National Folk Dance Research Articles

The Development of Chinese National Folk Dance Art from the Perspective of Cultural Self-confidence

The Development of Chinese National Folk Dance Art from the Perspective of Cultural Self-confidence

A Study on Semantic Classification of Guangxi Ethnic Folk Dance Movements Incorporating Deep Learning

Abstract In recent years, the development of Guangxi’s national folk dance has been on the rise and has gained much attention. The research of Guangxi’s national folk dance is currently in a booming period. The research is based on deep learning theory, using stack denoising autoencoder and convolutional depth Boltzmann mechanism to build a SdAE-CDBM model for dance movement classification. The dance movements are recognized and detected by using feature mining and extraction of dance movements in Guangxi folk dance videos. The SdAE-CDBM model of this paper is compared with other classification models in terms of semantic classification accuracy of dance movements to explore the classification performance of the SdAE-CDBM model proposed in this paper. The average F1 values of the SdAE-CDBM model in the classification of the seven types of dance movements are 86.77%, 88.54%, and 90.18%, respectively, which are the maximum values among the movement classification models. The SdAE-CDBM model was able to achieve the highest classification accuracy and the fastest classification convergence speed among all classification models. When it comes to classifying dance movements semantically, the SdAE-CDBM model achieves a classification accuracy of 70.28%, which is significantly superior to other classification models. The SdAE-CDBM model in this paper is highly effective in the semantic classification of dance movements, as evidenced by this.

Panibharata and the Invention of Sinhala Folk Dance Repertoires in Post-Colonial Sri Lanka

This article focuses on the history of the Sinhala folk dance genre and its connection to Sinhala cultural nationalism in Sri Lanka. This paper aims to examine the formation of Sinhala folk dance as a tradition in the context of the rise of Sinhala nationalism during the 1940s and 1950s. Although performing arts were commonly practiced by villagers, the genre named Sinhala Folk Dance (Sinhala gemi näțuma) did not emerge until the 1930s in Sri Lanka. Around 1956, in the midst of the rise of Sinhala cultural nationalism, it is believed that the stylistic choices that preceded the modern creative work of the new nation were drawn from “folk” sources. A classic example of this genre is E.R. Sarachchandra’s play Maname, which became the marker of modern Sinhala theatre, and which was based on the folk theatre tradition, the nadagama. Here, the assumption is that folk art already existed in the villages, and that the Sinhala literati merely borrowed from it to create new performing art forms that represented the nation. However, this assumption is an oversight in folk dance in Sri Lanka, as demonstrated in this article which presents an alternative interpretation of the history of performing arts in Sri Lanka, a history which has not been highlighted in the 1956 cultural revolution discourse. As I demonstrate in this article, Sinhala choreographer Panibharata invented certain dances which are considered Sinhala folk dance today. Sinhala nationalists groomed Panis, a village drummer and dancer, considered to be a low-caste, underprivileged individual into Panibharata, a cosmopolitan artist. Fulfilling these nationalists’ desires, Panibharata created repertoires of “folk dance” that portrayed village life in an exotic and romantic guise, which is aptly exemplified in his goyam näțuma (rice-harvesting dance). Panibharata’s model of folk choreography continues to be interpreted as the genuine and only Sri Lankan folk dance tradition, a narrative that was institutionalized and disseminated through the system of public education. In contrast to that canonical narrative of the Sinhala folk dance tradition, I argue that the staged model of Sinhala folk dance is a fairly recent invention. I analyze archival records, dance curricula, and secondary sources and interpret them according to my personal experiences as a dancer. To contextualize the purely Sinhala folk dance tradition, I compare the Russian folk dance and the Morris dance of England, that developed as separate national folk dance traditions.

The Communication Studies of China's Red Dance

From the establishment of the Red Army in 1927 to the first two decades of the new century, the development of "red dance" for nearly a century has gone through a distinctive artistic development path. In the war years, due to the needs of combat, red dance has a strong political attribute and is an effective means of propaganda and ideological education. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, through professional construction and development, the aesthetic characteristics of red dance art have been highlighted, and the form of expression has developed into pure body language dance. The performance types include solo dance, duet, group dance, dance drama and dance poetry. After long-term development, red dance has formed a special style and aesthetic form, enriching the long-standing military dance of the Chinese nation, and leading the development direction of Chinese modern and contemporary dance. China's "red dance" presents the characteristics of the spread of three styles of military dance, national folk dance and modern dance.

Dynamics of Ukrainian Folk and Stage Folk Choreography Formation and its Manifestation in Pavlo Virskyi’s Work (the Case Study of the State Dance Ensemble of Ukraine 1950s–1960s)

The purpose of the article is to consider and analyse the conceptual foundations of the development and formation of Pavlo Virskyi’s Ukrainian folk dance art of in the second half of the 20th century during his work in the State Honored Academic Dance Ensemble of Ukraine. Research methodology is based on the application of general scientific, comparative, art history, descriptive, and analytical methods. This allows analysing the dynamics of changes in the performer’s folk choreography in the specified period. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the authors attempt to consider and investigate the evolutionary changes in Pavlo Virskyi’s stage work not only in the context of art analysis, but also of modern domestic research, which affected the further development of folk stage dance art, which for a long time was in conditions of ideological pressure. Conclusions. After analysing the holistic picture of the formation and development of the Ukrainian choreographer’s national folk dance art in the stated period, the authors have revealed the defining constants in his choreographic and production work. It clearly traces the trends of the dynamic development of the forms of production work, in which plot-image choreographic compositions based on Ukrainian dance folklore began to prevail. The subject matter and compositional-figurative structure of concert productions also changed significantly, the arsenal of expressive means expanded, which affected their quality. Key words: folk choreography, theatricalisation of dance folklore, story-image productions, creative activity

Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy by Emily Wilcox

Reviewed by: Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy by Emily Wilcox Liang Luollu222@uky.edu Emily Wilcox. Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy. Oakland: University of California Press, 2019. 304 pp. $34.95 (paper), open access at https://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.58. In Revolutionary Bodies, Emily Wilcox infuses a deep ethnographic sensibility into an exciting historical project, powerfully asserting the relevance of dance in modern Chinese cultural studies and in the cultural history of the People's Republic of China (PRC). She uses "Chinese dance" to refer to "a contemporary concert genre that developed during the mid-twentieth century," often encompassing "Chinese classical dance" (中国古典舞 Zhongguo gudian du) and "Chinese national folk dance" (中国民族民间舞 Zhongguo minzu minjian wu) (2). Consequently, the subtitle of the book, "Chinese Dance and Socialist Legacy," refers to the socialist legacy of Chinese dance in this specific usage, as a dance genre developed during the mid-twentieth century in China and parallel to ballet and modern dance, among others. Wilcox argues that three core commitments: "kinesthetic nationalism," "ethnic and spatial inclusiveness," and "dynamic inheritance," have defined the genre of Chinese dance throughout its history of innovation. "Kinesthetic nationalism" emphasizes Chinese dance's focus on its artistic form and its bringing together of the local and the contemporary; "ethnic and spatial inclusiveness" is the idea that Chinese dance should include styles and artists from all ethnic communities and geographic regions across China, while "dynamic inheritance" is a theory of cultural transformation that compels Chinese dance artists to research existing performance forms while also generating original interpretations of these forms (6–7). These core commitments, I would argue, are also the core of the socialist legacy of Chinese dance Wilcox uncovers in this book: its focus on connecting local and contemporary artistic forms, its radical representation of marginalized, diverse communities, and its continuous emphasis on creativity and innovation in order to transform existing performance forms. Centering on the path Trinidad-born and European-educated Dai Ailian (戴爱莲 1916–2006) followed from ballet to modern dance to Chinese dance, the first chapter of the book sets the tone for a deep inquiry into the transition from a vision of modernity as represented by assimilating into Euro-American culture to one of asserting distinctive local identities. Wilcox regards Dai as the first to systematically reflect on what new aesthetic forms Chinese dance should take from the 1940s onward, both in writings and in performances. According to Wilcox, Dai's "Frontier Dance," among others, embodies the three core commitments of kinesthetic nationalism, ethnic and spatial inclusiveness, and dynamic inheritance, which drew on local sources from across the country, bridging geographical, religious, and ethnic divides. Making extensive use of Chinese-language dance scholarship produced in China, Wilcox presents the Korean dancer Choe Seung-hui (崔承喜 최승희1911–1969) in chapter 2 as another foundational figure in the history of Chinese dance, particularly in the fields of Chinese classical dance and Chinese Korean dance. Choe's unique contribution, according to Wilcox, lies in her creation of a new dance style by studying and adapting elements of traditional-style xiqu (戲曲) performance. As a result, the Chinese dance curriculum of the leading dance school in China, Beijing Dance School, "skillfully united what were now the three established streams of Chinese dance—Han folk dance (inherited from New [End Page E-36] Yangge [新秧歌; a wartime dance movement]), minority dance (inherited from "Frontier Dance"), and xiqu dance (inherited from Choe's program)" (76). In chapter 3, Wilcox convincingly argues that the late 1950s and early 1960s constituted the golden age of Chinese dance as that era witnessed continued innovations in choreographic form with the emergence of a new, full-length, narrative Chinese dance form, the "national dance drama" (民族舞剧 minzu wuju), as well as the expansion of the genre to global visibility through circulations of Chinese dance abroad. What impresses this reviewer particularly is Wilcox's sensitive approach to the details in the narrative dance form and expert dance analysis of its use of Chinese dance choreography, while recognizing the propagandist nature of these works (without naming them that way). Only someone of Wilcox's background, a dance scholar and practitioner trained as an anthropologist...

Research on the Teaching Reform of National Folk Dance in Colleges

National folk dance, as an artistic form that shows the national artistic style and cultural value of my country, is not only a cultural treasure, but also a fusion of modern civilization and art. Therefore, how to enable students to actively inherit the national culture in the process of participating in learning activities has become a key problem for teachers in colleges and universities to solve. This article starts with the artistic value of folk dances, looking for specific ways to promote the reform of folk dance teaching in colleges and universities, hoping to make suggestions for other teachers.

Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy by Emily Wilcox

Reviewed by: Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy by Emily Wilcox Ziying Cui REVOLUTIONARY BODIES: CHINESE DANCE AND THE SOCIALIST LEGACY. By Emily Wilcox. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. 322 pp. Paper, $32.83. Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy is the first monograph by Emily Wilcox. In this book, Wilcox examines the history of Chinese dance development in the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its emergence in the 1940s. This groundbreaking research highlights the practices of Chinese concert dance and provides [End Page 270] enormous historical sources for the reader. Before the publication of Revolutionary Bodies, Chinese dance studies (in English) were shaped by socialist propaganda and Asian performance studies which focused on Chinese revolutionary ballet and the performance practices other than dance. In this text, Wilcox, who conducted intensive fieldwork at the Beijing Dance Academy (Beijing Wudao Xueyuan 北京舞蹈学院), shifts from her previous anthropological project to primarily historical research of Chinese dance. In this innovative scholarship, Wilcox places the development of Chinese dance at the intersection of modern Chinese history and individual dance artists' narratives. She argues that Chinese dance should be seen as a complex cultural phenomenon rather than a monolithic political production. While this research is not able to cover all the details of 70-years' Chinese dance evolution, Wilcox's book crystallizes the prolonged, massive, and diverse PRC dance history into a comprehensive assessment and provides an example for scholars who research on this topic. In the introduction, Wilcox raises three core principles that define Chinese dance as a genre: kinesthetic nationalism, ethnic and spatial inclusiveness, and dynamic inheritance (p. 6). The concept of "kinesthetic nationalism" is expanded from the Chinese language ideas of "national form" (minzu xingshi 民族形式), a discursive concept that relates to aesthetic form and nationality. The idea of "ethnic and spatial inclusiveness" explains the multiplicity of Chinese dance forms which developed from the diverse ethnic communities and geographic regions across China. The third principle, "dynamic inheritance," is the balancing of maintaining and innovating traditional performance forms. These three principles are important concepts underpinning Wilcox's arguments and analysis of Chinese dance throughout the book. In chapter 1, Wilcox examines the personal experience and artistic contribution of the most important figure of Chinese dance, Dai Ailian, and dance groups which also contributed to the creation and standardization of Chinese dance as a national form. As a member of Chinese diaspora, Dai's interest in Chinese dance was influenced by the racial discrimination experienced during her career in England. After coming to China in the early 1940s, Dai's dance work drew upon Chinese local performances and highlighted non-Han cultures. Aside from Dai's contribution, Wilcox also recognizes the other two dance developments during wartime China. One is New Yangge, a dance project advocated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Yan'an that based on the folk dance practice of yangge, and the other is Wu Xiaobang's New Dance. Throughout the narrative of Dai's experience, Wu's New Dance, and New Yangge, Wilcox maps out the trajectory of [End Page 271] the emergence of modern Chinese dance and the history of its development during the 1940s. In chapter 2, Wilcox analyzes a variety of dance experiments in the early PRC. Among the experiments on stage and in the classroom, the dance program established by the Korean dancer Choe Seung-hui (Cui Chengxi) had a great impact on China's dance development. Choe's program divided traditional performance sources into two categories: Chinese folk dance that emphasized performance by peasants and Chinese classical dance that focused on training students the basic movement that based on xiqu (traditional theatre) techniques. This pedagogical method was later adopted by the Beijing Dance School which standardized and disseminated it across the country. In chapter 3, Wilcox examines the primary development of Chinese dance from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. Internationally, Chinese dance as a predominant national dance genre was circulated on global stage through the dance competition of the World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS). By calling for "socialist cosmopolitism" and featuring the national folk dance of socialist countries, the WFYS dance competition allowed Chinese...

Analysis of the Importance of Demeanor Training to the Study of Chinese Folk Dance—Taking Uighur Dance as an Example

Chinese folk dance has a long history and is quite abundant. It is an indispensable source of Chinese classical dance, court dance and professional dance creation. Chinese folk dances are characterized by unpretentiousness, diverse forms, rich content, and vivid images. But these require professional dancers to express through professional training. Even amateur dances need to be completed through well-trained and emotionally full actors.[1] In the process of training, in addition to the necessary basic skills and other physical training, we also need to train the demeanor. We often say that the eyes are the windows of the soul, and the folk dance is more about expressing a feeling to the audience. If the dancer don’t have a good performance and face expression, he or she can’t express the dance work at all. Therefore, this article takes the training of national folk dance as the starting point, combining technical training, stage performance, professional dancers and amateur dancers, taking the Uygur as an example.

Ethnic Folk Dance Class Teaching in the Training of "Non Heritage" Dance Talents in Ethnic Areas

The teaching of Chinese folk plays an important role in the whole process of talent training. The development of the inheritance and protection of cultural poses a new challenge to the significance of classroom teaching of Chinese national folk dance. This challenge is a wide and difficult challenge. How to carry on the inheritance and protection of intangible cultural heritage and cultivate excellent talents is the most serious problem of intangible cultural heritage. This article through to the Yunnan Arts University School of dance heritage the direction of the national folk teaching training mode analysis, in order to contribute to cultivate talents so as to promote the innovation and development of cultural heritage, art education.

Olivera Mladenovic and folk dances in the context of Serbian ethnology

Olivera Mladenovic was born in 1914 in Skopje (Macedonia), but her entire professional and private life was connected to Belgrade and Serbia. Olivera Mladenovic received her BA both in Yugoslav Literature and Serbian Language with the Old Church Slavonic Language, and in Ethnological Studies, while also receiving a PhD in the latter in 1965, because she considered that ethnology was important for further study of folk dances. The main subject of research by this scientist was folk dances, as she terminologically defined the subject of her study. Olivera considered folk dances from a scientific point of view, but she also practically contributed to the preservation and promotion of this phenomenon, organizing various seminars, holding lectures, participating in folklore festivals and, finally, establishing National Folk Dance and Song Ensemble of Serbia Kolo. In this paper, using primarily archival sources and then accessible literature, I will show how Olivera Mladenovic contributed to Serbian ethnology as a scientific discipline by researching folk dances. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177027: Multietnicitet, multikulturalnost, migracije -savremeni procesi]

The Show Must Go On: A Participatory Rewriting of Euro-American Folk Dance

My participatory paper considers Jérôme Bel's seminal work The Show Must Go On as a rewriting of folk dance tradition, drawing from and reinventing popular tropes of the Euro-American relationship to pop music and the popular body. I look at both the piece, and also Bel's methods of restaging it worldwide, as a means of regularizing, reinventing, and reperforming popular dance. I compare his practice to that of national folkdance ensembles that choreograph indigenous traditions for theatrical performance. I am fascinated with this process of fixing “cultural dance” for recognition and consumption by an audience. Bel's work depends on the audience's ability to recognize themselves within its music, imagery, and performing ensemble. Does this make it folk dance? My paper mines the category of “folk dance,” asking whether there is, in fact, a distinction between folk, social, and popular dance and arguing that in the recognizability and participatory nature of his work, he has inadvertently created a contemporary Euro-American folk dance. In addition, I will develop the presentation choreographically, directing the bodies of the listeners in ways meant to evoke Bel's participatory community.

Dance and Political Credibility: The Appropriation of Dabkeh by Zionism, Pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism Nicholas Rowe

This article examines how the rural folkdance dabkeh has, in the last century, been appropriated and reinvented as a tradition in order to construct the imagined communities of Zionism, pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism within Palestine/Israel. This appropriation has led to extensive debates and suppositions on the source, meanings, and cultural ownership of dabkeh. The following historical narratives, emerging from interviews with dance practitioners and dance advocates in the West Bank, Israel, and Lebanon, and from literature in libraries and archives in the West Bank, Israel, and Great Britain, draw attention to the salient links between dance and politics and the multiple ways in which collective identities can be constructed and deconstructed. These histories further raise questions about how local cultural autonomy and sustainability within the Occupied Palestinian Territories have been affected by the process of political appropriation. Dabkeh,1 a circling folkdance made up of intricate steps and stomps, has helped construct three very different political communities and cultural identities during the 20th century. Zionism, pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism have all gained political credibility through the public performance of a dance2 that, in the previous century, had no associations with any of these ideals. The three histories of dabkeh present a post-nationalist critique of dance in Palestine/Israel.3 Revealing how dance can be used to define (and re-define) a collective identity, these narratives highlight the artistic legacies of Zionism, pan-Arabism, and Palestinian Nationalism. More importantly perhaps, they provide a historical baseline from which new, innovative choreographic histories might be identified and celebrated. Imagining , inventing, and salvaging cult ural identity thro ugh danc e Across the world, the social dances and movement rituals of particular groups of people have been appropriated and given a second existence4 as physical spectacles. These spectacles display a homogenized cultural identity and help validate new national, ethnic, or religious boundaries around people and place. In the public imagining of such a community,5 the invention of shared traditions6 through national folkdance troupes and festivals can make politicized aesthetics, ethics, gender roles, and social hierarchies appear inherent to a community.7 This re-invention of dances is thus highly selective and can be seen as influenced by the ideological agendas of political elites guiding the appropriation.8 As the following histories of dabkeh illustrate, shifts in these political environments and agendas can allow the boundaries of a community to continue to be guided by historical precedent while remaining in flux. Within Israel and Palestine, the search for historical precedents as a basis for contemporary cultural actions can have a particular urgency amongst population groups that have experienced collective traumas. War, exile, colonization, or other political and natural disasters can dislocate people from their cultural pasts, threatening a population's existing bonds and networks.9 Reviving elements of the distant cultural past and reconstructing them as a shared traditions can demonstrate that the past is not lost, but rather continues on into the future.10 When the traumatic events themselves are also projected across generations through cultural lamentations (in folksongs, dances, oral histories, and other arts and rituals), the disrupted social bonds of a traumatized community can appear resilient to the traumatic events.11 Folk dances can therefore be perceived as carrying both an ancient cultural past and a reminder of the threats to a traumatized community. The revival of dance heritage can, however, be highly and purposefully selective. In Palestine, this selection has further been influenced by the ways in which local cultural history was documented in the early 20th century. …

Choreographic Politics: State Folk Dance Companies, Representation and Power (review)

Rich with myths of the past and nostalgic allusions to days gone by, folk dance helps us better understand the workings, limitations, and concepts of nation, nationalism, and ethnicity. Through casting and choreography choices, movement, and costuming, folk dances can make visible gender and class relations, even when these are not overtly portrayed. Because folk performances bring together tourists, diasporic communities, and dance enthusiasts of all ages, they are rich sites for assessing the multiple levels of performance present on a stage committed simultaneously to entertainment and state. Author Anthony Shay, a performer with forty years of folk dance experience in Russia, Eastern Europe, and North America, gives an insider view of six national folk dance companies.