March 25, 2015
Large-scale organized dancing in a public square in Tianjin, China.
Sim Chi Yin for The New York Times
The grannies could only dance free for so long before the crackdown came. Amid growing complaints about the noise and disruption caused by large-scale organized dancing in public places in China, the authorities have declared that some guidelines are in order.
The General Administration of Sport of China and the Ministry of Culture announced on Monday that a joint study had concluded that the Chinese public wants “healthy, watchable, scientific and wide-ranging” dancing, state news media reported. To that end, an expert panel has developed 12 model routines that will be taught nationwide by instructors who have received official training.
The phenomenon of public dancing can be found across China. Participants, typically older women but also some men and younger people, gather in public squares and parks and perform synchronized dances to blaring music. The early morning and evening gatherings are meant to be a way to exercise and socialize.
But the dancing has also provoked a backlash, with neighbors complaining in particular about the noise. Sometimes the opposition has turned ugly.
In 2013, a man who had moved to a rural area of Beijing to escape the noise of the city fired a shotgun into the air and released three Tibetan mastiffs on dancers in his neighborhood. In the central city of Hankou, angry neighbors dumped feces from an apartment building on dancers in a public square. Last year, in Wenzhou, residents pooled together 260,000 renminbi, about $42,350, to buy their own loudspeaker system to blast complaints when dancers gathered in a local plaza.
“Square-dancing represents the collective aspect of Chinese culture, but now it seems that the overenthusiasm of participants has dealt it a harmful blow with disputes over noise and venues,” Liu Guoyong, chief of the General Administration of Sport’s mass fitness department, told the state-run newspaper China Daily. “So we have to guide it with national standards and regulations.”
Guidelines on when and where activities should be held, and how loud the music should be — the source of most of the ire directed at dancing — have yet to be developed, China Daily reported. Preparations are underway for a national outdoor dancing association to “strengthen management and promote healthy development” of the activity, according to a report on the website of China Culture Daily, the official newspaper of the Ministry of Culture.
