Whether in Oakland or Oklahoma City, Boston or Cleveland, Los Angeles or San Antonio, there is one person who can bring NBA fans together to cheer. Almost none of them know her name.

Rong Niu was born in China’s Shanxi province. A fourth-generation acrobat, she learned her trade from her father, practicing six to seven hours a day, six days a week, and came to the United States to perform at the Epcot Center at Disney World. She stuck around after that and wound up becoming a staple of NBA halftime shows with her theatrics. If you’ve been to a few games, chances are you’ve seen her balancing with one leg on a ridiculously tall unicycle while flipping bowls with her other foot to the top of her head. The name basketball fans would know her by is, of course, Red Panda.

As Red Panda, Niu also performs during halftime of college basketball games, at arena football games, and during some hockey intermissions, where they put out a mat—“Otherwise, it would be very slippery!” she says with a laugh. But it is in the NBA where she has become a legend, as beloved as the cute little critter whose name she shares.

Surprisingly, she didn’t take her stage name from red pandas. “I got the Red Panda name because the color red is a lucky color in China,” Niu says. “When you have a wedding or a happy celebration, they use red. So, I like the red color, and then the panda is the national animal. So, Red Panda—I put it together. Then I learned that there’s an animal called the red panda. In China, that animal is called the snow panda. So, I got the Red Panda name, and in America, they’re like, ‘Oh, the red panda!’ It’s too funny.”