The Development Status of Chinese Traditional Dance

Abstract: In the process of historical development, with the alternate progress of social system and the improvement of people's aesthetic needs, China dance has experienced various historical changes in different periods. From these historical changes, we can see several obvious features in the history of China dance development. From the religious nature of primitive entertainment, the singing and dancing nature of appealing to both refined and popular tastes, the stylization of traditional opera performance and the professionalism of contemporary dance, we can learn some laws of the development of China dance.

Keywords: China dance history development entertains people and spirits.

As a multi-ethnic ancient civilization, the development of China dance has a long history. The origin of China dance is the primitive society in the early stage of human society. Its formation and development have gone through several different historical stages, from totem dance culture to witchcraft dance culture, acrobatic dance culture, and then to independent dance art culture. As a form of cultural expression, dance has a profound relationship with social development. The social ideology of historical development determines the development of dance culture and the form of dance art in China to some extent. In the process of combing the different historical development stages of China dance, this paper explains some characteristics of the historical development of China dance.

First, the "entertainment" characteristics of early China dance.

The origin and development of any art have different historical tracks and laws. As one of the most brilliant art forms in China, China Opera has dual functions of "entertaining people" and "entertaining gods" in its original form. Different from China opera, China dance has only a single function of "entertaining the gods" in its initial form, and its prototype structure is the primitive "religious custom". These characteristics can be seen from the dance pictures of ancient rock paintings found in China at present.

In primitive society, dance is a part of primitive life, not for aesthetics, but for the needs of primitive life. At that time, dance was mainly manifested in totem worship, deity worship, reproductive worship and hunting ceremony. Totem is the symbol of primitive ancestors' clan gods, and each clan has its own totem worship and totem belief. Totem worship penetrated into all fields of primitive ancestors' lives, and primitive ancestors living under totem worship expressed their thoughts and behaviors in totem ceremonies in the form of dance. For example, the dance of the Yi people's "Twelve Animal Gods" records: "At the beginning of the dance, male and female witches lined up in a row, each holding a fan-shaped sheepskin drum. When the first witch beat the drum and danced, the sheng music played the tiger roar, and a group of witches danced with the beat of the sheng music. The main plot of the dance is that the witch leads the performance to imitate the sounds and movements of the zodiac to symbolize the arrival of the zodiac on Memorial Day ... "The reason why there are so many simulated bird and beast dances in China is because they worship the primitive totem. China folk dance also started from here, from which its cultural prototype structure can be found.

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

In ancient times, music and dance accompanied each other, complemented each other and developed side by side. Music and dance are inseparable, and there must be "dance" when playing "music". In the era of The Book of Songs, with the rise of folk poetry, music and dance were closely combined with poetry, forming the cultural characteristics and traditions of the trinity of poetry, music and dance. As far as this kind of China dance theme is concerned, it reached its peak in the Tang Dynasty, mainly including the music of the family, Ge's music, Yunmen's music, Da Shao's, Da Xia's, Da Yong's and Da Wu's music, Libu geisha, Zuobu geisha and ten kinds of music in the Tang Dynasty and other ancient times.

According to Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals, happiness is the music and dance of an ancient tribe. Music and dance are divided into eight sections: carrying people, mysterious birds, breaking plants and trees, dividing grains, Jingtianchang, Dadi Palace, getting the best in one place, and the extreme of the total beast. Each section shows a vivid theme.

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

With the continuous progress of human social history, slave social system and feudal social system have been established one after another, and dance has gradually bid farewell to its original form. If the primitive dance of ancestors in primitive society is the original record of life forms, then in slave society, ancestors unconsciously walked out of the mysterious and lofty life forms in primitive times and gradually evolved from the activities of the whole people to the artistic activities and religious and political activities of some people. So far, China dance has developed in the dual depth of "entertaining the gods" and "entertaining people". This kind of dance is mainly manifested in the witch dance, Nuo dance in the Zhou Dynasty and Baixi dance in the Han Dynasty.

Witchcraft dance is a kind of dance in witchcraft sacrifice ceremony and the product of primitive religious belief. Dancers and worshippers hope to get in touch with the gods through prayers, sacrifices and other behaviors, so as to achieve the realm of "harmony between man and nature". For example, the "ritual dance" in the Shang Dynasty was a sacrificial act of begging for rain. Nuo dance is also a ritual to exorcise ghosts and banish slaves. After the baptism of history, it also prevailed among the people in our country, and later gradually developed into today's "Nuo Opera".

"Hundred operas" in Han Dynasty is a comprehensive performance form including music, dance, acrobatics, martial arts, burlesque and other folk skills. Folk dance has become the main content of court music and dance, and dance is usually performed in "hundred plays". There are mainly towel sleeve dance, sword dance, knife dance, stick dance, inspiration dance and Bayu dance. In the process of dancing, the performance of telling the drama by dancing and dancing according to the drama became the source of China's early opera art form.

Fourthly, the stylized and professional characteristics of dance development.

Dance in the Tang Dynasty has a high historical achievement in the history of ancient dance development in China. With its grand performance scale, the dance performance mode of Naduo nationality and the attitude of appealing to both refined and popular tastes, it has won the love of the world, reaching a peak era from the supreme ruler of the imperial court to the ordinary people. Facing the turning point of history, Song Dynasty dance created an epoch-making dance history in its unique way, that is, "team dance" with stylized characteristics, and drew a new dance form. There is a sentence in Wang Jian's "Gong Ci": "Little girls in brothels, with long skirts, are always copied into teaching workshops. In spring, there are many dance teams in front of the temple, and each friend asks for clothes. " All the historical documents about group dance are recorded. Due to the development of opera art in Ming and Qing dynasties, dance is one of the means of expression of opera art. The stylized characteristics of traditional Chinese opera performance determine the fixity of dance posture, which forms the highly stylized and comprehensive aesthetic characteristics of traditional Chinese opera dance in Song Dynasty.

From ancient times to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China Dance inherited the essence and connotation of dance at the turn of the new century and merged into the contemporary social melting pot. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, China dance came out of the comprehensive form of drama and dance, and directly relied on the human body to express real life and people's spiritual feelings, which pushed China dance to the glory of the new century. Contemporary dance in China has professional dance works and professional dance performances, including famous dancers such as Yu Rongling, Li Jinhui, Dai, and a series of excellent dance works. Professional dancers and professional dance works began to grow and develop from this period, and professional dance education began to flourish after the founding of New China, which was marked by the establishment of Beijing Dance School by 1954 (the predecessor of Beijing Dance Academy 1978 was changed into a university).

In short, China dance has experienced thousands of years of changes since the pre-Qin period, including women's music dance and elegant dance in the Han Dynasty, props dance and dance image in the Han Dynasty, Yan music dance in the Tang Dynasty, "team dance" in the Song Dynasty, opera dance in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and contemporary professional dance and dance education. These are a gradual evolution in the form of expression, which conforms to the law of artistic development.

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