Ansai is a relatively poor county in northern Shaanxi, but the people here have created a unique dance routine marked by its rustic simplicity. With a large troupe of dancers, sometimes over 100 strong, jumping and dancing in unison to the beats of drums, this dance gives an awesome outdoor performance against a background of rolling hills and deep valleys. It exhibits a strong and vigorous display of bold and unrestrained body movements. Kicking up a storm of dust, it seems to say that life is hard; defiantly, they are determined to conquer hardship. This is the Ansai Waist Drum Dance, an art form of local invention, unknown anywhere else in the world.

Another dance routine emerged from Ansai is called Running the Donkeys (below, left) portraying the common occurrence of a woman married to a family in a different village, going home, riding on a donkey, to visit her relatives (below, right).

A colorful drum dance is shown below (site unknown).