Strictly Square Dancing

China's elderly are grooving their way across the nation, but the dance phenomenon has not been without controversy, Chen Nan reports.

Day and night across China, groups of middle-aged, retirees, mostly women, gather together to dance in open spaces, such as parks and public squares. They are known as guang chang wu da ma, or "public square dance older ladies", as literally translated. Their passion for square dancing has made them a national phenomenon but they are also a source of controversy, with complaints that their music is too loud, they occupy too much public space and they occasionally use inappropriate venues - such as the square in front of the Louvre in Paris, where Chinese tourists broke into a dance last year.

But controversy aside, the dancers are only growing in number and style. Some groups of dancers have even begun to attract crowds of spectators by wearing colorful, flamboyant costumes and choreographing their own steps in distinctive styles.