London wowed by ancient, heroic dance

Performers wear opera-style facial makeup in diverse colors and patterns that reveal the personalities of the characters they are portraying. And with a pair of short batons in hand, they jump, swing, and hit the sticks together while walking and dancing, all to the resounding beat of drums, gongs, and shouts.

Since January, Chen and 15 other selected dancers have been working by day and training by night for a series of performances at landmarks in London.

It is the first time the dance has been seen in person anywhere in Europe.

All 16 of the performers taking part in the UK tour hail from Nanshan Yingge dance team, one of the most exceptional Yingge dance troupes in China. Nanshan is a village in Puning.

On Feb 10, the squad, under the direction of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism with support from the Cultural Section of China's Embassy in the UK, took center stage at London's Burlington Arcade, to mark the start of the Year of the Dragon. The performance was part of a series of activities hosted by the shopping gallery to herald Spring Festival.

On the day, as the spectacle unfolds in the long hallway, crowds flock to see what is happening, holding mobile phones aloft to film and take photos of the excitement and immersing themselves in the thundering sound and explosion of color.

"The performance is electrifying. I feel like it has woken up everybody in the arcade," says Trupti Shah, Burlington Arcade's commercial director.