Considering postmodern cultural disconnects and cultural paradigms in Chinese dance creation through the lens of ArtsCross/Danscross

Abstract

Abstract ArtsCross/Danscross created a visual juxtaposition of dance forms on a shared stage. The project not only reflected the cultural disconnects between Chinese and western dance creation, but also brought to light the hybridization of cultural states which were present within the project. Since we lack an awareness of the roots of western society and culture, the understanding of western modern dance that we have developed remains relatively general and one-sided. While we have sought wholeheartedly to apply modern dance choreography approaches to the creation of Chinese dance, we have not paid attention to, or sought to understand the emergence and spread of western postmodern artistic values, and this is the primary source of the cultural disconnects that were witnessed within the ArtsCross/Danscross project. In recent Chinese history, a hybridized cultural paradigm has evolved, characterized by imitation of the external/foreign and feelings of conflict towards the internal/self. In China’s dance field, the concepts of ‘modern’, ‘contemporary’, and ‘postmodern’ overlap and are difficult to distinguish. In reality, both ‘modern dance’ and ‘contemporary dance’ contain Chinese and western cultural elements, and constitute modern-contemporary ‘cultural hybrids’ of Chinese dance. Thus, there is an urgent need to establish a cultural attitude that witnesses cultural disconnects without misgivings, and which confidently faces up to the present. Postmodernism implies a questioning of, and a resistance towards the uniform ordering and standardization of the world. To some degree, it also represents a reformation of global diversity. Moreover, it creates a space for the development and survival of Chinese dance against the context of this process of reformation of diversity.