Our Hands Them and Our Feet Tap Them:

How Chinese Dance, Like Chinese Poetry, Reflects the Traditional Chinese Worldview

Carly O’Connell

The Art of Chinese Poetry

Professor Tang

May 2015 O’Connell 1

“The affections （情）are stirred and take on form (形) in words. If words are inadequate, we speak them out in sighs. If sighing is inadequate, we sing them. If singing them is inadequate, unconsciously our hands dance them and our feet tap them” (Owen 41). This quote from the Major Preface of the Book of Poetry, also attributed to the lost Record of Music, hints at the close between poetry and dance. “Singing” one’s feelings here refers to poetry, which was often chanted or put to music. Talking, poeticizing, sighing, and dancing are presented as a progression of means to express emotions. Yet when poetry is linked to other art forms in scholarship and popular thought, it is usually to painting, calligraphy, or music.

Although dance is not traditionally grouped with poetry and the other high arts in China, it still shares many of their principles and reflects the same Chinese worldview. From ancient times until the present, in ritual dance, theater dance, and performance, Chinese dance has reflected concepts from the Book of Changes, Daoism, and other mainstays of Chinese thought. Only recently has Chinese begun to incorporate the terminology used to describe poetry, but it is not surprising that these two art forms share characteristics, given their common purpose of expressing mind and feeling.

To discuss Chinese dance academically, in the abstract, it is important to note that a literary body on Chinese dance theory comparable to that on poetry theory is only a recent development, for several reasons. Firstly, dance was associated with the lower class, unlike poetry, which was a pastime of the literati official class. Dance was considered “merely a form of entertainment, an endeavor not worthy to be ranked with calligraphy, poetry, or painting as an appropriate subject for the highest grade of scholarship” (Strauss 6). In the four-layer hierarchy of traditional Chinese society, literati poets sat at the top, while entertainers made up the bottom stratum along with merchants and artisans. Although dancers would perform for the households O’Connell 2 of the elite, they were often traded among the nobility in ancient times like commodities (Wang

19). The second reason for dance’s lack of its own academic theory was because historically, dance was not always conceived of as its own distinct art form in China. For example, the term music in ancient China usually referred to both song and its accompanying dance (Wang 1).

When dance was incorporated into ritual, it was not necessarily seen as related to that same type of regulated movement that accompanied the popular songs of the day (Straus 6). Lastly, what literature did exist on dance in early China focused on practice rather than theory (GUAN iii).

The Chinese have long considered experience a greater teacher than words, and thus new dancers were expected to learn from masters, not from books. Therefore, writings focused on skills and training rather than the nature of the dance. Yet just because dance was not associated with the high arts in the minds of the Chinese people does not mean it was not shaped by the same

Chinese worldview which influenced the aesthetics of poetry.

This paper will primarily explore scholarship on ritual and theater dance in order to make generalizations about historical Chinese dance, although there were other types of dance such as court dance and in ancient China. Afterwards, I will transition to discussing modern

Chinese dance theory by analyzing a specific dance and a piece of innovative dance scholarship.

Chinese dance, throughout its history, displayed the Chinese characteristics of imitating nature, valuing experience over language, tolerating ambiguity, and originating in emotion.

Nature in serves as a model for human behavior, and dance is no exception. According to legend, the trigrams of the Book of Changes were invented when Fu Xi studied the patterns of nature. Likewise, both Laozi and advised looking to nature as a role model for living one’s life. Turning to nature as a teacher is thus a major characteristic of

Chinese philosophy. In this same vein, Chinese dance, too, drew inspiration from nature. Many O’Connell 3

Chinese were devised by “imitating the behavior of birds and animals” (Wang 2). Often their names reveal their source of inspiration as is the case for the , , peacock dance, halcyon dance, mynah dance, thrush dance, and many more. Certain dance movements were also named for the animal actions they resemble, such as “Pair of Flying

Sparrows” and “Step of the Scorpion” (Wang 2). Thus dance, like writing, found its origins in natural images in ancient China.

Related to this reliance on nature in Chinese thinking is a mistrust of human language. In addition to the names of dances and moves, information about ancient Chinese dances can be found in the instructional records of certain dances. of a ritual dance shows detailed illustrations, while written directions are brief (Strauss 5). As Laozi said,

“To use words but rarely is to be natural.” Confucius demonstrated both this distrust for language and his reverence for nature in the quote “What does Heaven say? Yet the four seasons revolve and a hundred things grow. What does Heaven say?” Chinese philosophy views words as one step further removed from reality than images are. Poetry reflects this mistrust of language by using concise language, abundant imagery, and implicit meaning. Dance notation likewise reflects this mistrust of language by favoring images over words.

However, even studying the illustrations is not enough to truly learn the dance. Chinese ritual dance, which here may be generalized to Chinese dance as a whole, adheres to the tradition of learning by doing, following in the footsteps of a master, rather than following instructions of a written guide. Like the Dao, dance must be experienced, not explained in words. The dance notation itself is often highly ambiguous, depicting only a picture of feet, leaving the position of head, arms, and hands up to interpretation. And yet, while leaving out concrete details such as position of various body parts, many descriptions included the emotion that should be conveyed O’Connell 4 through the (Strauss 8). This shows that emotion is an intrinsic part of the dance and that like poetry, dance is meant to express emotion. Yet emotion is not easily explained in words or pictures, and is thus part of the reason why ritual dance and other dance must be learnt and experienced in person rather than through a page in a book.

China was not the only ancient civilization to incorporate dance into ritual. Thus, dance is another field in which it may be useful to follow the popular practice of Nisbett and others of comparing ancient China to ancient Greece. Greek scholar Dr. Aphrodite Alexandrakis has done a comparative study of the philosophy of ritual dance, drawing from the works of Plato and his

Chinese near-contemporary, Xunzi. Xunzi was a Chinese philosopher who lived in the fourth century B.C.E. He believed ritual dance was emotional in nature and thus focused on the

(emotional) content expressed by dance. This contrasts with Plato’s approach, which was to reject emotional impact and focus instead on form (Alexandrakis 267). For Plato, form was attractive because it was rational and consisted of abstract elements. Yet as Nisbett points out,

“The concern with abstraction characteristic of ancient Greek philosophers has no counterpart in

Chinese philosophy” (17). These different viewpoints gave rise to two different conceptions of beauty, formal/objective and sensual/subjective, which were valued by the Greeks and Chinese respectively (Alexandrakis 268). This Chinese focus on a subjective aesthetic experience is evident in Xunzi’s accounts of the dances he witnessed. He does not describe the objective reality of the bodily movements that the dances comprise but instead focuses on the subjective reaction they inspired in the personages of importance who watched them. For example, he dutifully transcribed Prince Zua of ’s response to the dance Great Elegance: “Admirable indeed! Zealous labors without any claim to moral power, which but Yu would have been capable of this cultivation!” (Alexandrakis 272). The intention behind such dances was also duly O’Connell 5 noted, as when he perceived the Militant dance as an expression of the ambitions of King Wu.

Like poetry, ritual dance was seen as a means of expressing emotion and intent, and thus for the

Chinese, unlike for the Greeks, studying the form alone was not as meaningful as studying the content.

Aside from ritual, another major venue for dance in traditional China was xiqu, Chinese indigenous theater. According to Emily Wilcox, scholar of Chinese dance, the “exploration and expression of qing” has been a “defining feature” of Chinese xiqu since at least the .

Whether dance is employed for ritual or entertainment purposes, emotion is always at the heart of it, just as it is at the heart of Chinese poetry. Also like poetry, theater dance relies on a shared knowledge between the artist and audience that allows for the communication of implicit meanings. The images of dance are the movements, encoded with abstract ideas such as

“psychological character development, metaphorical relationships between objects, meanings, and people,” and more (Wilcox 54). The audience must understand the significance of these coded gestures as well as “the subtleties of role type, prop significance, and the qualities of xiqu music” in order to understand the meaning of the performance (55). This may be compared to the understanding required of a reader of Chinese poetry regarding conventional images and allusions. Just as these aspects of a poem are lost on a non-Chinese reader even in a good translation, a full appreciation for xiqu may be difficult for a non-Chinese viewer to enjoy without extensive explanation, simply due to the lack of a shared body of knowledge common to a certain educated segment of Chinese society. Thus Chinese theater dance demonstrates its similarity to Chinese poetry through its function of expressing emotion and its method of doing so through implicit content. O’Connell 6

In recent decades, China has built up a unique dance tradition, distinct from theater and ritual, accessible to a modern, global audience, but retaining many Chinese characteristics. On a superficial level, this modern Chinese dance may seem to be based entirely on Western dance, but a deeper analysis shows the influence of the Chinese worldview. To examine one specific instance of dance and analyze it for traces of traditional Chinese thought, we turn our attention to a modern piece called Connect Transfer that was performed during the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Opening Ceremony. In this performance designed by Chinese-American choreographer Shen

Wei, painting, calligraphy, and music are combined not with their usual companion poetry, but with dance. The dancers, playing the role of ink brushes, wear mitts covered in ink and draw swirling designs as they tumble and roll across a giant canvass that covers the stage. Visual and special effects designer Jennifer Wen Ma noted that Shen Wei’s dance is “rooted in Chinese philosophy. His work may not be overtly Chinese in style but in philosophy and the principles of

Chinese aesthetics” (Gerdes 232). Her meaning is clear: with extensive floor work and contortions, the piece resembles Western Modern Dance more than the traditional Chinese theater, ritual, or court dances in form, but no viewer could miss Shen Wei’s intention to draw inspiration from his Chinese heritage.

Shen Wei, who grew up in China as the son of professionals during the

Cultural Revolution, spent his adult life in New York creating dances known for their experimental . Contemporary Chinese philosopher Wu Kuangming says that Shen

Wei’s aesthetics reflect the Chinese philosophical principles of qi, wuwei, and yinyang (Gerdes

235). Shen Wei’s piece is all about connection -- connection between the dancers and audience, amongst the dancers themselves, and between each dancer and his or her own internal energy, hence the title Connect Transfer. These connections are envisioned as a transfer or circulation of O’Connell 7 qi energy. One dancer begins moving and lays a hand on another, and then that second dancer begins to move as well. Dance scholar Ellen Gerdes describes the movements of the dance, saying, “They connect through their limbs, reaching for one another’s legs and arms or even around one another’s neck. Even though they are not supporting the other’s full weight, they support each other nonetheless; as one link in the chain moves, the others react” (237). This focus on connection and energy transfer reflects the relational quality of the Chinese worldview.

All people and events are interconnected; thus, each dancer or movement is viewed not in isolation but rather in the context of connection to the other dancers and movements.

Likewise, dance as an art form in Connect Transfer is portrayed in connection to the other Chinese arts of painting, calligraphy, and music. Furthermore, according to Gerdes,

“Connect Transfer by its presentation of the process of painting, visually represents the Chinese philosophical idea that the body is connected to something greater than itself” (240). In other words, it reflects the Chinese holistic worldview, just as Wang Wei’s poems do by portraying man as a part of nature. In fact, the image created on the giant dance floor/canvass at the end of the dance is that of a traditional shanshui, or landscape, painting. This reinforces the message of 天人合一, the oneness of man and nature, present in the dance.

Not only is nature evident in the ink painting created but the dance, it is also evident in the quality of the dance as well. The Chinese conception of nature involves qualities of constant change, circular rhythms, non-resistance, and a balance of yin and yang, and each of these was intentionally incorporated into the dance. The dancers exist in a state of continual movement, just as the natural world exists in a state of constant change, according to the wisdom of the Book of

Changes. Many of the movements are circular, reflecting the Chinese cyclical view of time and occurrences. The dancers change position “so quickly and easily…they present an aesthetic of O’Connell 8 nonresistance” (Gerdes 241). They foster an aura of calmness and stillness that Wu Kuangming associates with wuwei, nonaction. Shen states that his Chinese childhood taught him to “see simple things as very beautiful and recognize the power of silence and stillness” (245). Stillness, in the dance, is given equal weight to movement. The transition between action and stillness and the constant transformation of one into the other embody the notion of yin and yang, opposites feeding into each other in a constant flux. Like yin and yang, movement and stillness are defined in relation to each other and originate within each other. The dichotomy between movement and stillness in dance corresponds to that between words and silence, or what is left unsaid, in poetry.

This analysis of Shen Wei’s Connect Transfer is only one example of the way principles of

Chinese traditional thought can be observed in current-day Chinese dance.

To gain perspective on current scholarship on Chinese dance, I read a Master’s thesis by a Music and Dance major from Shandong University. The student, Guan Xiaochen, argues that the Chinese poetic notion of yijing, which he translates as “artistic conception,” is evident in art forms other than poetry, especially in dance. He suggests that an artistic space is created through the fusion of emotion and scene in dance just as it is in poetry (15). The dancer’s movements, poses, and facial expressions create an aesthetic object or image that embodies emotion. Props, too, act as symbolic images just as Wilcox affirmed when she stated that “swords and sleeves serve not only as spectacle but also as expressive and symbolically significant elements of character” in her discussion of theater dance (59). These images correspond to the noun-based imagery characteristic of Chinese poetry. Likewise, light and color in staging also contribute significantly to the scene and therefore to the emotion aroused in the audience. According to art theorist Richard Arnheim, color can be a powerful expression of emotion, very direct and spontaneous (GUAN 24). Dance designers manipulate it consciously to express certain moods O’Connell 9 within the performance. Furthermore, by varying the intensity of movement, a rhythm is formed, which corresponds to the rhythm formed by tones and pace of words in poetry. This rhythm can induce certain feelings in the audience. The physical, tangible elements of dance including the dancer’s body, the props, and stage make up the “scene” or 景. Each part of that scene is imbued with emotion, or 情, that is felt by the audience. Thus, through the fusion of scene and emotion, or 情景交融, the yijing of dance is born.

Another way to understand dance yijing is as a middle ground -- a unification of subjectivity and objectivity and a meeting place for the artist and audience to share a common experience. Guan Xiaochen suggests that in a dance performance, the integration of subjective meaning and objective reality gives rise to a state of “物我两忘”-- forgetting both oneself and the material world (13). He relates this to the philosopher Zhuangzi’s famous butterfly anecdote, in which he cannot distinguish reality from dream, professing not to know whether he is

Zhuangzi dreaming that he is a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming that he is Zhuangzi. Objective reality here refers to the physical form of the dance as discussed in my section on the Chinese philosophy of dance as opposed to the Greek philosophy. Meanwhile, subjective meaning relates to the human experience and reactions, whether they are of the dancer, creator, or audience. In other words, subjective meaning refers to the emotional and intentional content of the dance, as discussed earlier as well. Guan further asserts that the combination of the realistic and the fictitious, the subjective and objective, has been important throughout the history of Chinese aesthetics. He refers to Laozi, who in discussing being and nonbeing, probed into the relationship between fiction and truth. In terms of dance, the objective feeling of the artistic product and the subjective sentiment portrayed by the symbolic content complement each other and give rise to yijing (GUAN 17). According to Guan, therefore, in addition to the fusion of emotion and scene O’Connell 10

known as 情景交融, the Chinese poetic concept of yijing is also created by 主客统, the unification of subjectivity and objectivity, which is particularly evident in Chinese dance.

In his thesis, Guan points out that dance is distinct from other traditional arts in terms of the relative importance of content and form. In poetry, content is the primary object of analysis in discussions of yijing, so to understand dance yijing, a new approach is needed. Guan asserts that in narrative and drama, content is more important than form, but that in dance and music, form is higher than content (20). Poetry, as a written art, must align closer to narrative and drama with regard to an emphasis on content over form. While form in poetry refers to structural elements like rhyme, tones, parallelism, etc., form in dance refers to the movements and positions of the human body. Of course, structural elements contribute to the yijing of the poem, but they only supplement what was created by the words and their meanings, both direct and hidden. It is easy to see why Guan thought that body movements play a larger role in dance than structural elements play in poetry. Yet recalling Alexandrakis’ argument that Chinese dance prized content while Greek dance prized form, there seems to be a contradiction as to whether it is indeed form that takes precedence in Chinese dance, rather than content. I believe this contradiction can be reconciled by recognizing that in Chinese dance, each movement, pose, etc. contains inherent meaning, just as words contain inherent meaning.

Dance movements (at least in a Chinese context) cannot be looked at in isolation, just as it makes no sense to consider a word without its meaning. There is no form for the sake of form as there may be in ancient Greet dance. Each movement is tied to a meaning and has emotional import. Guan says “emotion is the lifeline of dance (情感是舞蹈的生命线)” (22). As this paper’s opening quote from the Major Preface suggests, dance arises from a need to express inner emotion. Guan suggests that the creative process of dance is the solidification, O’Connell 11 generalization, and visual processing of that emotion. Therefore, dance yijing is made up of not only the individual movements that act as both the form and imagery of dance, but also of their associated meanings and inherent emotion. In other words, dance yijing arises from the totality of the entire dance experience. In order to understand dance yijing, one must take into account every part of the dance performance, from the creator to the staging to the moves and props to the emotional intent to the audience’s reaction as one big picture. Thus, the notion of yijing, including dance yijing, is very much a product of the traditional Chinese holistic worldview.

In conclusion, Chinese dance should not be left out of the discussion of Chinese arts and how they reflect the traditional Chinese worldview. This paper traced the history of Chinese dance from its ancient origins, to records of Ming Dynasty ritual dance, analyses of Qing

Dynasty theater dance, and finally a specific dance performance in 2008 and a piece of scholarly dance theory from 2014. Along each step of the way, I have highlighted the relationship between

Chinese dance and the same aspects of traditional Chinese thought that are reflected in Chinese poetry. Like poetry, Chinese dance draws from nature, shows distrust of language, and reverence for learning through experience. Furthermore, although dance is used in very different contexts such as ritual versus theater, it always places great emphasis on communication of emotional content and intent. The specific dance analyzed, Connect Transfer, showed the influence of

Chinese relational and holistic thought in its incorporation of the concepts of qi, wuwei, and yinyang. Lastly, Guan’s Master’s thesis from Shandong University shows the current trend in dance literature to liken Chinese dance to Chinese poetry by using the same terminology to describe the two. As dance theory develops further and the Chinese dance community continues to walk the balance between emulating Western dance and infusing its own dance with specifically Chinese qualities, it will be interesting to see how the conception of dance as an art O’Connell 12 continues to change and morph while maintaining its long history of being anchored in the pillars of Chinese traditional thought.

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Works Cited

Alexandrakis, Aphrodite. “The Role of Music and Dance in Ancient Greek and Chinese Rituals: Form Versus Content.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 33.2 (2006): 267-278. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 April 2015

Gerdes, Ellen V. P. “Shen We Dance Arts: Chinese Philosophy in Body Calligraphy”. Dance Chronicle 33.2 (2010): 231-250. Taylor & Francis Online. Web. 30 March 2015.

GUAN Xiaochen. “Wudao Yijing Chulun (舞蹈意境初论).” MA Thesis. Shandong Normal University, Shandong, China, 2014. CNKI. Web. 30 Mar 2015.

Nisbett, Richard. The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently…And Why.” The Free Press, 2003. Class Material.

Owen, Stephen. Readings in Chinese Literary Thought. Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard: 1992. Class Material.

Strauss, Gloria B., Camella Wing, and Leung Yuan-wah. “Translated Excerpts of Chinese Dance Notation” Journal Vol. 9 No. 2 (Spring-Summer 1977): 5-12. RILM Abstracts of Music Literature. Web. 30 Mar 2015.

Wang, Kefen. The History of Chinese Dance. Foreign Languages Press, Beijing: 1985. Print.

Wilcox, Emily E. “Meaning in Movement: Afaptation and the Xiqu Body in Intercultural Chinese Theatre.” TDR: The Drama Review 58.1 (2014): 42-63. Project MUSE. Web. 2 April 2015.