Professor Gao Du of the Beijing Dance Academy, whose passionate classroom videos have made him a hit online, argues that Chinese dance has never left the soil.
Prior to the 2026 Beijing Culture Forum, the professor, who teaches in the academy's Department of Chinese Ethnic and Folk Dance, said the rhythmic vocabulary of all 56 ethnic groups flows unbroken from field to stage. Tradition, he said, is not a fixed specimen but a living expression — five thousand years old and still renewing itself.
