Huxuan Whirling Dance

Introduction

A fast spinning dance at the Tang court; Kang and other western states presented huxuan dancing women in the Kaiyuan years

The Huxuan whirling dance was a fast spinning dance popular in the Tang. The Old Book of Tang lists it under the music of Kang: two dancers in crimson jackets with brocade collars and sleeves, green damask trousers and red leather boots, and 'the dance turns swiftly like the wind and is commonly called the huxuan'. The same treatise says that when Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou took a foreign bride as empress, the states of the Western Regions sent attendants with her, and the music of Kucha, Shule, An and Kang gathered in great quantity in Chang'an. The New Book of Tang records that in the Kaiyuan years Kang, Mi and Jumi each presented huxuan dancing women to the Tang court, and it notes that the branch states of Kang, among them An, Cao, Shi, Mi and He, known as the Nine Surnames, all bore the clan name Zhaowu. Bai Juyi's poem Huxuan Girl, one of his New Yuefu, sets out to warn against favourites and carries a note that Kangju presented the dance at the end of the Tianbao era, and Yuan Zhen wrote a poem of the same title saying that at the end of Tianbao foreigners presented women who could dance the huxuan.