“I Thought Lion Dance Was Just an Everyday Sight” | Manwai Ng 's “Sequence of Crimson & Emerald”

Macau contemporary artist Manwai Ng sought the opposite: to bare the lion’s bones.

“Sequence of Crimson & Emerald” brings the hidden into the light. In electroplated metal, Ng sculpts the lion's inner structure directly turning what was meant to stay concealed into the work's sharpest feature. "It's the truest visual translation of the lion dance's inner spirit," she says.

The hardest part was not shaping metal, but entering an unfamiliar world. Every component, every step in the craft, every symbolic motif had to be learned from the ground up. 

She'd always thought lion dance was just everyday scenery. That changed when MGM lent her a full lion head to study—measuring every curve by hand, translating bamboo's suppleness into metal's rigidity, first on screen, then in sculpture.

Ng asks viewers to orbit the work. From one angle, a Southern lion caught in motion. From another, its hidden anatomy surfaces, segment by segment, like a carefully guarded secret brought to light. 

This exhibition is an invitation to see lion dance anew. The future of tradition is not imagined in isolation, but shaped through every door opened to artists willing to enter. MGM goes beyond showcasing lion dance culture, bringing together inheritors, artists, and the public to explore its next possibility.

“Sequence of Crimson & Emerald” is on view now as part of “Lion Dance Festival 2026”.