History of Chinese Classical Dance

China has a long and splendid dance history and culture, for the history of Chinese dance, no matter in the historical relics, written history to the specific performance form of opera, there are a large number of records and remains, in the history of Chinese dance in the book systematically discusses from the origin of the primitive dance, "dance", to the performance of the dance of successive generations, dance form, function, ideological content and so on. In the history of Chinese dance, there is a systematic discussion of the origin of the primitive dance, the performance of the dance through the ages, the dance form, the dance program, the function and the ideological content.

Chinese classical dance has an extremely long history. Its origin can be traced back to the ancient Chinese court dances or the folk dances of more distant times. To the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, to the Han Dynasty, the two Jin Dynasty and even the Tang Dynasty, five generations of the court set up a special music and dance institutions, concentration and training of professional music and dance personnel, and popular in the folk self-indulgent dance and religious dance and even foreign dances to organize, research, processing and development, the formation of the court dance. Among them, such as the Zhou Dynasty's "six generations of dance" (including the "Cloud Gate", "salty pool", "Da Shao", "Daxia", "Da Spinach", "Dawu" six music and dance), the Tang Dynasty's "Nine Department of Music", "Ten Department of Music", "sitting in the Department of the伎"，"Le Department of the伎"，"The Great Song" and so on, a variety of different colors, and each leading the way. Chinese court dance, is the successive rulers to enjoy pleasure, singing the praises of an important tool, mainly female music. Because of the court dance to the ruler's aesthetic interests and creation, part of its works inevitably exist in the style of the Chi Chi, the content of the negative; but most of them are still mostly by artists in the Chinese folk dance based on the creation of out, so there is no lack of Chinese traditional art of the exquisite place. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, due to frequent wars and cultural destruction, the development of dance was also affected, and many famous dances of the Han and Tang dynasties were lost. In the traditional dance

based on the Song Dynasty dance, the formation and development of opera gradually replaced the art of song and dance. In the Yuan Dynasty, the combination of court music and dance with folk songs and dances, and even "white opera", "burlesque", "corner of the theater", gradually formed the art form of opera. The art of opera requires a combination of singing, reciting, acting and playing, and has various factors such as dance, music, fine arts, acrobatics, literature and speech, etc. It is a comprehensive art form. Dance in opera contains the essence of traditional Chinese dance, which absorbs certain life movements according to the needs of the characters' plots and transforms them to strengthen and enrich the expressive power of dance. After the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, the social conflicts were relatively complicated, and the complex social life provided many materials for the further development of dance.

After the founding of New China, in the early fifties, dance workers, in order to develop and innovate the art of national dance, extracted dance materials from the rich Chinese opera performances, and drew on the Chinese martial arts to research, organize, refine, and refer to the ballet training methods, etc., to establish a set of Chinese classical dance teaching materials. At the same time, it choreographed and performed a series of dance dramas and dances in the style of Chinese classical dance, such as "The Po Lin Lantern", "The Little Dagger Club" and "Moonlit Night of Spring River". Along with the open policy in the 1980s, Chinese classical dance has been undergoing constant changes, and has begun to expand into new spaces from appearance to content. On the one hand, the dancers broke through the scope of studying only opera dances, and dabbled in the ancient cave murals and various excavated relics of the dance image of the data, so as to organize and create many unique

classical dances and classical dance dramas, such as the "Silk Road Flower and Rain", "Chimes Music and Dance", "Imitation of the Tang Dynasty Music and Dance", "Copper Sparrow Kabuki" and so on, these vintage dances and music and dances highlights the gracefulness, precision, rigor, clarity and beauty of the Chinese classical dances and dramas. These vintage music and dances emphasize the gracefulness and generosity, the precision and rigor, and the clarity of the style characteristics. On the other hand, it is the innovation, creation and practice of the theory of classical Chinese dance body rhyme by dance educators Tang Mancheng and Li Zhengyi. Prof. Tang Mancheng said, "'Body Rhythm' starts from getting rid of the lines and routines of opera, and explores the aesthetic laws of 'form, spirit, strength, rhythm, qi, and meaning' from the great cultural traditions of China, including calligraphy and martial arts, and refines its elements, summarizing the movement characteristics of classical dance, and summarizing the aesthetic principles of classical dance. elements, and summarize the routes, laws, and connotations of masculinity, femininity, and rhythm of classical dance movement, so that it no longer bears the traces of dramatization, similitude, and lineage, and moves towards the abstract function of the subjective consciousness of the dance and the symbolization of movement." They refined and summarized the movement rules in previous classical dances into a number of basic movements centered on the waist and performing circular movements, greatly expanding the movement space of Chinese classical dance. As a result, they practiced and produced a large number of excellent dance works represented by "The Yellow River", "The Water of the River", "Mulan Returns", "Liang Zhu" and so on. In "The Yellow River", Chinese classical dance, which was born out of opera dance, breaks through the limitations of opera routines, and is no longer a replica of opera lines. Instead, it renovates classical dance into a human language that can freely express thoughts and passions by means of large-scale body movements, "thus making Chinese classical dance find not only the spirit of the Chinese tradition of Wendai from the appearance but also from the inner charisma". Thus the Chinese classical dance finds not only the appearance but also the inner charm to be consistent with the spirit of traditional Chinese literature, thus making the Chinese classical dance form the aesthetic characteristics of delicate and mellow, rigidity and flexibility, scenario blending, skill combination, as well as the perfect combination and high degree of unity of the essence, qi, and spirit, and hand, eye, body, method, and footwork." The success of The Yellow River marks a new stage in the development of Chinese classical dance.