A Research On Three Main Patterns In Contemporary Inheritance Of Music And Dance In Tang Dynasty

The Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty is the crown of Chinese ancient dance. To inherit and develop Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty is of essential historic and realistic significance in protecting national cultural legacies and developing national culture. A trend of diversity appears in the contemporary inheritance and development of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty, where there are three best-represented patterns, namely Music and Dance of Tang Dynasty reconstructed by Dr. LIU Fengxue, Dunhuang Dance represented by The Silk Road Strewn with Flowers, and Imitated Music and Dance of Tang Dynasty composed by Shan xi Music and Dance Drama House. By studying in those three patterns through respectively teasing their current status and trend of development, as well as digging their nature, this paper systematically gives an overall view on how Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty is inherited in the present.Dr. LIU Fengxue paid special attention on revival of the cultural spirit of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty. She commenced her research from historic literature, went off to Japan to visit its Archives and Mausolea Department of the Imperial Household Agency to conduct thorough research on the Yan Music and Dance spread into Japan in Tang Dynasty, and recorded movements of the Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty with Labanotation. Dr. LIU Fengxue’s research boasts two features in reconstruction of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty, which are utilization of professional methods, and restless seeking for the traditional cultural spirit. Dunhuang Dance, represented by The Silk Road Strewn with Flowers, revitalized the artistic form of the Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty. Dunhuang Dance sets its cultural background in the aureate arts of Dunhuang, traced the beautiful dance movements from the static mural, from which a creative Dunhuang dance system with unique movements is refined through the process of re-finding, imagination, building, development and integration. The Imitated Music and Dance of Tang Dynasty composed by Shan xi Music and Dance Drama House recaptures the glory of the flourishing age shown in the Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty. Aiming on the market to a larger extent, such dance combined traditional classic dancing materials with art techniques used on modern stages, fused with multiple contemporary art factors, and reproduced the magnificence of glorious Tang Dynasty while catering to the mass aesthetical taste in contemporary age, giving unlimited imaginary space to the audience.We could see from the above three patterns that, the inheritance of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty faces the same dilemma with the inheritance of other traditional national cultures, which is the eternal challenge arising from the conflict between inheritance and creativity, tradition and modernness, form and content, external appearance and inner spirit. The development of the three patterns gives us numerous enlightenments as follows:1. Contemporary inheritance of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty needs the eco-environmental factors such as change of time and demands of community. The development of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty can never live without favorable social and ecological environment, where rulers were wise, culture was open and the society at large was in harmony. The inheritance of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty in the present suits the needs of the development in politics, economy and culture, while the success in such inheritance fed back the society in respect of its culture and arts.2. The core value of the contemporary inheritance of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty is to trace back to the tradition and to carry on its essence. The cultural phenomenon of contemporary versions of "Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty" shows the trend of diversification, and the characteristics are vastly different among the patterns. However, a common core value lies beneath the various forms, which is the pursuant of and regress to the essence in traditional culture.3. To combine form and spirit, and to keep growing by rehabilitation and preservation, are the essential thoughts of art throughout the effort made for contemporary inheritance of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty. Each of the three patterns targets to combine artistic form and spirit of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty, while they emphasize on different aspects. The three patterns are by no means simple copy of the form or the spirit, but rather, weeding through the old to bring forth the new. Each of them boasts uniqueness in styles and variation in forms, proving that only distinctive creativity possesses the value of existence and room for development. It shows that the contemporary development of Music and Dance in Tang Dynasty will inevitably involve in the regress and revivification of its matrix on a high level, which requires the exploration of undiscovered meaning and value in such an art form, and timepiece transformation and illustration. We could describe it by this line composed in late Tang Dynasty,"Old subjects could be rewritten into new lines, and this is how we rehab through preservation."...