Written by Li Sheng
In public urban spaces, among a number of entertainment activities and exercises (e.g. running, Taiji, speed-walking, etc.), plaza dancing (å¹æåŗč guangchangwu) stands out. Plaza dance, as a kind of collective leisure activity, is a mixture of dance and gymnastics, and incorporates a variety of dancing styles, including folk dance and pop dance. It has its roots in both yangge ē§§ę, a popular folk dance said to have originated during the Song Dynasty and later incorporated into the CCPās propaganda campaigns from the Yanāan years, and later zhongziwuĀ åæ åč or āloyalty danceā that was practiced to praise Chairman Mao (Chao 2017). Plaza dancing has grown in popularity since the reform era. In the run up to the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008, the dance was widely promoted by national fitness policies from the General Administration of Sport (å½å®¶ä½č²ę»å± guojia tiyu zongju), as well as the Ministry of Culture (å½å®¶ęåéØ guojia wenhua bu) (Fang 2015; Wang 2015).
Plaza dance is mainly practiced by dama 大å¦, which literally means ābig mamaā, though is more generally translated as āauntā. Dama is generally used to refer to middle-aged and older women in the PRC. Most of these dancers are retired and live in cities. In the mornings and evenings, groups of women dance in public spaces such as plazas and parks. Most of the plaza dance groups are self-organised or partly supported by local government. Recently, many TV stations have held plaza dance competitions and plaza dancing- themed TV shows. Statistics show that there are approximately 100 million plaza dancers in mainland China in 2015 (Fang, 2015).
This article is based on my three-month ethnographic research in the city of Nanjing in 2016. I joined three different plaza dance groups and did 29 in-depth interviews with female plaza dancers. Most of my interviewees were born in the 1950s and 1960s. According to my research data, there are a number of reasons behind the popularity of plaza dancing, such as its low-cost, womenās early retirement, increasing internal migration, cosmetic reasons (e.g. maintaining an ideal body shape) and medical benefits. My interviewees told me about their everyday plaza dancing stories and how regular exercises helped them āimproveā body shape. Many of my participants praised the flat bellies and slender waists of the plaza dance teachers in their groups. When I asked one of the women, named Han Yijun, who grew up in an upper-class family and had retired from work, whether she cared about her body shape, she replied:
Of course I do. My main reason for doing plaza dance is maintaining my body shape. I have lost one kilogram recently, and I would like to maintain my current weight. Itās raining a lot these days, and Iām a bit anxious that if I stop dancing for quite a long time owing to the weather, I will gain weight again.
Another plaza dance participant named Tian Changying, who used to work in a private company, also told me about the effectiveness of losing weight through plaza dancing: āBefore I joined this group, I weighed 69 kg. And after dancing for half a year, Iāve gone down to 61 kg. Itās the best way to lose weight.ā
Since the economic reform in the late 1980s, Chinaās beauty economy has been booming. There is a revival of hyper-femininity and an āupgradingā from āripeā women (ē儳 shunĆ¼) to ātenderā women (嫩儳 nennĆ¼), which celebrate female youthfulness (Yang, 2011). Slenderness is closely associated with youthfulness and bodily ideal in todayās popular culture. From these plaza dancersā narratives, we can see that these pressures to conform to mainstream beauty ideals are highly prominent in urban physical culture.
Photo 2 A dama doing makeup for another dama before the final round of the plaza dance competition (Photo by author)
The image of damas in mainstream media is often negative; they are routinely stigmatised as overweight and unattractive (Wang, 2015). Owing to the general stereotypical assumptions of older women, some older women in my study did not want to identify themselves with the damas. I asked my respondents: āDo you think that you are a dama?ā Among these 29 middle-aged and older women, almost half of them said yes and half of them said no. They refused to call themselves damas because they preferred to identify themselves on the basis of their subjective mental age. Ning said:
Our groupās name is āWonder Damasā, but Iām not a dama. I think Iām still young. Although Iām in my sixties, I think Iām like a 20-year-old young person. Iām as young as todayās young people. My mental age is rather young.
Likewise, Tian Changying said: āI donāt like people calling me dama or granny. I donāt think I am a dama, at least Iām not a dama mentally. I feel that Iām like a 40-year-old person. Iām more energetic than before.ā
The rising aging population in China has been a source of concern for the state in terms of welfare and care provision (Tu, 2016; Jackson and Liu, 2017). Promoted by the government and the market economy, the notion of yangshengĀ å »ē (meaning ‘defensive health-keeping’, literally ānurturing lifeā) draws from Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is now appears across health education campaigns and media discourse to emphasize individual responsibility and decision-making for oneās own health (Sun, 2016). As a kind of self-care management, yangsheng has become a new norm among older Chinese people, many of whom fear becoming a burden to their children (especially those who are of single-child families owing to the one-child policy) (Liang, 2011; Tu, 2016).
In my fieldwork, through their dancing practices in the discourse of ādefensive health-keepingā, older women are continually regulated and self-regulated in order to attain various sociocultural ideals (e.g. being healthy, independent, active, or slim). Their efforts may challenge the stereotypical (usually negative) image of older Chinese women. However, at the same time, plaza dancing and its related notions of yangsheng also further entrenches sociocultural norms around beauty, weight and ageing.
Li Sheng received her Ph.D. in Women’s Studies from the University of York, UK. She is currently a lecturer at Department of Labour and Social Security, Ginling College, Nanjing Normal University. She is working on older peopleās everyday lives in urban areas. Her work and research interests have focused on older Chinese peopleās (especially older womenās) leisure activities, social lives, and health-related issues. A latest publication of her research (exploring older Chinese womenās embodied practices) can be found here. Featured image shows aĀ plaza dance show held by local government and was taken by the author.
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