All posts tagged: Zhongguo Hao Wudao

So You Think Uyghurs Can Dance?

With the so much attention being paid to violence emanating from Xinjiang, many of you may have missed the parade of Uyghur dancers who have taken the stage on the Chinese version of “So You Think You Can Dance” (Zhongguo Hao Wudao). Not only do we have the child star turned adult tap-dancer Yusupjan, the nine-year old break-dancer Surat Taxpolat who goes by the stagename “Little Meatball”, and the teenage break dancer Umid Tursun but we also have the model family of Gulmira Memet a young dance instructor from the Xinjiang Art Institute in Ürümchi. As in other reality TV shows featuring minority performers – such as the Kazakh performer Tasken on The Voice of China – celebrity judges use the competition stage as platform from which to model minor-to-minor connections and demonstrate the way the diversity of the Chinese population can be seen as an asset rather than a sign of lack. Jin Xing said “I hope we can create a relationship of grand ethnic solidarity” It is perhaps with this in mind that …