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2018 Chinese New Year Parade An Annual San Francisco Event The Year of the Dog
The San Francisco Chinese New Year Festival and Parade is an annual event held in San Francisco and directed by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. Held for approximately two weeks following the first day of the Chinese New Year, it combines elements of the Chinese Lantern Festival with a typical American parade. First held in 1858, along what are today Grant Avenue and Kearny Street, it is the oldest and largest event of its kind outside of Asia, and the largest Asian cultural event in North America. The parade route begins on Market Street and terminates in Chinatown. [from wikipedia]
Banners Costumes Dancers Dragons Floats Lion Dance Marching Bands People Prelude Year Of The Dog
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Marching Bands, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

A marching band is a group in which instrumental musicians perform while marching, often for entertainment or competition. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. Most marching bands wear a uniform, often of a military style, that includes an associated school or organization's colors, name or symbol. Most high school marching bands, and some college marching bands, are accompanied by a color guard, a group of performers who add a visual interpretation to the music through the use of props, most often flags and rifles.[from wikipedia]

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Banners, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

A banner can be a flag or other piece of cloth bearing a symbol, logo, slogan or other message. A flag whose design is the same as the shield in a coat of arms (but usually in a square or rectangular shape) is called a banner of arms. Also, a bar shape piece of non-cloth advertising material sporting a name, slogan, or other marketing message.[from wikipedia]

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Costumes, of the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

Costume is the distinctive style of dress of an individual or group that reflects their class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. The term also was traditionally used to describe typical appropriate clothing for certain activities, such as riding costume, swimming costume, dance costume, and evening costume. Appropriate and acceptable costume is subject to changes in fashion and local cultural norms.[from wikipedia]

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Dancers, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

An important distinction is to be drawn between the contexts of theatrical and participatory dance, although these two categories are not always completely separate; both may have special functions, whether social, ceremonial, competitive, erotic, martial, or sacred/liturgical. Other forms of human movement are sometimes said to have a dance-like quality, including martial arts, gymnastics, cheerleading, figure skating, synchronized swimming, marching bands, and many other forms of athletics.[from wikipedia]

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Dragons, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event

A dragon is a large, serpent-like legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures around world. Beliefs about dragons vary drastically by region, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted as winged, horned, four-legged, and capable of breathing fire. Dragons in eastern cultures are usually depicted as wingless, four-legged, serpentine creatures with above-average intelligence.[from wikipedia]

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Floats, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

Parade floats were first introduced in the Middle Ages when churches used pageant wagons as movable scenery for passion plays. Artisan guilds were responsible for building the pageant wagons for their specified craft. The wagons were pulled throughout the town, most notably during Corpus Christi in which up to 48 wagons were used, one for each play in the Corpus Christi cycle.[from wikipedia]

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Lion Dance, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

Lion dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture and other Asian countries in which performers mimic a lion's movements in a lion costume to bring good luck and fortune. The lion dance is usually performed during the Chinese New Year and other Chinese traditional, cultural and religious festivals. It may also be performed at important occasions such as business opening events, special celebrations or wedding ceremonies, or may be used to honor special guests by the Chinese communities.[from wikipedia]

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People, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

A people is a plurality of persons considered as a whole, as is the case with an ethnic group or nation. Collectively, for example, the contemporary Frisians and Danes are two related Germanic peoples, while various Middle Eastern ethnic groups are often linguistically categorized as Semitic peoples.[from wikipedia]

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Prelude, to the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event, The Year of the Dog

Any action, event, comment, etc. that precedes something else. [from dictionary.com]

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Year Of The Dog, in the 2018, Chinese New Year Parade, An Annual San Francisco Event

Dogs are an important motif in Chinese mythology. These motifs include a particular dog which accompanies a hero, the dog as one of the twelve totem creatures for which years are named, a dog giving first provision of grain which allowed current agriculture, and claims of having a magical dog as an original ancestor in the case of certain ethnic groups.[from wikipedia]


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