Chinese people perform the traditional Ansai waist drum dance to mark the Chinese Lantern Festival on February 13, 2006 in Ansai County, Yanan City, Shaanxi Province of China.
The Ansai waist drum dance is a unique large-scale folk dance which dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (BC770 - BC476) in Chinese history. The Ansai drum dance is popular on the Loess Plateau in central China. The local residents perform the dance to celebrate holidays, harvest time as well as before battles. Generally, a dance team has about 60 members and sometimes several teams continuously perform for the whole day.