uring the pandemic lockdown caused by the outbreak of Omicron in early March, the dance troupe of Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) published a series of dance videos online, titled “Dance Together,” to guide students to dance in their free time.

The dance troupe's students and faculty designed the dance, recorded the videos, and uploaded them to WeChat, where any interested students can practice along with the videos.

These videos have offered guidance on ballet, dance drama, and dormitory fitness skits. The videos on dance drama teach a fragment of “The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting,” a dance poem that shows the creation process of an ancient Chinese painting. The videos on dormitory fitness show daily motions adapted into fitness movements, such as mopping the floor and drying clothes.

“The largest feature of this activity is a richer format than that of offline training, and you can pick different dance themes according to your interests,” said dance troupe member Sun Ke'ang.

This activity has also sparked attention from students. Sun shared this activity with her friends, and they used Tencent Meeting to live stream, dance together, and record videos. “It inspired people to dance and exercise more, and made my quarantine experience more enjoyable,” she added.

“As a series of activities launched by SISU Dance Troupe, it encourages students to use simple dance to strengthen their bodies and feel the charm of dance.” Zhao Anqi, director of SISU Dance Troupe, explained.

The students in these videos also showed their positive attitude towards the pandemic. “We needed a way to relieve our worried emotions at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, and the dance troupe wants to evoke positive emotions in participants,” Wu stated.

In the videos, the dancers follow the cheerful beat and move their bodies with the rhythm. Their smiles and bright expressions along with the body movements send optimism through the screen. In the ballet teaching video, the gentle and soothing music also makes people calm down and dance along with the video teaching.

According to members of the dance troupe, more dance instructional videos on different topics will be released afterward. In addition to the Dance Together activity, various SISU student troupes also carried out online activities such as multilingual poetry recitation and acapella chorus, which added more fun to students’ afterschool lives.