04:53Dozens of swimmers in advanced years gathered by the Liujiang River in Liuzhou to mark the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Army with a dragon dance in the water on Thursday.
Footage shows participants performing the dragon dance onshore in the daytime, getting ready to enter the water in the evening, and swimming in the river with luminous paper dragons when dusk has fallen on the city.
"I feel that this performance is very spectacular; after all, these dragon dance team members are on average over 60 years old. They used this performance today to pay tribute to the festival, and I think it's really great," expressed a resident.
"We made a brand to celebrate the festival. We will use two big dragons to make '2024', which represents the year 2024. There are three small dragons to make 'August 1st', which represents today's festival," stated Jiang Zhongyi, Liuzhou Amphibious Dragon Dance Team's coach, explaining why they decided to perform.
"Our dragon dance team has one 100-metre-long dragon, four 26-metre-long dragons, and ten small dragons, with two people dancing and operating," he added.
Zhongyi claimed that at first, the team was not sure they could do the dragon dance since all the members were swimmers, but after implementing improvements, they even were invited to perform overseas, including Vietnam.
"The average age of performers is over 60, the oldest is 76 years old, and the youngest is 48 years old," shared the coach, adding that at the beginning, in 2005, there were only 30 members, but now there are over 90 performers, which allows the team to use long paper dragons in their dances.
Dragon dance! Elderly swimmers mark Army Day with 'amphibious' routine in southern China
Dozens of swimmers in advanced years gathered by the Liujiang River in Liuzhou to mark the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Army with a dragon dance in the water on Thursday.
Footage shows participants performing the dragon dance onshore in the daytime, getting ready to enter the water in the evening, and swimming in the river with luminous paper dragons when dusk has fallen on the city.
"I feel that this performance is very spectacular; after all, these dragon dance team members are on average over 60 years old. They used this performance today to pay tribute to the festival, and I think it's really great," expressed a resident.
"We made a brand to celebrate the festival. We will use two big dragons to make '2024', which represents the year 2024. There are three small dragons to make 'August 1st', which represents today's festival," stated Jiang Zhongyi, Liuzhou Amphibious Dragon Dance Team's coach, explaining why they decided to perform.
"Our dragon dance team has one 100-metre-long dragon, four 26-metre-long dragons, and ten small dragons, with two people dancing and operating," he added.
Zhongyi claimed that at first, the team was not sure they could do the dragon dance since all the members were swimmers, but after implementing improvements, they even were invited to perform overseas, including Vietnam.
"The average age of performers is over 60, the oldest is 76 years old, and the youngest is 48 years old," shared the coach, adding that at the beginning, in 2005, there were only 30 members, but now there are over 90 performers, which allows the team to use long paper dragons in their dances.
Dozens of swimmers in advanced years gathered by the Liujiang River in Liuzhou to mark the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Army with a dragon dance in the water on Thursday.
Footage shows participants performing the dragon dance onshore in the daytime, getting ready to enter the water in the evening, and swimming in the river with luminous paper dragons when dusk has fallen on the city.
"I feel that this performance is very spectacular; after all, these dragon dance team members are on average over 60 years old. They used this performance today to pay tribute to the festival, and I think it's really great," expressed a resident.
"We made a brand to celebrate the festival. We will use two big dragons to make '2024', which represents the year 2024. There are three small dragons to make 'August 1st', which represents today's festival," stated Jiang Zhongyi, Liuzhou Amphibious Dragon Dance Team's coach, explaining why they decided to perform.
"Our dragon dance team has one 100-metre-long dragon, four 26-metre-long dragons, and ten small dragons, with two people dancing and operating," he added.
Zhongyi claimed that at first, the team was not sure they could do the dragon dance since all the members were swimmers, but after implementing improvements, they even were invited to perform overseas, including Vietnam.
"The average age of performers is over 60, the oldest is 76 years old, and the youngest is 48 years old," shared the coach, adding that at the beginning, in 2005, there were only 30 members, but now there are over 90 performers, which allows the team to use long paper dragons in their dances.