Translated Excerpts of Chinese Dance Notation

Abstract

In a society which judged the culture of its members less by the building of cities than by the transforming influence of writing, it is not unexpected to find that written dance notation is of a high quality. And, when it is further understood that the writing of this society is, itself, a form of line drawing, one is not surprised to find that excellent and accurate line drawings accompany the written text.This is as true for dance description in present-day revolutionary China as it was in traditional China where the accuracy and complete documentation of Ming dynasty (1378–1644) ritual dance anticipated and exceeded Western efforts in this area. Although historical records suggest that dance notations in China may have existed as early as in the first millenium B.C., they appear to have been destroyed by the book-burning Emperor Shih Huang-ti at the end of the third century B.C. In other instances like those of the T'ang dynasty dance tablatures found in the caves of Tun-huang, the notations have not yet been adequately deciphered; thus, fully-documented rituals in China are best known to us from a period of time (circa. 1600), not far in years from the notes made regarding the famed Ballet Comique de la Reine or Arbeau's OrchésographieOne observes in the Ming dynasty records that movements were illustrated as well as described, the descriptions tending to be terse while the illustrations were more complete. In fact, the dance is better understood by studying the complete picture sequence than by following the characters. (Figures 1 and 2 are examples of two movements in sequence as shown in notation of Ming dynasty ritual dance). Regarding the translation of the characters that are found on the illustrations, Figs. 1 and 2: the vertical characters are essentially numerical, roughly equivalant to saying in English, “index number 5 and index number 6.” The larger characters, which are read horizontally from right to left, are descriptive in general terms only, and require a study of the drawings in sequence to be fully understood.