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E-book Revolutionary Bodies : Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy

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Through their emphasis on innovation, Chinese dance practitioners interpret their research to create new forms. The removal of singing or speech in Shao’s sleeve dance choreography represents her obvious departure from xiqu, in which song and speech are usually considered essential to a complete performance. The rhythmical mapping of Shao’s classroom choreography onto eight-count piano scores and the abstraction of movement sequences independent of narrative con-text also mark departures from typical xiqu music and stage action. A change from early and medieval sleeve dance is further apparent in the contexts of Shao’s chore-ography. That is, her dances tend to take place in conservatory classrooms, prosce-nium stages, and film studios, while earlier dances are believed to have taken place in imperial palaces or at ritual sites that facilitated communication with gods and spirits. In her teaching and publications, Shao presents original theorizations of water sleeve movement aesthetics, often drawing on her studies in adjacent fields such as Chinese poetics, ink painting, medicine, and philosophy. Because of the original interpretation involved, Shao’s teaching routines and pedagogical meth-ods are considered her own intellectual and artistic creations. Through these con-tributions, Shao learns from existing forms while also introducing her own ideas and practices, illustrating the basic creative process for making Chinese dance.Although it is generally less well known among Western dance audiences than China’s ballet and modern dance repertoires, Chinese dance is the most wide-spread concert dance form in contemporary China and also has large transna-tional followings. According to a report published in 2016 by the Chinese National Academy of Arts in Beijing, Chinese dance represented more than half of all staged dance performances in China in 2015, including those presented by tour-ing international ensembles.4 These results correspond to what I have observed in my ongoing field research across China during the past ten years, in which I have found Chinese dance to enjoy larger representation in academic teaching programs and performance ensembles, as well as greater financial resources and audiences than other concert dance forms. Dance teachers and choreographers in China create thousands of new classroom and stage repertoires for Chinese dance each year, and local governments and cultural organizations host annual compe-titions and festivals featuring these performances. Hundreds of degree-granting programs focused on Chinese dance are active across the country, and the genre is also the subject of a large and ever-expanding body of academic research. Chinese dance communities are active not only in China but also in Sinophone and dias-pora communities abroad.5 Thus, while the focus of this book is on the historical development and contemporary practice of Chinese dance in the PRC, this topic covers just one part of a broader transnational phenomenon.Beyond the concert dance sphere, Chinese dance is connected to a range of other social spaces and activities. Since the 1980s, adapted forms of Chinese dance have been incorporated into commercial performances marketed to tourists in theme parks and popular travel destinations.6 The amateur performance of Chinese dance is common among schoolchildren and at corporate banquets, and it is also a core component of “square dancing” (guangchang wu), outdoor social dancing typically performed by middle-aged women in parks and other public spaces.7Chinese dance also remains connected to the activities of folk practitioners and other ritual specialists in temple processions, weddings, funerals, exorcisms, and holiday festivals.8 Rather than attempt to cover all these arenas, I have limited my attention here to the concert field, focusing on the activities of artists based in pro-fessional conservatories and ensembles who create dance mainly for the prosce-nium stage.9 Through this choice, I aim to position Chinese dance in conversation with other recognized concert dance genres around the world, as well as to assert the relevance of dance in modern Chinese cultural studies alongside the more established fields of literature, cinema, drama, visual arts, and music.

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Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

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No. Panggil

792.851 WIL r

Penerbit

USA : University of California Press., 2019

Deskripsi Fisik

324 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780520300576

Klasifikasi

792.851

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

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Subjek

Ballet and Modern Dancing in China

Info Detail Spesifik

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Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

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Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

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