To drive away evil spirits, 500, 000 rounds of eardrum-testing pyrotechnics will be set off at Sara Roosevelt Park in Chinatown at the New Year Firecracker Ceremony and Cultural Festival on 10 February, before lion and dragon dance troupes make the rounds to local businesses to ring in the Year of the Snake.
The Hayachine Kagura is a series of masked dances accompanied by drum, cymbals and flute: six ritual dances begin the performance, five dances recount stories of the deities and medieval Japanese history, and a final dance features a performer dressed as a "shishi, " an imaginary lion-like creature representing the Hayachine deity himself.
And it seemed to Katia that the dance of death was not merely horrid but unjust terrifying because the lion was going to eat both the cow and the unborn calf.