Gongsun Daniang

Gongsun Daniang was a dancer of Emperor Xuanzong's Kaiyuan era whose dates and origin are unknown. She was famed for the sword dances Jianqi Huntuo and Xihe Jianqi, performing in public and at court. Du Fu's poem on watching her disciple dance, written in 767, recalls in its preface that as a child he saw her dance at Yancheng, that in the early years of the reign she alone among the palace and outside court dancers had mastered the dance, and that the calligrapher Zhang Xu watched her several times at Ye and his cursive script improved from then on. Her disciple Li Shi'er Niang still danced it at Kuizhou.