, fun atmosphere.” Some other viewers who attended the gala for the second consecutive year recognised the performers from the previous year and commented, “These young artists are really going from strength to strength as they gain experience in the Confucius Institute.”

Appreciating the tradition of the Spring Festival, the participants also held high the spirit of giving. Over £200 was raised for The Access Project, an education charity dedicated to supporting students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The gala enjoyed kind and generous contributions from LSBU Active, South Bank Students’ Union, and the Learning and Organisational Development Team. Representatives from these departments awarded prizes, all in relation to health and well-being, to the 15 lucky winners in the carefully designed raffle draws.