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Chinese Dance
Dances in the Tang dynasty inherited techniques that were developed
in the past dynasties such as Zhou, Qin, Han, Wei, Jin, and Nanbei. During
the early Tang period, Buddhism was introduced to China, and because
trade and social relationship with other countries rapidly expanded,
dances were influenced by folk dances of other countries such as India,
Rome, Persia (Iran), Korea, Cambodia, Burma, Vietnam, and other Central
Asian countries. In addition, it also combined with other forms of fine
arts such as painting, scenery, and colorful costumes as well as poetry,
classical music and drama. The combination of these colorful traditions
brought the performing arts to a new peak, and the Tang dynasty has been
regarded as the golden age for dance in ancient China. DunHuang, an ancient city in Gansu Province, Western China, was the gateway to what was called the "Silk Road" leading to Central Asia and Europe. The Silk Road or Silk Route refers to not one but many routes of trade and cultural and religious exchange extending from China, through Central Asia, to the Middle East and Western Europe. DunHuang is world famous for its artistic sculpture statues and fresco paintings of the 4th - 14th century in China, which reflect Silk Road civilization and important aspects of the Chinese people's religious life, arts, and customs in the history, including the introduction of Buddhism to China during this period. Over 1,000 caves were cut out of the cliffs in Dunhuang in this period, and a wide variety of colored frescoes and murals were preserved in these caves before it excavations in the 20th century. It has been regarded as a national treasure of China. DunHuang frescoes contain many artistic representations of famous images as depicted in various Buddhist stories and sutras - classic religious texts of Buddhism. These outstanding and graceful artistic images show as aesthetic form that often reflected daily life in China in the age the frescoes were painted. In the late 1980's, after close study of these images from Dunhuang frescoes, leading Chinese dance experts created a special Silk Road style dance called "DunHuang Dance." With a breathtaking beauty and elegance, this cultural performance reflects a rich and distinctive dance tradition in China. The traditional Chinese ribbon dance that our dancer Chih Ting
Shih performs in People Like Me 2003 is from the classical DunHuang "flying
figure" dance. While the ribbons were originally part of the costume,
the dancer now holds the ends of the ribbons in her hands and manipulates
the shape and flow of the ribbon to the music of the Chinese orchestra. Chinese Theatrical Dance "wuju" Chinese theatrical dance traces its origin to court celebrations in ancient China. With the influence of Russian Ballet techniques after the 1949 Revolution, Chinese theatrical dance became a national project. During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese ballet became known abroad as Revolutionary Ballet with its themes of proletarian solidarity and Communist political leadership. Madame Jiang Qing's two famous ballets of that period, "The White-Haired Girl" and "The Red Detachment of Women" have both disappeared from the contemporary repertoire. Today, Chinese wuju themes range from those based on fairy tales and literary references - often accompanied by traditional Chinese music played with a variety of instruments such as er-hu and pi-pa - to folkloric staging of regional minority dances, all orchestrated. Chinese traditional music is pentatonic and is rooted in the rich soil of folk customs and feelings. Increasingly, Western orchestration in terms of harmonic effect, and contemporary techno music with its heavy beat (along with modern dance technique) have entered the stream of Chinese dance over the past decades and are becoming part of the Chinese theatrical dance music stock. In People Like Me 2000, Liu and Han (pictured) presented a piece from Chinese theatrical dance or wuju, entitled The Liang-Zhu Story. This dance is based on a 2000-year-old folk tale. A girl named Zhu Ying-Tai disguises herself as a man to pursue school away from home because women are not allowed to study in ancient China. At school, she becomes very close friends with her classmate Liang Shan-Bo. One day Liang accidentally discovers Zhu's true identity. He instantly falls in love with her. The vignette draws to a close at this happy point. However, when fully played out, the traditional tale ends in tragedy. Both lovers die broken-hearted, crushed by the invincible obstruction from Zhu family, a kind of Chinese Romeo and Juliet tale. Song Lyrics:
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China is a broad and vast country with numerous ethnic groups, and
Chinese dance has a history of over five thousand years. Until the Han
dynasty (206 B. C. - A. D. 220), most of the Chinese dances originated
from the "folks," people dancing in their communities and at celebrations.
During the Han period, a musical entertainment court was established
for the imperial family, which was essentially a center for systematically
documenting and enhancing folk songs and dances. Later, because of the
political stability and the economic prosperity of the Tang dynasty (A.
D. 618 - 907), poetry, music and dance flourished. 
This dance-drama style develops themes from sources like the Chinese Opera,
of which the Peking or Beijing form is best known as the "national" opera style
of China, and marries them with dance techniques from the West. In Chinese
operas, there are often complex story lines that can feature the various disciplines
of performing arts, such as singing, acting, music, acrobatics, and story telling,
in different parts of the same play. In theatrical dance, however, vignettes
are performed that frame a moment in a much longer narrative. The costumes
are from the traditional design of Peking Opera for the intellectuals, with
the folding fans typical for this type of character, for example.