Yang Liu: Achieving Dance Dreams with Bamboo

Everyone probably has a dream of martial arts, mastering the "Wave-like Subtle Steps", bringing the sword alone, and travel around the world. For most, such a situation exists more only in the Wuxia drama.

However, in reality, there really is a girl who did. Her name, Yang Liu (杨柳).

She is 24 years old this year and has spent 17 years practicing the stunt of crossing the river with a bamboo. On the bamboo, doing various difficult movements, dancing ballet and traditional Chinese dance.

Come and listen to her story.

 

Learn Du Zhu Piao for the first time

Yang Liu, born in Zunyi, Guizhou, likes to dance since she was a child, and her dream was to be a dancer. However, she was born with a weak and petite body.

In order to keep her fit, her grandmother, who is a member of the local Du Zhu Piao Association, started to take her to practice this skill.

Du Zhu Piao (独竹漂, single bamboo rafting) is a folk skill in northern Guizhou. The ancestors who lived on the banks of the Chishui River learned to use bamboo to cross the river in order to overcome the inconvenience of transportation.But as the years passed, it gradually became a very niche activity, often appearing as a performance.

But learning Du Zhu Piao is not an easy task, the key is to master the sense of balance on the bamboo.

This sense of balance can only be obtained by practicing again and again, falling into the water and standing still again and again. The bamboo is very slippery and will swing with the current, so it is easy to fall into the water, and Yang Liu often fell and hurt.

Yang Liu started studying when he was seven years old, and kept learning for three years, and only gradually could stand firmly on the bamboo. While practicing Du Zhu Piao, she did not give up her dream of dancing.

Ballet, folk dance, classical dance... Yang Liu seriously learned various dance styles, in order to be able to be on the big stage one day and become a real dancer. But, she was not valued because of her small stature.

Although she worked very hard, she was eventually rejected by the dance academy because of her small stature. Looking at the disappointed Yang Liu, her grandmother encouraged her to try to combine dance and Du Zhu Piao.

A bamboo can become her stage alone. After listening to her grandmother's advice, Yang Liu seemed to see a new hope.

 

Combination of Du Zhu Piao and dance

Yang Liu began to learn how to dance on the bamboo. It was difficult enough to maintain balance on the bamboo, but also to do a lot of difficult dance moves, which is difficult to add to the difficulty.

Yang Liu falls into the water over and over again, and gets back on the bamboo over and over again. Every day, behind every dance move, means hundreds of attempts and failures.

The hardships of learning Du Zhu Piao when she was young seem to have come back to haunt her. But Yang Liu believes that nothing in the world is difficult for one who sets her mind to it.

Gradually, Yang Liu could complete some dance moves on the water. With the flowing skirt of her Hanfu, she looks like a fairy in a painting, which makes people marvel at her.

Sometimes, she is a bride in water with a red dress.

Sometimes she is a floating fairy from the sky.

Sometimes, she is a heroine.

Sometimes, she is the fluttering Huadan of Peking opera.

Under Yang Liu's performance, Du Zhu Piao glows with unprecedented charm. She received various invitations to perform, and many people got to know Du Zhu Piao for the first time because of her performance.

After 17 years of perseverance, 24-year-old Yang Liu finally broke the size limit and won a unique stage for herself.

 

Continuous innovation

Yang Liu has made Du Zhu Piao spread like never before. Many people come and guard both sides of the river just to see Yang Liu crossing on a single bamboo.

She was on the stage of CCTV as a Intangible Cultural Heritage inheritor. With the support of the wire, she seemed to really have wings and became a water fairy.

But Yang Liu's dance steps don't stop there. In order for Du Zhu Piao to be seen by a wider audience, she boldly combined ballet and Du Zhu Piao.

Yang Liu began to be known by more and more people. While many netizens were amazed by Yang Liu, they were also shocked by the oriental aesthetics expressed in Yang Liu's dance.

Yang Liu's dance, costume, headdress, every smile and every movement on the water became a new note of "Chinese beauty".

Once Yang Liu was ignored because he was insignificance. However, with persistence, "Insignificance" can be a strength. Let her be light, be free.