Video Of Dancers Falsely Viral As Performance Of Chinese Robots

A video of an Indian classical dance performance is circulating with a false claim that it shows two Chinese robots dancing at Shanghai's Disneyland.

BOOM found that the video shows two dancers Sophia Salingaros and Isha Parupudi.

The video is being shared with a caption, "*Watch this dance carefully. Dancing at Disneyland in Shanghai*. *These two are not human dancers, *But two robots made in China**. *The duration of the dance is only five minutes. But the waiting time to buy tickets to see this dance is 4 hours. Tickets to see this dance cost 499 yuan, which is equivalent to 75 dollars*. *Robots' facial expressions are so perfect that it's hard to distinguish them from real people.*. find it tough believing this. Worth seeing even it is fake!!". (sic)

Click here to view the post.

BOOM also received the same claim on its WhatsApp tipline number (7700906588) with a verification request.

Fact Check

BOOM performed a reverse image search on one of the keyframes from the viral video and found that it was uploaded on Indian Raga's YouTube channel on August 11, 2017.

We noticed that Indian Raga is a US-based group which provides training on Indian classical music and dance.

The channel on YouTube describes that two dancers Sophia Salingaros and Isha Parupudi can be seen performing a Bharatnatyam dance named Vahana Alarippu in the video.

We also found a post by Indian Raga's official Instagram page from 2019 featuring Sophia Salingaros and Isha Parupudi in another dance performance.

Sophia Salingaros also performed at the United Nations headquarters for International Yoga Day in 2022. Her performance can be watched on the United Nations' official YouTube channel from 20 minutes onwards.