‘River goddess’ captivates audience with underwater Dragon Boat Festival dance in traditional costume
- He Haohao used to be part of a synchronised swimming team, before she started dancing underwater
- It took her 26 hours to shoot a two-minute clip for a Henan TV Dragon Boat Festival special, which has since gone viral
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The dancer’s skirt appears to float as she slowly kicks her legs in the air; silk wrappings slowly rise and fall as if gravity has little effect. It’s not until the bubbles escape from her mouth that it becomes clear the dancer is underwater.
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Traditional underwater dance during Dragon Boat Festival stuns Chinese viewers
The story is about a woman named Luo, who was the daughter of Fu Xi, the creator of humanity. In the story, she drowned in a river and became a goddess.
The underwater dance won accolades across social media platforms, with the hashtag “River Goddess Fei Tian Dance” read over 390 million times as of Tuesday.
Many quoted the ancient poem “Goddess of Luo River” by Cao Zhi (192-232), a prince of the Three Kingdoms era (220-280) and son of the famous general Cao Cao.
One Weibo comment wrote that He was, “Flying gracefully like a swan and swimming agilely like a dragon”.
Another asked, “Did I just see a fairy with my very own eyes?”
He’s skills are thanks to her journey to learn diving five years ago and being a member of the Guangdong Adolescent Synchronised Swimming team in her youth.
Eventually, she began to shoot videos of herself dancing underwater, practising the art of being stable and fluid despite being below the surface. She has also perfected small details such as when to open her eyes and how to hold her breath for long periods.
“There came a point in my life when I thought that dancing underwater would be special,” she wrote on Weibo.
She has since shot hundreds of videos of herself dancing underwater.
It makes me proud that I can use this creative method to make more young people understand the charm of traditional Chinese culture. That’s what motivates me.
Currently, He is a food blogger and teaches lessons about how to be a mermaid. On Weibo, she has posted photos of herself swimming in a mermaid’s costume.
The two-minute video was part of a 45-minute Dragonboat Festival show on Henan TV on Saturday night.
Other dances during the programme honoured traditional Chinese culture, including one about making Zongzi, a type of rice dumpling traditionally eaten during the Dragonboat Festival.
The videographer for the dance, Guo Jiyong, said on the live-streaming platform Kuaishou that he needed to wear 7.5kg weights every time he went into the water to shoot to prevent himself from floating to the top.
The dancer, He, said on Weibo that the two-minute dance took 26 hours to shoot.
Some of the originally choreographed rotations and flips could not be performed underwater, so they had to modify the moves during the shoot. Every movement was shot dozens of times because both He and Guo had to resurface every 50 seconds to take a breath.
To create a floating effect, where the actress moves horizontally in water as if flying across the sky, Guo tied a fishing line on He’s body and dragged her through the water, even cutting her skin.
“It makes me proud that I can use this creative method to make more young people understand the charm of traditional Chinese culture. That’s what motivates me,” Guo said.
Henan TV said on Weibo that similar performances would be planned for upcoming traditional festivals such as the Qixi Festival in August and Mid-Autumn Festival in September.
