Teen Dancer Turning in Circles for 4 Hours Steals the Show at the CCTV 2014 Lunar New Year Gala
The C-netizens have spoken and the most buzzed about performance during the entire 4 hour long CCTV Lunar New Year Gala is by a fifteen year old girl who said not a word. She beat out Lee Min Ho by a huge margin and this time I totally get why. This year’s Gala was directed by movie director Feng Xiaogang, clearly an effort by CCTV to bring some pizzazz and buzz to their increasingly staid and stolid festivities with year after year of manufactured cheer and cheese. The result is a mixed bag despite the ratings remaining high. The scene stealer of the night is a teenager with the nickname Xiao Cai Qi (小彩旗 which means Little Rainbow Flag), a performer who is the niece of a famous Chinese dancer. Her role during the Gala was to be “The Emissary of Time” – she stood off to the side of the main stage and from the moment the show began at 8 pm she started turning and stopped after midnight. When I say turning, she literally stood in place and spun in circles. She spun and spun for the entirety of the Gala program which lasted 4 hours, never stopping for a rest, break, water, anything. She was Director Feng’s “brilliant” idea to be a physical embodiment of time which stops for no one. Errrr, okay, I guess. Her turning was exquisite though because she literally did not wobble, shake or actually lose her center of spin for the entirety of the 4 hours. It looked like she was standing on a spinning stage rather than the stage being stationary and she was the one turning. Netizens are both appalled and fascinating with this girl who can turn for 4 hours, and one netizen calculated her turns to be one turn every 0.76 seconds times 4 hours which meant she spun 19,000 times during the course of the night. That is C.R.A.Z.Y. Folks are calling child cruelty on Director Feng who defended himself by saying turning in place was Xiao Cai Qi’s special talent, which is actually true. She does the same trick on a stage performance program that her dancer aunt choreographed, though her performances there is limited to a measly two hours of turning which is the duration of the show. Xiao Cai Qi has given her own interview after the Gala spinning which confirmed she loved her skill and treats turning like she’s meditating as well as a feat of endurance. She did admit loathing the training when she was a kid and being by forced her aunt to learn it and always crying and running away, but her aunt persisted and now she’s clearly rocketed to super stardom with what amounts a really odd and incredible parlor trick. Check it out for yourself below.
Xiao Cai Qi turning non-stop for 4 hours straight at the Gala:
[youtube id=”oUJJghnexdU” w=”625″ h=”445″]
That’s was amazing!! She look exactly like the ballerina in the musical box.
This is one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen. Thanks for sharing!
1001 ways to become famous 🙂
That’s unreal. Just… WOW!
It reminds me of the Sufi Dervishes.
Yes, i saw the Sufi did that more than 4 hours in Turkey.
Uh i can’t even do 10 spins without feeling dizzy already so how this girl manages to do 19,000 spins is so surreal.
I love the fact that she beat out Lee Min Ho in terms of popularity.
Poor thing..
The cameraman didn’t give her a last shot..
WTF! Holy cow!
How does she do it? I’m getting dizzy looking at her, never mind spinning myself! :O
For a moment, I thought the pics with this post were posed, or a painting – she’s so perfect at this! I can’t believe she did it for four hours nonstop in front of an audience.
(also is her hair all real, because that length….WHOA. But it does make for a gorgeous visual with her dance and costume)
If anyone is interested, this is a duo dance between her and her aunt, choreographed by her aunt. It’s a dance about the cycle of life in nature, and it’s breathtaking.
Oops. It didn’t post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57zqwWfggfU
An interesting piece…
wow…at the talent of this girl and the pictures really beautifull…she will get to the top soon i guess..
She doesn’t even look like she’s spotting! That’s amazing! How does she do it?
4 hours with perfect positioning…her Aunt’s training must have been grueling
This is legit awesome. It better be a talent, otherwise it’s just cruel.
Wow! Turning so perfectly for four hours! That is crazily amazing. Sometimes I’m in awe of the things a human can do.
Wow….that is impressive and strange all at the same time
I’m sorry I don’t mean to be rude but I am unimpressed with this kind of sensationalism. As a mother of 3 children I would find much better use of my time for my 15 year old girl. It would definitely not be spinning around needlessly for hours on end. I’m appalled by her aunty lack of care. Surely a future with an education than this!!!
She’s home schooled and does various other dances aside from this. She’s touring in China and oversea’s in her aunt’s dance company. She is getting an education, but pursing a dance career many Chinese teens her age slaving away at dance academies can only dream about. Ever. She’s got it good really.
I know how training academies are like. She got it good really is subjective and depends on how we view quality of life.
For me, if she is serious about pursuing a career based on training methods like this, then that’s her choice. But then she is still young and looking at her younger days experience, was it all her choice?
Life is meant to be more than just this. There must be better methods to producing an excellent or brilliant dancing career.
And to allow a 15 year old to say yes to this is not an acceptable excuse by the director. Not to mention the guardian who agreed to this.
sustained spinning is a form of meditation which originated from Tibetan monks. they’d spin for hours and days! I once took a class on this with hoops (the instructor sustained his spinning with fire!) but they usually have choreography with very subtle position changes. it’s a great experience; it felt like the rest of the world dissolves into a blur while you lose your sense of time in the center. spinning for 10 mins felt like just a few seconds. this one is quite amazing not only for the duration but because she sustained spinning in one position! whoa!
omg i cant believe this is even possible! i was watching some clips of the performances and keep seeing her in the background, i just thought they replaced her. i can even spin 3 times without loosing my balance.
There are a lot of things they could have aired that showed/demonstrated/illustrated the passage of time.
Using children on a world stage is something that I personally cannot accept, as others have said. Being a mom, I know that kids do not want to spend their time training. If there is a kid who says, “I love this [spinning] training. It is way more fun than hanging out with my friends, sleeping, goofing off,” I don’t believe it!!
Even if they enjoy the activity, it is the grueling repetition that they avoid. She is only 15. How could doing something anything for 4 hours straight be anything but a nightmare? I am very proud of the girl and her talent and determination. I would like to see her rewarded by letting her choose what is next for her, not an adult.