Xiao Suhua's Creative Ideas Of Dance Drama

Xiao Suhua is the dancing educator with 20-odd years' experiences of choreographic education and creative practices,while he is the choreographer who advocates "the priority of ideas" in the process of creation and has exerted great influences on Chinese dance drama by virtue of his probing into the creative ideas of dance drama.Henceforth,this thesis has chosen Xiao Suhua's creative ideas of dance drama as the researching content.The thesis is divided into three chapters,whose main content can be categorized as "the system of choreographic creation","the method of expression" and "The structural cognition"."The system of choreographic creation" is the most concentrated embodiment of Xiao's ideas of dance drama.The first chapter will lay emphasis on the explication of his two systems of dancing choreographic creation in different eras,viz.the theory and technique of symphonic choreography and the theory and technique of modern choreography.Through the analyses of formation backgrounds and the artistic characteristics of two systems,the influence brought along with both systems will be further expounded."The method of expression" is the most important embodiment of Xiao's ideas of dance drama.The second chapter will be devoted to the emphatic analyses of internal logics and external representation of his unique expression method of dance drama.First of all,the internal logical motif of his creative ideas,that is,"the personal expression of the choreographically creative subject" will be explicated.Later,the process of Xiao's exploration into the expression method of dance drama and his transformation from "the drama ballet" to "the symphonic ballet",from "the symphonic ballet" to "the modern ballet" and from "Stanislavsky" to "Brecht" will be analyzed in details through the four representative dance dramas that are created by Xiao,viz.the symphonic ballet drama "Fantasy of the Red Mansion",the modern ballet drama "Casual Thoughts on the West Lake's Broken Bridge",the modern dance drama "The Dream of the Red Mansion" and the modern ballet drama"The Stone in the Sunshine"."The structural cognition" is the most unique embodiment of Xiao's ideas of dance drama.The third chapter will expound Xiao's new ideas on the structure of dance drama in details.His "determinism" of the structure of dance drama,"the network theory" of dance drama's structure and his emphasis on the importance of the formality in the dance drama will be separately demonstrated and expounded.