Chinese TV station apologises after getting caught plagiarising popular backbend dance and passing it off as original work
- The broadcast of the stolen work was seen on social media by the directors of the original dance who immediately questioned its authenticity
- The TV station initially deleted the comments, before later admitting to the plagiarism and apologising
Zhejiang TV Station in eastern China said in a statement this week it had removed the online dance video called Shuang Xiang Jing and apologised to the production team behind Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, whose work it had copied, The Paper reported.
Poetic Dance: The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, called Zhiciqinglu in Chinese, also known as the “Blue-green waist” dance, is based on a famous classical Chinese painting by Wang Ximeng called A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.
Wang was a Song dynasty (960-1279) artist who lived around one thousand years ago. His undated painting features a blue-green landscape to highlight an extensive mountain range.
The original dance was a hit at the CCTV gala show after a successful run in theatres across China last year. Its signature move is a series of demanding 90-degree backbends done by an all-female dance troupe, called “blue-green waist”. The dance move trended online afterwards as many people sought to copy the backbending technique at home.
On Sunday, Zhejiang TV Station’s children’s channel released a segment of a dance called Shuang Xiang Jing, or Double Fragrance Path in English, on WeChat. The station said the work was intended for the opening ceremony of a tea festival as an exhibition of Chinese and Buddhist culture, according to the description on WeChat.
Zhou Liya, one of the two directors of the original dance, questioned the originality of the dance Shuang Xiang Jing on Zhejiang TV Station’s WeChat post but her comment was soon deleted by the station.
