High-Pole Boat Acrobatics

High-pole boat acrobatics arose around Zhouquan town in Tongxiang, Zhejiang, taking shape in the late Ming and early Qing as a water-borne feat performed at silkworm-god rites, carrying the farmers' wish for a plentiful cocoon crop. With several centuries behind it, the skill entered the third national ICH list in 2011 under traditional sports, recreation and acrobatics.

A stout bamboo pole is set upright in a boat upon the water, and the performer climbs bare-handed to its tip to perform a dozen or more difficult figures—the monkey grasping the moon, the sparrow hawk turning over, handstand spins—while the boat rocks with the waves and the pole sways with the wind, the acrobat turning and tumbling at the slender tip, breathtaking and hailed as "Chinese kung fu on water."

High-pole boat acrobatics is born of the fusion of silkworm culture and water-town custom, braiding acrobatics, worship and festival into one, a living sample for the study of belief and bodily art in the silkworm country of the Jiangnan.

A fixed performance ground sits at Caishen Bay in Wuzhen's East Scenic Zone, with shows during the Qingming silkworm fair.