It began last Friday. After the animals at the Franklin Park Zoo headed to bed for the night, visitors headed into to the zoo, where they had dream-like experiences of their own as they wandered through scenes inspired by coastal South Africa, the Grand Canyon, and ocean depths.
Boston Lights: A Lantern Experience, the popular summer and fall tradition, was back in Dorchester, beginning a Thursday through Monday run that will conclude in early November.
“We’re in partnership with Tianyu Arts & Culture, Inc,” said Stephanie Brinley, Zoo New England’s CEO and president. “We’re hosting Boston Lights, which is a Chinese lantern festival. It’s quite extensive. We have well over 1,000 individual lanterns, and more than 40 different vignettes or scenes.”
Within a 1.5-mile path, guests travel through 100-foot-long lantern tunnels inspired by bamboo and peacock feathers and enter an underwater world of colorful tropical fish and great white sharks, or a desert, where the are greeted by a Gila monster and burrowing owls.
“There’s something for everybody,” said Brinley. “We’re just really excited. This is the seventh year that we’ve offered it, and we’re excited to see this become a tradition that families come back to over and over again.”
Each year brings a new set of lanterns created in Zigong, China, the “Lantern Capital of the World,” and delivered to Dorchester.
According to Jiang Guanghong, a master artisan of Zigong lantern art, when they are assembled upon arrival, there is a sort of “second creation.”
With the help of translator Jessie Li, Guanghong, 45, told The Reporter that Chinese lantern-making has been a vibrant art form for more than a thousand years that embodyies Chinese philosophy, symbolism, and communal celebration.
Since the skills required to make these lanterns, including complex framing, intricate knot tying, and delicate silk painting, have all been preserved through a master-apprentice system, Guanghong feels a sense of responsibility to pass down the tradition and bring it to other parts of the world.
But after 20 years of working with the lanterns, he isn’t just passing down his knowledge; he is adding to it.
This year, he was excited about the incorporation of interactive elements, like the talking parakeet and live chat screen, into the fun.
Guanghong’s goal is for Boston Lights to not just be something you see, but rather something you experience.
And with the addition of music, movement, and even conversation, he thinks his team has accomplished just that.
Brinley thinks so, too. She says that the response to the experience so far has been “wonderful. We had an amazing community night on Thursday where we opened it up to our local neighbors and community members here. It’s just always amazing to see the smiles on people’s faces and just how excited they are to welcome this event.”
She added: “What we’re really hoping is for this to become a community event that people are proud to see as part of their year-in-and-year-out traditions. We want the community to come in. We want them to feel this sense of wonder, and really use this event to … bring the family and to make memories.”
Boston Lights will be open Thursday through Monday from 6 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. From Oct. 1 through November 8, it will be open nightly from 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
With Plan Ahead Pricing, you can pick the day, time, and price that best works for you. The earlier you purchase tickets, the more you will save. For the full schedule as well as ticket prices, visit franklinparkzoo.org.
