one of the deans in beijing dance academy rehearses with students
Oh so that's what books mean when they talk about seeing a swordperson or a martial artist move and immediately knowing you're fucked. If I saw someone handle a weapon or switch martial art stances that smoothly and with that economy of motion, I would immediately know I was going to die.
Oh, what a blast from the past! They're (and more importantly, he's) doing a type of Mongolian folk dance.
I recognize this track because my Chinese folk dance group used the same one when my teacher taught us a similar dance, ha ha. I haven't heard it in more than 15 years, but bam, there is is. We basically ripped the track from this master dance.
The dean here is Jiang Tiehong 姜铁红!
I think, I THINK here Jiang is at 3:00 in an older (1986 from the description) performance of this dance. In another video, somebody says that he and the four dancers immediately around him in white went on to become teachers at Minzu University of China, and I believe it, ha ha. He's also listed as a famous soloist for this dance and was a student of Minzu University of China, so I imagine he earned his solo then (and maybe this is one of those student performances!), and has been reprising it for fun anniversary performances and teaching moments like the one that went viral this year. I am cobbling this together without reading primary sources, so grain of salt.
(I have complicated feelings about "Chinese folk dance", the dance traditions of ethnic minority groups in China, and the Han-ification of them, but this performance objectively rocks. Also, the Minzu University of China is cooler than most because their education is focused on the ethnic minorities of China.)
