When the spirit moves you

At the curtain call, the local inheritors of these dance styles also took to the stage with the students, offering the audience an authentic taste of their folk culture.

The performances included a Taiping drum dance, which is popular in the Mentougou and Shijingshan districts of western Beijing and was listed among the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage in 2006.

The inheritor, Gao Hongwei, says the dance style was particularly popular among his grandmother's generation. At the time, the locals would gather in the fields, dancing and drumming as a form of entertainment.

"The greatest characteristic of this dance is the unity between the performer and the drum. The performer needs to dance with the drum and drumstick in their hands and play at the same time, so the drum appears to fly around the dancer," Gao says.