The Chinese Language School of Connecticut on Sunday hosted a Lunar New Year celebration at the UConn Stamford Campus Center.

The CLSC got an early start on festivities – the holiday will begin on Feb. 10 and lasts one week. The event included a showing of the Lion Dance, which is the signature performance of the Lunar New Year celebration.

“Lunar New Year started off with the monster, the dragon, that would come to the villages and eat,” said Jocelyn Riddle, director of the CLSC. “They’d offer up sacrifices with the red envelopes."

“In return, you’re going to receive luck and good fortune for the new year,” said XiaoHwa Sydney Ing, a volunteer at the CLSC.

Ing says the Year of the Dragon “exemplifies power and luck.”

The celebration included traditional dance, martial arts demonstrations from Greenwich Kempo, a violin concerto and the school’s own chorus.

Lunar New Year is a time of renewal across many Southeast Asian cultures and nations, all represented at the CLSC’s annual event.

“We represent the diaspora of Chinese Americans…a Filipino-Chinese table…a Singaporean-Chinese table…Taiwan…there are so many different regions and nuanced cultures that we can bring together here,” said Ing. “Our own set of food, practices, folklore and we just want to educate in those fields.”

For more information on CLSC you can visit their website.