To kick off the Year of the Monkey, China utilized the spring festival gala to display its growing technological advancement by showcasing a troop of dancing robots, featuring more than 500 dancing robots plus drones spreading glitters. 

The stage in Guangzhou, southern China, was filled with approximately 540 robots that simultaneously performed a dance routine before an audience. In their ever-so-robotic moves, the robots did some synchronized thrusting and hand-standing. 

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According to organizer China's Central Television Station (CCTV), the Spring Festival gala is the most viewed TV program in the world, with more than 700 million viewers each year. In this year's show, the 540 dancing robots, which were each 16.5 inches tall and weigh 1.5 kilograms, were one of the most talked about segments and probably the "absolute highlight." The robots were dancing while Sun Nan, a renowned singer, sang about China escalating itself to success.

Every move the robots made was designed to correspond to the song's meaning. According Li Chao, who is part of the group in charge of the robots, each robot is equipped with 16 steering engines that can mimic movements of human joints to ensure its brisk motions. He further revealed that the original plan was to showcase 240 robots, but 300 more was added to make the dance number more impressive.

Drones were also flown to film the dance number. Towards the end of the presentation, the drones showered glitters over the robots.

Aside from the dancing robots, more than 29 performances from different celebrities were part of this year's CCTV Spring Gala, and the show ran for about four and a half hours.

Tagsdancing robots, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, technology, Spring Festival Gala Show, CCTV, Year of the Monkey