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Asia The Art of Chinese Dance Very much like the Chinese language, Chinese dance has its own unique vocabulary, and phrase structure that helps a dancer on stage to express themselves to a full extent with ease and grace.The art of Chinese dance dates
back to even before the appearance of the first written Chinese symbols. Ceramic
pots have been excavated in a western Chinese province that showed colorful
dancing figures. Chinese dance was divided into two types: civilian and military during 1,000 B.C. In civilian dance, the performers held feather banners in their hands, which symbolized the giving out of the fruits of the day’s hunting or fishing. In later dates, this was used in the periodic sacrificing rituals outside of the city, and other religious rituals. In the large group of military dance, on the other hand, the dancers carried weapons in their hands, and moved to the front and the back in coordination with the rest of the group. Later this was used in military exercises. After the Music Bureau in the Han Dynasty was made, they tried very hard to collect folk songs and dances. By 300 A.D. folk dance forms of the different people of central Asia were introduced into China, and came together with the original dances of the Han people. This lasted for a long time. Because of the more stable political situation during the T’ang Dynasty, dance in China entered a period of brilliance. The imperial court founded the pear Golden Academy and the Imperial Academy, gathering the top dancing talent of the country to perform the wonderful and incomparably lavish "Ten Movement Music" dance. This dance had pieces from dance forms of the peoples of Chime, Korea, Sinkiang, India, Persia, and Central Asia in to one huge dance. In it was detailed body movement techniques, and made full use of colorful costumes and props to set off the elegant dance movements. Poetry, songs, a dramatic plot, and background music were incorporated to create an understandable media. This came before modern Chinese opera.
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A study of these findings had found that people of the
Neolithic Yang-shao culture around the 4,000 B.C. already had choreographed
dances in which the dancers locked their arms and stamped their feet while
singing to music.