Viral dance challenge kemusan brings joy, pride, debate to Chinese youngsters
People spring into a freestyle street dance to the pulsating rhythm of an upbeat Chinese song, swinging their knees and ankles sideways while performing dazzling hand moves, including rapid wrist-twisting actions.
This so-called kemusan dance, translated as “subject three” dance, has become the latest Internet hit in China. Social media platforms have been overwhelmed with user-generated video clips of men and women, professional and amateur dancers, Chinese and foreigners, performing the “subject three” dance moves in diverse circumstances.
The captivating dance, along with its fun and spontaneous moves, has brought tremendous joy to young Chinese viewers. If that is not enough, the new dance is also popular among foreigners. However, like any other Internet hit, kemusan was not without controversy.
The infectious kemusan music echoed in a street dance training studio in Nanning, capital of south China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Guo Siyuan, the studio’s teacher, said some students requested a training session dedicated to the kemusan dance.
“Kemusan is quite popular,” Guo said. “However, it is not easy to dance it well as many of its moves originate from breakdance.”
The kemusan dance routine was widely believed to originate from a dance created and performed by a wedding guest from Guangxi more than two years ago.
As to why it was named kemusan, a shortened name that originally referred to the third-subject test or the road test required to obtain a driver’s license in China, story has it that an excited test-taker once danced it to celebrate his triumph after passing the road test. When curious bystanders inquired about the name of the dance, he responded with an off-thecuff answer, “subject three.”
Another explanation pays tribute to Guangxi, a provincial region with a large multi-ethnic population from where the dance originated. It is understood that everyone born in Guangxi is subject to three tests in their lives: singing folk songs, eating rice noodles and dancing.
The dance has gained popularity in bars before making its way to Douyin, a popular short-video platform, with its enticing hashtag kemusan. It subsequently became an instant hit among young people both online and offline, fueling a wave of dance challenges, which was joined by celebrities and business owners eying the fan base and commercial prospects behind this dance craze.
In November, video clips showing employees of Haidilao, a hot-pot chain, repeatedly dancing kemusan to entertain customers made it to the Internet’s hottest trending topics.
Kemusan has even gained overseas fans, with videos of the dance routine being widely viewed on YouTube and Twitter. The performance of kemusan by foreign professional dancers as an encore has sparked a new social media frenzy among young Chinese Internet users.
The 2023 WDSF GrandSlam Final Latin winners from Germany, Khrystyna Moshenska and Marius-Andrei Balan, performed kemusan following their competition in the final held in Shanghai. After a “Swan Lake” performance in northeast China’s Liaoning Province, dancers from a Russian ballet troupe took a curtain call and sprung into the kemusan dance.
“I saw many video clips showing professionals dancing kemusan, including international dancing stars,” said Zhang Jiajia, a Nanning local who is learning the dance routine. “By dancing it myself, I feel like being drawn closer to them.”
Dancing is an expression of personality and intense emotions that young people identify with, and because of the viral nature of social media, kemusan quickly overwhelmed the youth community, said Zhang Tieyun, associate professor at the School of Journalism and New Media of Xi’an Jiaotong University.
Zhang also mentioned a paradigm shift in which people gravitate toward unique and pleasant day-to-day expressions.
The viral trend of kemusan, according to Zhang, represents a preference for personal and emotive expressions over regularity and high-sounding narratives, as well as an emphasis on personality.
Some people, however, think the dance routine is “tacky.” Proponents, on the other hand, argue that kemusan, even though not elegant or sophisticated, let alone classy, was created and widely watched and performed by ordinary people, making it viral and even gaining international recognition. This discussion has only fostered the trend going viral.
“I was delighted to see that kemusan is going global, and people from other countries liked our culture, music and dances,” said Chen Ying, a local from Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong Province, adding that the younger generation in China is becoming increasingly confident and outgoing, and kemusan may just herald a future where a popular Chinese culture is increasingly seen on the world stage.
(Xinhua)