The Development of Chinese Dance

I. The Early Characteristics of Chinese Dance as "Entertaining the Gods"

The origin and development of any art has different historical trajectories and laws. Chinese opera, as one of the most brilliant art forms in the field of Chinese art, had the dual function of "entertaining the people" and "entertaining the gods" in its initial form. Unlike Chinese opera, Chinese dance only had the single function of "entertaining the gods" in its initial form, and its original structure was the primitive "religion" and "rituals". Its original structure was primitively "religious and customary". These features can be seen in the ancient cliff paintings of dance found in China.

Primitive society, dance is part of the life of primitive people, not for aesthetic purposes, but out of the needs of primitive life, the dance at that time is mainly expressed in the "totem worship", "sacrifice and pray to God", "fertility worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship", "worship" and "worship". "Reproductive worship" "hunting rituals" and other areas. Totem is the mark of the primitive forefathers clan gods, each clan has its own totem worship and totem beliefs, totem worship penetrates into the primitive forefathers in all areas of life, living in the primitive forefathers under the totem worship, with the form of dance to express the totem rituals in the form of their thoughts and behaviors. For example, the dance of the Yi "Twelve Beasts God" is recorded as follows: "At the beginning of the dance, male and female witches are listed as one line, each holding a fan-shaped sheepskin drum, when the head witch beats the drum and dances, the sheng music plays the sound of the tiger whistling, and the group of witches dances according to the beat of the sheng music, and the main plot of the dance is that the head witch takes the lead in the performance of the twelve beasts of sound and movement, to symbolize the twelve beasts on the day of the sacrifice. The main plot of the dance is that the head witch leads the performance imitating the sounds and movements of the twelve beasts to symbolize the coming of the twelve beasts on the day of the sacrifice. ...... "The reason why there are numerous dances simulating birds and beasts among various ethnic groups in China is closely related to the cultural genes of the primitive totem worship. Chinese national folk dance also started from here, from which its cultural prototype structure can be sought.

Second, poetry, music, dance, the trinity of the comprehensive form

In ancient times, music and dance were born together, complementary, side by side development, music and dance are inseparable, "music" must be "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance", "dance". "When there is music, there must be dance, and when there is dance, there must be music. In the era of the Book of Songs, with the rise of folk poetry, music and dance were closely integrated with poetry, forming a trinity of poetry, music and dance as a cultural characteristic and cultural tradition. For this kind of Chinese dance theme, the development of the Tang Dynasty to the peak, the main "Yin Kang's music", "Ge Tian's music", "Yunmen Dazhou", "Daxian", "Dashao", "Daxia", "Great Wok" and "Dawu", the Tang Dynasty, "Ribeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibeibe, "Ten music" and other large-scale comprehensive art in ancient times.

According to Lv's Spring and Autumn Annals, "Ge Tian's Music" is the music and dance of a tribe in ancient times, which is divided into eight sections, namely "Carrying the People", "Xuan Bird", "Trying to Grass and Trees", "Endeavoring to Grains", "Respecting the Heavenly Constant", "Reaching the Emperor's Merit", "Relying on the Virtue of the Earth", and "The Extremity of Total Animals and Beasts", each of which expresses a vivid theme and demonstrates the forefathers' prayers for a good harvest, the worship of their heavenly and earthly ancestors as well as the praise of the human beings. praise.

Third, the dual development of "entertaining the gods" and "entertaining the people"

With the continuous progress of human history, the establishment of the slave and feudal social systems, the dance has also gradually left its primitive form, and if we say that the ancestors of the primitive society were not interested in the dance, we can say that the dance was the most popular form of the dance. If the first dance of the ancestors in primitive society was a primitive record of the life form, then, in the slave society, the ancestors unconsciously came out from the mysterious and sublime life form in the primitive period, and gradually evolved from a universal activity into an artistic and religious-political activity for a part of the people. Up to this point, Chinese dance has developed in the double depth of "entertaining the gods" and "entertaining people". This kind of dance is mainly manifested in the Zhou Dynasty witchcraft dance, Nuo dance and the Han Dynasty of the hundred theater type dance.

Witchcraft dance is witchcraft ritual dance, is the product of primitive religious beliefs, dancers and worshippers hope that through prayer, sacrifice and other acts, and seek to communicate with the gods, to achieve a "celestial unity" realm. Such as the Shang Dynasty "Li dance", is to seek rain and a sacrificial act. Nuo dance is also a kind of exorcism for the purpose of rituals, through the baptism of history so far also prevails in our country's folk, and then gradually developed into today's "Nuo opera".

In the Han Dynasty, "Hundred Plays" is a kind of music, dance, acrobatics, martial arts, burlesque and other folk skills of a comprehensive form of performance, folk dance has become the main content of the court music and dance, dance is usually melted into the "Hundred Plays" in the performance. There are mainly "Sleeve Dance", "Sword Dance", "Knife Dance", "Stick Dance", "Building Drum Dance", "Bayu Dance" and so on. The dance process of dance to talk about the play, according to the play as a dance performance, became the source of the early Chinese opera art form. The Song Dynasty Dance reached a peak. Song Dynasty dance in front of the historical turn, a unique way to create a new dance epoch-making history, that is, with the programmatic characteristics of the "team dance", drawing a new form of dance. Wang Jian "Palace Lyrics" has the cloud: "the small women in the green house want to skirt long, always be copied into the workshop, spring set up in front of the temple more team dance, pengtou each please clothes." It is about the team dance of historical documents. Due to the development of opera art in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, dance as one of the means of artistic expression of opera, the programmatic characteristics of opera performance determines the fixed nature of the dance performance of the dance figure, forming a highly programmatic and comprehensive aesthetic characteristics of Song Dynasty opera dance.

Since ancient times to Ming and Qing Dynasties, Chinese dance has inherited the essence and connotation of dance in the process of the alternation of old and new centuries, and fused in the furnace of contemporary society, Chinese dance has come out from the comprehensive form of Ming and Qing Dynasty Opera Dance, and has directly depended on the human body to express the real life and people's spiritual emotions, which has pushed the Chinese dance to the splendor of the new century. Contemporary Chinese dance is written in the history of dance with professional dance works and professional dance performances, and a series of famous dancers and a series of dance masterpieces such as Yu Yung-ling, Lai Kam-fai, Wu Xiaobang, Dai Ai-lian, and Jia Zuoguang have appeared successively. Professional dancers and professional dance works began to develop and grow from this period, and professional dance education also began to flourish after the founding of New China, marked by the founding of the Beijing Dance School (the predecessor of the current Beijing Dance Academy, which was changed to a university in 1978) in 1954.

All in all, Chinese dance has gone through thousands of years of changes since the pre-Qin Dynasty, experiencing the pre-Qin Poetry, Music and Dance Trinity of women's music and dance, the prop dance and dance of the Han Dynasty, the Yan Music Dance of the Tang Dynasty, the Song Dynasty's "Team Dance," the Ming and Qing Dynasty's Opera Dance, and the professional dance and dance education of the contemporary era. All of these in the evolution of the form of expression, are a gradual evolution, in line with the law of artistic development process.