The DiIemma of Chinese CIassicaI Dance:TraditionaI or Contemporary?

JIANG Dong

A traditional form or a contemporary one — this argument, in both theory and practice, goes along with the growth of Chinese classical dance (hereafter referred to as “CCD”) all the time. CCD is a typical Chinese dance style that was brought out only some half a century ago.Comparing with the long history of Chinese dance, CCD is a very young form to represent THE Chinese dance.Yet, for the last half century’s development, it has always been regarded as a naughty kid who has two sides —the positive and the negative sides. There are people who love it and use it, whereas there are people who judge it and criticize it. People who love it believe that it was invented with a strong idea to strengthen the Chinese spirit in dance, while people who criticize it argue that it has a strong connection with foreign concepts and methodology. Thus, through the process of growing over the past half a century, CCD has gone through a hard and critical time of developing with every step being gazed and judged. And the point that has always been criticized is whether it should be traditional or contemporary.

Why is this traditional-or-contemporary issue so vital to the development of CCD? Before answering this question, I will introduce the background brief ly.

Chinese dance has been playing a really active and popular artistic role in Chinese society for the last few decades. Taken as a very serious art form among others and supported fully by the government, it has performed a very f irm and positive function in the country’s political and social lives. Proven by many Chinese historical books, Chinese dance started thousands of years ago. It has experienced both strong and weak times in the long course of history. Here, we divide the Chinese dance history into two stages: the ancient and the contemporary, of which the watershed is at the beginning of 20th century.

For the ancient part, China has a long history of dance along with its civilizations. According to Professor WANG Ke-fen①, there are plenty of different dance styles existing in different dynasties through ancient times, such as Zhou, Han, and Tang②, with Tang dynasty moving toward its peak. Though the abundant dance forms in different dynasties have been recorded in the extensive ancient documents, almost all of those ancient dance forms are obsolete. Just several years ago, I saw a Gagaku③(Yayue) performance in Tokyo. Gagaku was introduced from Tang Dynasty of China and has been preserved authentically in Japan, yet no trace could be found all over China. It is regrettable that our old dance forms have disappeared. From the other perspective,however, these dance forms had been developed into a new artistic form called Chinese traditional opera(zhongguo xiqu).

The Chinese traditional opera is composed of a variety of branches according to different geographical locations. For example, originated from Sichuan, it is called Chuan opera (chuanju); originated from Beijing(formally known as Peking), it is called Peking opera(jingju). With a development history around 400 years,the traditional operas have incorporated nearly allperforming factors including dance and developed a round aesthetic system. So, after Song Dynasty④, the art of dance was gradually integrated into the traditional opera system and lost its independence as an art form.

For the contemporary part, since the beginning of the 20th century, there had been a strong signal that the Chinese dance started its new way with western dance styles embodied in it. Especially with three great f igures,Mme YU Rong-ling⑤, Mr. WU Xiao-bang⑥, and Mme DAI Ai-lian⑦, the new Chinese dance form brought novel ideas to the Chinese society at that time when it was nearly ignorant of what the dance art was about. Each of the three dance pioneers had a unique background,but all of them had studied western style dances (e.g.,ballet and modern dance) in foreign countries such as the United Kingdom, France, and Japan. By virtue of their efforts, Chinese social scene started to be associated with this new form of dancing art as well as its movement languages and styles both in modernism and realism,which pushed the Chinese dance into a brand new era.After the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949, accompanying many new careers the new dance culture in the young republic started to boom.

Further, the dance history of the People’s Republic of China can be simply divided into three stages. If we set the “Cultural Revolution” — which took place from 1966 to 1976 — as the milestone, we can name the three stages as “Before ‘Cultural Revolution,’” “During ‘Cultural Revolution,’” and “After ‘Cultural Revolution’ to Now.”

Before “CuIturaI RevoIution”

Commencing a new epoch, the young nation initiated its moves toward constructing a new country.Everything was new. And art, regarded as a useful weapon and a spiritual element for the socialist construction at that time, was greatly encouraged and supported by the government. The new dance culture was developed from scratch and Mr. Wu and Mme Dai laid the basic foundation for it. During this stage,experiments were welcome; they were introduced in the direction of exploring the new forms and styles of Chinese dance. Exposed to western ballet, a mature dance style, the professional dancers and teachers in China started to implement experimentation. Later, they named the newly organized dance form as the CCD, with focus on the Chinese traditional opera, martial arts, andqigong. Before long, they noticed that there were in fact two parts within the system of western ballet — training and character dance. Following this system, they added Chinese folk dance into the new Chinese dance system.Correspondingly, Beijing Dance Academy⑧(hereafter referred to as “BDA”) was founded with two sections —ballet and Chinese dance. The ballet part was greatly dominated by the Russian style since China and the Soviet Union had a close political relation at the time.And the Chinese dance part was divided further into two sectors: the CCD and the CFD (Chinese folk dance). So,the three dance styles — the CCD, the CFD, and ballet —predominated the dance art on Chinese stage of that period. Aff iliated to the Ministry of Culture, three stateowned dance companies were founded: China National Opera and Dance Drama Theatre, the Central Song and Dance Ensemble, and the National Ballet of China. In this way, China formed its off icial vision for dance, which lasted for many years.

Specif ic to the CCD, the dance scholars were given a task: they were expected to establish a school for the Chinese dance. As mentioned above, the ancient Chinese dances had not been inherited. Thus, no classical dance forms were lively anymore. So, they could do nothing but create a new form for the CCD borrowing the movement ideas from the Chinese traditional opera, such as Peking opera andkunqu, to f inish the task. In my opinion,this philosophy and methodology are unquestionable.However, the Russian inf luence had its traces in the process, as a seed being planted and having grown up until today, which has been criticized by many scholars.In fact, that is the reason why the CCD looks so similar to ballet and why the creators of the CCD have tried their best to eliminate this inf luence that has proven to be not easy. Among many, the Body Rhyme (shenyun) is one of the efforts that has been believed to enhance the Chinese f lavor and spirit of the CCD.

CHEN Ai-lian⑨is the most representative CCD dancer of all time. Graduated from BDA as one of the f irst group of students ever trained by the school, she received a complete education with the experimental CCD method. After winning four gold awards in Finland in 1961, she was regarded as the best dancer of the time.And it is amazed that she is still active on stage in her late seventies. She was famous for her solo dance “A Moonlit Night on the Spring River” (Chunjiang huayueye, 1957).Through her dance, we could acknowledge the def inition of the CCD’s movement style and the relationship between its main features and aesthetic orientation.At that time, nobody argued about the traditional-orcontemporary question. People believed that the advent of this new dance style CCD was certainly a choice to show Chinese traditional value.

During “CuIturaI RevoIution”

The ten years, “Cultural Revolution” was really a disaster to all careers, and dance was no exception.Among the eight “Model Operas” (yangbanxi), there were two Chinese ballets: theRed Detachment of Women(Hongse niangzijun, 1964) and TheWhite Haired Girl(Baimao nyu, 1965). Both of them were employed as the symbols of the revolution by the political power and spread all over the country. Following the inf luence of these two ballet works, millions of people were swept over by this style of dancing.

In these two ballets, Chinese elements were added to the foreign art — ballet. And even today, we can still sense the obvious and ambitious experiment made at that time. The choreographers used movements from both the CCD and the CFD, which was regarded as the Chinese attempt to reform the ballet. Meanwhile, the CCD and the CFD were deprived of their rights of development and even existence.

After “CuIturaI RevoIution”

With the end of the “Cultural Revolution” in the late 1970s, China opened its door to the West. At the same time, the dance culture renewed its development. Soon,the three dance styles — the CCD, the CFD, and ballet —were extended to f ive forms. The Chinese contemporary dance and the modern dance were added into the family,which formed the main frame of the current Chinese dance scene.

As mentioned earlier, the Chinese dance f ield wished that the CCD could bear the task of establishing aChinese dancestyle, or, anational dance. So, going through the recurring arguments may give us a clearer context of the traditional-or-contemporary question.

Debate and DeveIopment

The root, path, and growth of the CCD have been confronted with different challenges through the halfcentury’s development. The renowned Peking opera actor Mr. OUYANG Yu-qian⑩offered many ideas to the development of the Chinese dance. Following his instructions and suggestions, the newly formed dance style was named as the Chinese classical dance. The core of the movement style was completely borrowed from Peking opera andkunqu. Thus, the aesthetics of this movement system is very similar to that of Peking opera andkunqu.Some experts even called it as the “traditional opera style Chinese classical dance” (xiqu pai zhongguo gudian wu).Later, however, the dance style was greatly affected by the Russian ballet with a belief in that the training method of ballet was so scientif ic that with its help, the CCD could shorten the process of training their professional dancers.At that moment, the eff iciency of training dance talents was a very important and urgent issue since the country was in need of dancers desperately. With this philosophy,the f irst group Chinese professional dancers were trained,and CHEN Ai-lian was a good representative of them.

After years of practice, there were criticisms emerging in the f ield. Since the new dance style was designed with the focus on training, some scholars argued that it had been developed with the sole purpose of training and without expressing the spirit of the Chinese characteristics. Bearing this in mind, two CCD founders, Ms. LI Zheng-yi[11]and Mr. TANG Man-cheng[12], both of whom were professors at BDA at the time, reformed the CCD with new ideas right after the “Cultural Revolution.” They reinforced the Chinese characteristics and created a new movement system — the Body Rhyme — paying extensive attention to the cultural quality of the movements. This effort was seen as a great achievement and a supplement to the former training system. And it looked more f luent with some f lavor of Kung-fu ideas. It then inf luenced a great number of their students, and new dances were created and choreographed accordingly. The most prominent one wasThe Yellow River(Huanghe, 1988). All the movements used in this dance ref lected that inf luence on the choreographers. Unsurprisingly, this work was well received and included into the repertoire of the department of the Chinese classical dance of BDA.However, the work soon led to another debate. According to some experts, this work was presented with a strong contemporary thought and image: It is no longer a Chinese classical dance, but a contemporary one.

Mr. CHEN Wei-ya[13]is an important post Cultural Revolution choreographer, and he choreographed with strong CCD language and feature. He was regarded as the spokesman for the CCD on stage in the new age.Through his works, such as “Mulan Returns” (Mulan gui,1987) and “Spirit of Qin’s Terracotta Army” (Qinyong hun, 1984), audience could clearly see the vocabulary of the CCD. His choreography followed the rules that could be seen in the works before the “Cultural Revolution,”showing that CHEN in fact inherited the CCD’s tradition.Contemporaneously, it seemed that there were no negative opinions on his dance.

While CHEN Wei-ya, along with others, became the epitome of the rising CCD, the challenge and pressure continued coming from the dance community.The question was still being asked: Should the CCD be a classical form or a more contemporary one? The discussion involved a wide range of people and topics,leaving the CCD f ield dispirited. It kept going on until a new dance work choreographed by TONG Rui-rui[14]appeared. The dance was “Fan Dance and Chinese Painting” (Shanwu danqing, 2000) and performed by WANG Ya-bin (b. 1984) who is now a well-known dancer in China. In this dance, new ideas were brought in and presented in a more poetic and elegant way, which seemed to point out a new direction for the future of the CCD. After it was performed in public, most of the people ceased to argue over the question because they found that there was a new hope for the CCD — a taste following the Chinese traditional cultural spirit, being natural, bright, and delightful. Even so, this new dance made people ponder other questions: What exactly is the Chinese classical dance? And what should a CCD work look like? With the quick social transition and rapid change in people’s concepts, could we create the CCD works with modern ideas? This new piece solved some questions while other questions were raised.

At the same time, the f ield witnessed the rising of a group of young promising choreographers such as ZHAO Xiao-gang, ZHANG Yun-feng, and HU Yan. To them, the CCD was an old form. They hoped that they could choreograph new works with their own ideas for the new era. ZHANG Yun-feng’s work “Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again” (Zaibie kangqiao), performed by a very capable male dancer WU Wei-feng (b. 1980), offered a new answer to the question. Though the movements he used in the dance were mostly from the CCD, the whole structure of the dance gave the audience a very strong impression of being a modern dance. Thus, no one took it as a CCD work rather than a contemporary dance work with CCD movements. However, the dance has been performed only by CCD dancers not by contemporary dancers. It can be said that the CCD totally changed its nature with the advent of this piece.

No matter how intense the arguments are, most of the audience and young students of the CCD ignored them and showed their fondness for those new works.As the arguments continued, the scene of the CCD changed gradually. The debate itself is a motive force that has driven forward the development of the CCD and assimilated new energy into it.

The Paradox

Comparing with those of the neighboring countries such as India, Myanmar, Japan, and Korea, the Chinese dance f ield had always dreamed of having its own national dance form. In earlier time, the creators, dancers,and viewers believed that the CCD would become a mainstream dance form in China, and some even wished that it could be a NATIONAL dance form of China. At the very beginning, the main task of the CCD department of BDA was to train dancers for the central and provincial dance troupes, and the CCD was designed as the principal device to fulf ill the training. Meanwhile, on the artistic stage, there was a new trend of producing Chinese national dance dramas as the big productions presented in western ballet. The China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater, established in 1951, was one of the leading troupes for dance drama making at that time. And they recruited a great number of high level professional CCD dancers. Since most of the Chinese dance dramas were made by using the CCD vocabulary, the CCD found its position and value in practice. As more and more dance troupes joined to make Chinese dance dramas, the CCD became evidently functional. For some time, there formed a link in the Chinese dance society — from the place to train the CCD dancers to the places to employ the CCD dancers. Yet, a paradox also laid there. There was not even one dance troupe claiming that it performed the CCD exclusively. In other words, unlike the National Ballet of China which only practiced ballet, there was no single troupe that practiced the CCD exclusively. Especially after many years of operation, the initial expectation and fondness for the CCD had been weakening, and other dance styles started to take the market. Today, the CCD is experiencing a bottleneck time.

Currently, there is only one institution that offers the formal CCD education in China, which is BDA. BDA is the oldest professional dance school in China. When higher education degrees became available in BDA in 1978, there were three primary departments to train the professional dancers: Department of CCD, Department of CFD, and Department of Ballet. In addition, there were other departments such as Department of Choreography,Department of Musical Theater, Department of Dance Studies, and Department of Set Design, which made the Academy the biggest dance academy in China. The Department of CCD is currently the only department that has an independent teaching sector, and nearly all the CCD dancers, instructors, and scholars in China have been trained here. And those who have graduated from here and later became a CCD instructor would teach and train their students in the same way.

According to Professor WANG Wei[15], the current vice president of BDA and one of the representative f igures in the CCD, the CCD is still a main expressive means for Chinese dance. And it certainly needs more attention and protection. Recently, she led a workshop to exhibit and teach the Body Rhyme, with the hope to develop people’s interest in the CCD.

Under such circumstances, why were there still many choreographers using the CCD for their works for the recent years? There are two main reasons: One is that the CCD is still the primary and basic language to make dance dramas. The other one is that the large scale competition Peach & Plum Cup Dance Competition (taoli bei wudao bisai) has been encouraging the choreographers to create dances in this category.

Dance Competitions

The development of Chinese dance has been mainly driven forward by competitions. There are four principal dance competitions in China: the National Dance Competition, the Lotus Dance Awards China National Dance Competition, the Peach & Plum Cup Dance Competition, and CCTV (China Central Television) Dance Competition. Each of them has its own goals and contestants. The National Dance Competition is held by the Ministry of Culture biennially.Open to all professional dancers, the competition awards the excellence in two categories: choreography and performance. Bestowed by the Chinese Dancers Association (zhongguo wudao jia xiehui) biennially, the Lotus Dance Awards China National Dance Competition honors exceptional works of different dance styles. The Lotus Awards are given according to the categories of different dance styles. The Peach & Plum Cup Dance Competition, initiated by BDA, is currently organized by the Ministry of Culture triennially. Only students can participate in this competition, which means that this competition, to some extent, ref lects the training quality of the involved dance institutions. CCTV Dance Competition is held biennially and broadcast on China Central Television. It opens to all dancers, be it a professional or an amateur.

For the last couple of years, the government has issued new standards for competitions, and a number of competitions have been cancelled. For this reason, only the Peach & Plum Cup Dance Competition of the abovementioned four dance competitions will be held as usual.This might prevent the CCD from continuing thriving.

Han and Tang StyIe

Certainly, the traditional-or-contemporary debate is good in terms of development. According to a Chinese saying, the f lames rise high when everybody adds wood.Debates also lead to experimentation, in which Han and Tang Style of the Chinese classical dance (han tang gudian wu) is a successful achievement.

The founder of Han and Tang Style is Professor SUN Ying[16], who is also one of the founders of the CCD.Unsatisf ied with the target and direction of the CCD, he blazed the alternative trail. In fact, from the very beginning,he disagreed with the idea that borrowing the movements from Peking opera andkunquwas the sole choice for the CCD. He suggested that the CCD should be more faithful to history and resort to the elements from the former dynasties such as Han and Tang dynasties. Not so easy to realize, this suggestion drew little attention from people at f irst. This is the f irst reason why SUN decided to innovate and establish the style in his own way.

The second reason is that SUN Ying opposed taking any idea from western ballet. Once, he expressed that if there was any ballet movement in the CCD, he would not admit it. He believed that the CCD should be a Chinese dance style. This idea was supported by Mme.DAI Ai-lian. DAI once pointed out in our conversation,“The CCD is too western, and SUN Ying is doing the real Chinese classical dance.” The new movement system created by SUN Ying, Han and Tang Style,was later regarded as the new school of the CCD. He choreographed a dance piece called “Ta Ge” (1998),awarded the gold medal of the Lotus Dance Awards.Since then, SUN Ying’s Han and Tang Style draw much attention from the society. The dance was even displayed on a U.N. stamp recently.

In terms of both training and aesthetic values,Han and Tang Style is a success. People saw another possibility of thenationaldance and gave positive opinions on the new style. The experts started to use this style as a reference when they discussed the CCD topics.Its inf luence has extended in an unprecedented way.Today, SUN’s legacy, in my opinion, can be regarded as an alternative development of the country’s dance.

Dunhuang StyIe

Mr. SUN Ying was not the only one who created a new dance form to enrich the Chinese classical f lavor of the Chinese dances. In Western China, there was another new style called Dunhuang Style. It was based on the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, which showed hundreds of dance scenes through the depictions by the ancient painters.In 1978, the dance dramaSilk Roadwas staged. It was a great success at the moment, bringing people’s attention to this newly developed dance style. The audience’s enthusiastic feedback gave the creators conf idence to build a new movement system. The system was designed and invented carefully to imitate the dance gestures in the wall paintings of Mogao Grottoes. And it also included many skills and movements derived from the dance gestures,which made it distinct from other dance styles. Now,Dunhuang style is taught in both BDA and Lanzhou Dance School in Gansu Province. The representative dancers of Dunhuang style include GAO Jin-rong[17]who is now in her early eighty and SHI Min who is originally from Lanzhou and currently a professor at BDA.

In addition to the three aforementioned styles of the CCD, it has witnessed other new styles being developed recently, such askunquopera style. According to Professor LIU Jian[18]from BDA, the ideal scene should be that the contemporary styles of the CCD are more diverse than those used to be in different times and regions in Chinese history. Undoubtedly, these attempts are the hopes for the future of the CCD.

Tang StyIe by LIU Feng-xue in Taiwan

Similarly, experiments were carried out to reconstruct the ancient dances in Taiwan, China. One of the most important pioneers is Mme. LIU Feng-xue[19]. As a veteran and legendary dancer, who is in her early ninety, she is still trying something new.

LIU was born in the northeast of China and went to Taiwan before 1949. She has had a successful dance life and educated many young dancers in Taiwan, China.Amazingly, she received her doctoral degree in Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London when she was sixty years old. The majority of her dances are recorded by Labanotation. Moreover, she is such a prolif ic choreographer that she never stops creating new dances and holds new dance performance every year, which shows her great energy for dance creation.

She spent years of hard work in researching Tang style dance. She used to stay in the Japanese royal court in Tokyo for years to study the Chinese ancient archives that could not be found in China. Also, she learned Japanese Gagaku, which was introduced from China to Japan in Tang Dynasty. She prepared fully for the project of creating the Tang style movement system, which turned out to be a very successful and convincing achievement.

In this system, LIU reconstructed four long pieces and four short pieces of Tang Dynasty dance, trying to be faithful to the ancient dance style. Theoretically, it is improbable for human beings to restore any old dance forms completely since there are not suff icient evidence and reference. In the dance world, it can be said that if a dance is lost, it is lost forever. So, any attempt to reconstruct the original forms, in matter of fact, is to substitute. However, it does not mean that these initiatives on reconstruction should be gainsaid, since the academic research and related practice would bring us closer to the tradition. For this reason, those who spared no effort in reconstructing the ancient Chinese dance and their works are worthy of respect. Lately,Professor LIU Jian has been trying to reconstruct Han Dynasty dance based on the brick paintings.

ConcIusions

Upon its establishment, the CCD bore the task to invent a dance form featuring strong Chinese characteristics, since there had been no ancient dances being inherited. Persistently, the contemporary Chinese dancers have been pursuing their own way to express artistic intent and spirit. Thus, no one challenged its validity at the very beginning. People admired the excellent dances and dancers, accepted the new dance form, and aspired to further development of it. However,as the CCD was successively inf luenced by ballet and modern dance, people started to disbelieve its direction and goals. So, the debates were on whenever there were new attempts in dance choreography. And the main topic was always the traditional or contemporary issue,accompanying the whole development of the CCD.The argument, in some sense, is like a ruler or a mirror,providing corrections from time to time. The argument is continuing while the CCD is growing.

In conclusion, this article provides a concise introduction to the issues that the Chinese dancers are dealing with,the problems that they are facing, and the goals they are moving toward at the current stage. In my opinion, their efforts — even some of them are distained — should be appreciated and respected within the dance society in China. And I am conf ident that their efforts will result in a better dance world.