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Journal of Arts & Humanities Journal of Arts & Humanities Volume 07, Issue 04, 2018: 01-10 Article Received: 25-03-2018 Accepted: 06-04-2018 Available Online: 19-04-2018 ISSN: 2167-9045 (Print), 2167-9053 (Online) DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18533/journal.v7i4.1374 An Exploration of Aesthetic Experience in Chinese Classical Dance: A Case Study of the Artistic Creation of “In Praise of Golden Age” Wen-Ting Fang1, Ya-Juan Gao2, Po-Hsien Lin3, Rungtai Lin4 ABSTRACT This study probes into the artistic creation process of artists and aesthetic experience process of the audience from the perspectives of communication mode of artworks and aesthetic level of dance performance arts. Taking “In Praise of Golden Age”, the annual public performance of Daguan Dance Troupe of National Taiwan University of Arts (NTUA) as the object of research, the study explores how dance performance arts convey the essence of beauty to the audience and achieve a pleasant aesthetic experience with the methodology of literature analysis, text analysis and content analysis. This study provides communication and aesthetic model for the study of dance art to make up the lack of aesthetic theoretical research of Chinese classical dance and finds the key factors for the aesthetic experience of the audience in dance performance. Two basic conclusions are drawn in this study. Firstly, the artists encode based on the audience and create artworks at three levels, namely, technical level, semantic level and effectiveness level. Secondly, the audiences decode based on aesthetic experience. In the beauty of image, decorative beauty originates from the refining of appearance, the beauty of rhythm originates from the combination of elements, and the beauty of novelty originates from creative ideation. The beauty of impression comprises two elements, namely, scenes and emotions. Impression originates from the scenes, while notions develop from emotions. Their body and movements create the scenes, while the space and sound are connected with emotions. The beauty of impression is presented through the breeding of “culture”, law of “Tao” and life connection of “poetic rhythm”. Keywords: Aesthetic Experience, Aesthetic Model, Artistic Creation, Dance Performance. This is an open access article under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. 1 School of Design & Innovation, Changzhou Vocational Institute of Mechatronic Technology, Changzhou, Jiangsu, China. Graduate School of Creative Industry Design, National Taiwan University of Arts, Ban Ciao, New Taipei City, Taiwan. E-mail: f_wenting@163.com 2 Graduate School of Creative Industry Design, National Taiwan University of Arts, Ban Ciao, New Taipei City, Taiwan. E-mail: 8343821@qq.com 3 Graduate School of Creative Industry Design, National Taiwan University of Arts, Ban Ciao, New Taipei City, Taiwan. E-mail: t0131@ntua.edu.tw 4 Graduate School of Creative Industry Design, National Taiwan University of Arts, Ban Ciao, New Taipei City, Taiwan. E-mail: rtlin@mail.ntua.edu.tw Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 1 Fang et al., JAH (2018), Vol. 07, No. 04: 01-10 1. Introduction Chinese classical dances are profound in cultural significance and reached its heyday in Tang Dynasty. The people of Tang inherited and integrated the traditional music dance culture of past dynasties and different foreign music dance cultures with a spirit of courage, inclusive and progress, and on this basis digested, assimilated and innovated these cultures (Li & Yu, 1998). In its annual public show “In Praise of Golden Age”, the Daguan Dance Troupe of National Taiwan University of Arts collected the music dances of different countries in the flourishing period of Tang Dynasty, which were diversified and graceful and presented the grand vigor, humanistic elegance and spirit of freedom of Tang Dynasty. Other than the traditional music dances of Chinese people in the Central Plain, they also include Japanese Gagaku dance embodying the cultural deposits of Tang, Korean dance that had been spread to the Central Plain in the Northern Wei Dynasty. The dances integrated the dances recorded in classics and historical materials of Tang Dynasty and the innovative thinking of the artists. Considering the changes of the objective world in such areas as the background of time and space, society and economy, living environment, and cultural trend, the artists had created innovative expression forms and styles of dances to reproduce the charm of dances of Tang Dynasty, highlight their rich cultural implications and creative ideation, make a new interpretation of the dance art. Therefore, they are worth studying. Artists are engaged in artistic creation. How the audience reach a resonance of emotions with the object of arts from its image, conception and inspiration is a crucial issue. This paper attempts to introduce the aesthetic conception to study how the audience go through three stages, the beauty of image, the beauty of impression, and the beauty of idea through three processes, namely, attraction, accuracy and affecting, and ultimately achieve an aesthetic experience of the artworks. Some scholars have discussed how to convey the essence of artistic beauty to the audience and communicate with the audience (Lin et al., 2015, 2016, 2017). Heidegger (2011) profoundly demonstrates the relationship of art, artist and artwork and explains the essence of art in terms of the concepts of being and truth in The Origin of the Work of Art. Langer (1957) provides any art is an external manifestation of an inner essence and the objective presentation of subjective reality. The process of expressing art is the emotional activities that convey kindness, beauty and truth and is an act of reproducing the truth. Kant (1781/2008) argues that truth is consistency of cognition and its object in Critique of Pure Reason. Therefore, the dance performance is an activity that conveys beauty. There is an important significance for the development of dance art research to understand the aesthetic experience of the audience. This paper takes the dances of the public performance In Praise of Golden Age as its object of research, which include Hundred Birds Worshiping the Phoenix, Dream of Flying Clouds, San Fan Sou, Five Goat Immortal, Tang Bo Ancient Road, Poplar and Willow Branches, Besiege a City, and the methodology is that researchers use literature analysis, text analysis and content analysis to study how the dance art conveys the essence of beauty to the audience and achieve a pleasant aesthetic experience. Two basic conclusions are drawn in this study. Firstly, the artists encode based on the audience and create artworks at three levels, namely, technical level, semantic level and effectiveness level. Secondly, the audiences decode based on aesthetic experience. In the beauty of image, decorative beauty originates from the refining of appearance, the beauty of rhythm originates from the combination of elements, and the beauty of novelty originates from creative ideation. The beauty of impression comprises two elements, namely, scenes and emotions. Impression originates from the scenes, while notions develop from emotions. Their body and movements create the scenes, while the space and sound are connected with emotions. The beauty of impression is presented through the breeding of “culture”, law of “Tao” and life connection of “poetic rhythm”. The contribution of the paper in the literature is that in discussing the process of art communication, it will help us understand the encoding of artists and decoding of the audience and discover the cognition process involved in the artistic creation of artists and aesthetic experience of the audience. This study provides communication and aesthetic model for the study of dance art to make up the lack of aesthetic theoretical research of Chinese classical dance and finds the key factors for the aesthetic experience of the audience in dance performance. This model is conducive to explore the audience’s mental model of the appreciation of dance art and effectively provide the basis for artists to create artworks. Ultimately, three levels of aesthetics experience for audiences are discovered to discuss how to gradually achieve emotional touch in artistic appreciation. Journal of Arts and Humanities (JAH) 2 An exploration of aesthetic experience … 2. Research framework Goldman (2004) argued that to evaluate artworks, we must deeply understand how artists and the audience communicate, which is not only a need under the social background, but also for the purpose of understanding the emotional and cognition experience between the creator and the audience. Some scholar has ever suggested a research framework combining the communication theory and related theories on semantic cognition in the mental model for exploring related issues of art communication (Lin et al. 2009, 2015, 2016). The school of process of communication theory argues that a successful communication need to satisfy three levels, namely, technical level, semantic level and effectiveness level (Craig 1999; Fiske 2010; Jakobson 1987). At the technical level, the viewer is required to perceive the image of artworks, namely, the information to be conveyed by the artist through the artworks to let the viewer fully experience the beauty of image. At the semantic level, the viewer is required to comprehend the meaning of the artworks, namely, the meaning of creation to be expressed through the artworks to let the viewer deeply experience the beauty of impression. At the effectiveness level, the viewer is required to appreciate the artworks, namely, proper action is adopted according to the meaning of information to effectively influence anticipated behaviors and achieve the beauty of idea. Figure 1: Communication and aesthetic model of dance arts. According to the communication theory, the encoding refers to the artistic creation process for the dance artist to express the conception and situation, while the decoding refers to the process for the audience to appreciate the artworks as shown in fig.1. The artist sends the information, while the audience receive the information. As Kant (1790/2000), a German philosopher, said, the art is a unification between the freedom of spirit and the necessity of the nature.
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