Uyghur Dawazi (High-Wire Walking)

"Dawazi" means high-wire walking in Uyghur, an ancient Xinjiang acrobatic art once known in Chinese as "rope-walking" or "treading the soft rope," with a history of more than a thousand years. Its core home is Yingjisha county in the Kashgar region, called the home of dawazi. In May 2006 Uyghur dawazi was inscribed by the State Council on the first national ICH list under acrobatics and sport.

Performers walk, handstand, jump and cross the high rope blindfolded without safety gear, relying on balance and nerve alone; its representative bearer Adil Wuxur, sixth generation of a dawazi family, became a first-batch national ICH inheritor in 2007 and has set five Guinness records, including a crossing above the Three Gorges of the Yangtze.

Dawazi unites daring skill, performance art and national spirit in one, a cultural emblem of Uyghur courage and wisdom, and an important specimen for the study of acrobatic exchange along the Silk Road and of multi-ethnic sporting culture.

The regular stage and transmission base of dawazi lies in Yingjisha county; Urumqi's International Grand Bazaar and other scenic spots occasionally host related high-wire performances.