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Chinese Dance
In the Vast Land and Beyond
Shih-Ming Li Chang , Lynn E. Frederiksen
Series: Wesleyan Dance
Sales Date: 2016-06-07
A comprehensive multimedia resource for the study of Chinese culture through dance
As China becomes increasingly important in world relations, many components of the country's cultural arts remain unknown outside its borders. Shih-Ming Li Chang and Lynn E. Frederiksen's Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land and Beyond undertakes the challenge of discovering the relationship between Chinese dance in its many forms and the cultural contexts of dance within the region and abroad.
As a comprehensive resource, Chinese Dance offers students and scholars an invaluable introduction to the subject. It serves as a foundation of common knowledge from which Chinese and English-language communities can begin a cross-cultural conversation about Chinese dance. The text, along with a comprehensive glossary of key terms, gives English-language readers a chance to understand the development of Chinese dance as it is officially articulated by historians and dance scholars in Asia. An online database of video clips, an extensive bibliography, and Web-based appendices provide a broad collection of primary source materials that invite interactive and flexible engagement by a range of users. The inclusion of interviews with Chinese dance practitioners in North America offers a view into the Asian diaspora experience.
Foreword: A Manifesto for Demarginalization, by Emily E. Wilcox
Authors' Notes
Introduction
HISTORY: DANCING THROUGH THE VAST LAND AND BEYOND
Major Chinese Dynasties
Ancient Dance and Early Chinese Writing
Shamanism and Ritual Dance
Confucianism
Dance and Empire
Tang Dynasty Dance
Poetry
Beginnings of Chinese Opera
Foot Binding
Repression of Folk Dance
Theater in the Qing Dynasty
Dance in the Opera
Seventeenth-century Han Migration to Taiwan
Setting the Stage: The Late Qing Dynasty to the Twenty-First Century
Dance During Political Upheaval: Japanese Invasion, Civil War, and Communism
Chinese Opera Dance
Dance Schools
Folk Dance
Cultural Revolution and Beyond
Dance Competitions
Popular Culture
Ceremonial and Religious Dances
Modern Dance
DANCE IS THE PRISM: A COLLABORATIVE JOURNEY THROUGH CHINESE DANCE
Performer-Audience Relationships
Primacy of Form
"What's in a Name?"
West within the East: Classicism and Zhongguogudianwu
Parsing the Beijing Olympic Ceremonies
Government Support and the Emergence of Modern Dance
Images of Identity
SEVEN INTERVIEWS: CHINESE DANCE ARTISTS IN NORTH AMERICA
Lily Cai
Artist's Statement
Interview with Lily Cai
Nai-Ni Chen
Artist's Statement
Interview with Nai-Ni Chen
Lorita Leung
Artist's Statement
Interview with Lorita Leung
Yunyu Wang
Artist's Statement
Interview with Yunyu Wang
Yin Mei
Artist's Statement
Interview with Yin Mei
Jin-Wen Yu
Artist's Statement
Interview with Jin-Wen Yu
Yu Wei
Artist's Statement
Interview with Yu Wei
WHY CHINESE DANCE?
Who Are Chinese People?
Who Dances in Chinese Culture?
What Is Behind the Curtain, in the Past and Now?
What Is Chinese Dance?
Where and When Do People Dance?
How Are Chinese Dances Made?
Why Have We Written a Book on Chinese Dance?
NEXT STEPS: THE DATABASE AND THE ART OF EDUCATION
Acknowledgments
Notes
Glossary
Selected Bibliography
Index
Shih-Ming Li Chang is an associate professor of theatre and dance at Wittenberg University, where she teaches dance ethnology, dance history, and dance composition in addition to Chinese opera dance, Western technique classes, and tai chi. Lynn E. Frederiksen taught dance for fifteen years at Tufts University and is now an adjunct professor of theater arts at Clark University. Her coursework focuses on the music-movement "conversation" to facilitate cross-cultural dance explorations. Both authors are alumni of the Smith College MFA program in dance. EMILY WILCOX is assistant professor of modern Chinese studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
"[A]n excellent teaching resource in its breadth and attention to misconceptions of Chinese dance."
~Ellen V.P. Gerdes, Dance Chronicle
""the authors highlight the cultural difference of Chinese dance in comparison with Western dance and argue that reading Chinese dance needs to incorporate its long and complex history, special audiences-performance relationship, and the externally riven motivations for choreographers.""
~Fangfei Miao, Asian Theatre Journal
""[A]n excellent teaching resource in its breadth and attention to misconceptions of Chinese dance.""
~Ellen V.P. Gerdes, Dance Chronicle
""[A] rich and unique insight into Chinese dance-past and present-while also looking toward the future.""
~Rose Martin, Journal of Dance Education
"The more you engage with these dances by watching, reading, and discussing the materials that Lynn Frederiksen and Shih-Ming Li Chang have so carefully created and contextualized in this book, the more Chinese dance can touch, challenge, and move us in unexpected ways."
~Emily Wilcox, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan, from the foreword
"The more you engage with these dances by watching, reading, and discussing the materials that Lynn Frederiksen and Shih-Ming Li Chang have so carefully created and contextualized in this book, the more Chinese dance can touch, challenge, and move us in unexpected ways."
~Emily Wilcox, Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michiganfrom the foreword
"Lucid and well researched, Chinese Dance is a rich resource for students, educators, and dancers. The book brings valuable information on the wide spectrum of Chinese dance and its cultural heritage, and illuminates the process of cross-cultural understanding.""
~Ann R. David, reader in dance studies, coeditor of Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives
"A thoroughly researched publication, Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land & Beyond offers a rich and unique insight into Chinese dance—past and present—while also looking toward the futureLi Chang and Frederiksen have produced a fine piece of scholarship that is impressively engaging and articulate, and would be accessible to postsecondary students and academics alike."
~Rose Martin, Journal of Dance Education
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