‘Came up with it myself’: Indonesian boy’s dance on boat goes viral, inspires Travis Kelce
He dances on the tip of a speeding boat, dressed in a traditional outfit, sunglasses on, face calm as still water, arms slicing through the air in full swag. And just like that, 11-year-old Rayyan Arkan Dikha from Indonesia has gone viral.
Dikha’s moves, filmed during his debut as the Togak Luan (the dancer at the tip of the boat whose role is to energise the crew) at the national Pacu Jalur boat race, have sparked a global dance craze. Videos under hashtags like #AuraFarmingKidOnBoat and #BoatRaceKidAura have racked up millions of views, turning the small village boy from Kuantan Singing Regency into a cultural icon.
The coolest part?
Rayyan made it all up on the spot.
“I came up with the dance myself,” he told BBC Indonesia on Thursday. “It was just spontaneous.”
As seen in the video, he wears a traditional outfit known as a Teluk Belanga with a Malay Riau headcloth. Performing atop a narrow, racing canoe rowed by 11 adults, he never once loses his balance. Dikha’s now-signature moves—rolling fists, directional sways, air kisses—have been dubbed the ultimate representation of ‘aura farming,’ a Gen Z term meaning to look cool and build one’s ‘aura’.
And the world is watching.
On July 1, the French football club Paris Saint-German uploaded a TikTok video of their players copying the dance, with the caption, “His aura made it all the way to Paris.” The next day, Travis Kelce, NFL player and boyfriend of pop icon Taylor Swift, joined in, his video topping 14 million views.
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