Connected to wireless earphones, Yoofi Greene from Ghana begins his dance steps down a busy sidewalk in Guangzhou, China. People, bicycles and cars zoom past. Pedestrians watch with a mix of amusement and annoyance as he glides by them and moves to occupy the middle of the street. Yoofi draws closer to the long lane of traffic that his dancing has managed to interrupt. He pauses. I steady my phone to track his choreography. He looks directly at the camera. A big smile extends across his face as he proceeds to twerk at an impatient taxi. Back on the sidewalk, I airdrop him the footage to edit and before you can say “viral dance” he’s uploaded it to social media and his followers – 215,000 at the time of writing. Yoofi is one of many Africans living in China who are participants in a broader movement to bring emerging lifestyle trends from the continent to new audiences. Like most dancers, he connects with these new audiences on social media. Dancers rely on social media to create and share dances from different parts of the world. The more followers, likes and reposts they get, the more recognition, status and money they can gain. Going viral also helps dancers connect with and learn from others, while giving them opportunities to travel and migrate.I am a social and cultural anthropologist from Finland who grew up in China. I was first drawn to the contagious energy of African dance in 2018. The following year, I took my new hobby to Guangzhou. From learning choreography in studios to shooting dance videos on the streets to dancing in nightclubs, I entered this rich world of dance and developed a research project around it to study how African dancers in China harness cultural norms and market themselves to serve their larger mobility project. I learned that as dance moves from the streets or the studio to the screen, dancers are in a position to provide alternatives to the circulating stereotypes about “Africanness”.The public display of dance can emphasise racial and ethnic differences and reinforce the perception of certain people as outsiders in both the dancer’s and the audience’s imaginations. But at the same time it offers opportunities for cultural exchange, friendship and collaboration. Yoofi GreeneMy study was conducted several years ago. The African dance scene has since grown into a big industry in China. Established African dancers regularly teach at dance studios in the country’s cities. Alongside classes, dance camps (intensive short programmes) featuring instructors from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and the wider African diaspora are becoming increasingly common. This did not happen overnight. Over the past decade, African dance influencers and dance entrepreneurs in China, like Yoofi, have worked hard to attract audiences, offering new ways of imagining Africa. Yoofi first started posting dance videos in China a decade ago. At the time, African dance had not yet gained public appeal in the country. The market has changed enormously since then. At the tail end of the COVID pandemic, African dance genres moved from the margins to the mainstream. Yoofi’s popularity rides the waves of many African artists who have exploded in popularity around the world with their vibrant sounds and rhythms. Internationally, dancers play a prominent role in amplifying music trends like Afrobeats by filming choreographies and “dance crazes” to the music, inspiring viewers to imitate the dance. Dancers bring a blend of dance styles borrowed from across the African continent to China. These include the sensual hip rotations of Congolese ndombolo, the intricate footwork of Afro house emerging from Angola, and the slick moves grooving to the hypnotic synths of South Africa’s amapiano. Others go viral using Nigerian street styles or Ghana’s azonto style with fast-paced legwork to complement the music’s rapid tempos, and sharp shoulder thrusts, pelvic grinds, and facial movements. Read more: The Angolan dancers who helped South African anthem Jerusalema go global Posting eye-catching and sometimes disruptive videos – like Yoofi’s public street dancing – consistently on social media accounts becomes an entrepreneurial strategy for dancers. The exposure becomes quantifiable in followers, likes and reposts as a crucial way for them to grow their fame and attract paid work.Yet going viral goes not guarantee long term security or profit.Countering stereotypesMany people in China carry racialised stereotypes about Africa and Black people. Tribalist and primitive tropes are presented through dance performances on state television and in theme parks. Globally, Blackness has also become commodified as fashionable. My study of African dance influencers shows how they defy these stereotypes. They use their phones and cameras to share their dances on their own terms, to celebrate all the layers of diversity of African dance and thus of the African subject.Viral African dance in China becomes simultaneously a form of cultural exchange, a site that treats racial identity as a commodity, and a means through which dancers strategically negotiate and reproduce ideas about Africa and African dance. Mathew NandalaNot all dancers chase online fame by making videos that stop traffic. For example, during the years that Ugandan dancer Mathew Nandala was living in China, he chose to film his dance videos with public backgrounds that display visual contrasts between Africa and China.With their intricately choreographed sword fighting and acrobatics, Chinese movies influenced Nandala’s aspirations to become a dancer when he arrived in the country. These influences are visible in his dance videos. In one, for example, he is wearing body paint and dancing in a pagoda. In another, he dons a Chinese-inspired outfit while incorporating martial arts into his sequences. Hashtags like #AfroinChina and #Africatotheworld draw wider audiences into these expressions. In a way, this portrays his ability to inhabit multiple places – an expression of being Afropolitan.Nandala’s viral videos catch people’s attention because they play with cultural and racialised images and stir people to think about them in new ways, to compose multiple worlds at once. Dance as a way to appreciate differenceDigital platforms offer vital opportunities for African dance influencers to construct their own visions of what it means to be African. Whether the dance is filmed on the street, like Yoofi’s, or uses imagined worlds, like Nandala’s, viral dance content spreads to new audiences. Its meaning constantly changes as different people use and share it. Read more: Wolf Warrior II: what the blockbuster movie tells us about China’s views on Africa What I learned in the course of my research is that, for people who are open to these experiences, dance can challenge racialised stereotypes and transform how we see one another. This does not mean that differences will disappear. It means that we become open to new ways of understanding one another with a deeper complexity.Currently, Suvi Rautio receives funding from the European Union Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. "Viral Dance in China" was supported by the University of Helsinki Doctoral Program in 2019.