SUPER SATURDAY IN CHINATOWN

 

Super Saturday in Chinatown NYC is one of the most vibrant lead-ups to Lunar New Year, centered in and around Chinatown, Manhattan. It typically takes place the Saturday before the main Lunar New Year Parade. The day features traditional lion dances weaving through storefronts to bring good fortune, drum corps performances, martial arts demonstrations, and cultural showcases. Local businesses open their doors for blessings, and the streets fill with the crackle of firecrackers meant to ward off evil spirits and usher in prosperity for the year ahead.

It is also a spiritual and economic ritual — a way for families, merchants, and community associations to start the year united and hopeful. You’ll often see elders offering red envelopes, children watching wide-eyed as lions “eat” lettuce for luck, and volunteers distributing commemorative banners. In a city as fast-paced as New York, Super Saturday transforms Chinatown into a living expression of heritage, resilience, and renewal — a reminder that Lunar New Year is not just a single parade day, but a season of tradition, gratitude, and collective celebration.

AWAKENING THE LIONS

 

The Lion Dance is a form of traditional dance in Chinese culture and other Asian countries in which performers mimic a lion's movements in lions' costumes to bring good luck and fortune. The lion dance is usually performed during the Chinese New Year and other traditional, cultural and religious festivals.

I attended the February 17, 2026 celebration in Manhattan's Chinatown (mostly on Mott, Bayard and Pell streets). and despite the massive crowd, recorded some of the scenes documentary-style.

Following The Lions Of Chinatown

 

On February 8, 2025, I went to Manhattan’s Chinatown to photograph the Super Saturday festivities for the Year of the Snake. Unique to New York City’s Chinatown, Super Saturday began in the 1960s as a tradition to extend the Lunar New Year celebrations. Since most Chinatown shops close on New Year’s Day, lion dance troupes return to the streets on the first or second Saturday after the holiday, performing for business owners in exchange for red envelopes of cash.

 

Unlike New Year’s Day, which can fall on a weekday, Super Saturday tends to attract more lion and dragon dance troupes from across the city—along with larger crowds and an even thicker layer of confetti coating the streets.

For this series, I chose to convert my color photographs into high-contrast monochrome. Rather than relying on the vivid reds and yellows of the lions, I focused on movement and expression, embracing a photojournalistic black-and-white approach to capture the energy of the performances, and the crush of crowds wanting to share in the excitement.