| After the establishment of People's Republic of China in 1949, the various scales of Performing Arts Ceremonies organized by the Central Government and different levels of local governments have become a very important initiative for the promotion of inter-ethnic unity and cultural development of Chinese nation, which had been actually the only highly influential social arts activity for that special historical period.The "National Minority Amateur Art Performances" in 1964 was a major cultural event that fully displayed the culture and the arts of the Chinese minorities and advanced these arts to their peak season, in the past 17 years since the establishment of PRC. Fifty-three ethnic groups from 18 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions formed a team of over 600 people, took part in over 250 performances and more than 130 shows, with an audience of over 170,000 people. We can say this was the first large-scale Arts Festival for Chinese minority groups.With the "National Minority Amateur Art Performances" as the main subject, which was deeply affected by the state ideology and serves for the purpose of national cultural policies, this paper aims at providing an historical, objective and detailed picture of the entire evolvement of Art Performances, based on the Social-Historical analysis regarding the specific social, political, and cultural background. Further exploration will be conducted in terms of the far-reaching impact on the development of folk arts, contemporary music arena and the public cultural life, as a result of the art performances which are organized by the government and with "the amateur" as the main participants. This paper will also provide a reasonable historical review of the significance and cultural values for this cultural event. |
