PERFORMANCE: “Year of the Rabbit” Chinese New Year Parade - Los Angeles, CA The “Year of the Rabbit” was a social intervention that played with the meaning and interpretation of the Chinese Zodiac sign, “the rabbit” during the Chinese New Year parade in Downtown Los Angeles. “According to the Chinese Zodiac, Rabbits are people everyone likes to be around -- affectionate, obliging, and pleasant.” Source: www.ofesite.com/spirit/chinese/rabbit.htm As a Westerner, I wanted to explore the iconic image of the rabbit in our culture in relation to the traditional Chinese Zodiac. In the celebration of the “rabbit” the Chinese culture does not literally anthropomorphize the appearance of the rabbit, only its human characteristics and I find this a great entry point for my investigation. From this perspective, I realized the two most significant icons that embody an anthropomorphized “rabbit” in our culture are the Easter Bunny and Playboy Bunny. Oddly enough, both fit into the characterizations listed above. During this performance, I became these Western characters in a social setting that juxtaposed these two similar yet opposing embodiments of “the rabbit.”