On The Historical Development Of Hu Dance And Contemporary Chinese Dance Influence

The Hu Dance is an ancient Chinese classical dance with unique features. It finds its way long and uneven in its development and evolution.This paper is divided into four parts which elaborate the situation of the historical development of Hu Dance, the present state of it and the measures to protect it.First, it introduces the historical background of the coming into being of the Hu Dance. It briefly tells the general situation of it's inbound introduction before Tang Dynasty, clarifying the important role the silk way plays in the introduction and development of the dance after the path is put into use in Han Dynasty. During the period of South and North Wei-Jin Dynasty, there were wars one after another, the foreign invaders occupied the central area which offered chances to introduce into central land a great deal of music and dance from the western regions (such as Yumenguan area) of ancient China. After that, in the court music and dance in Tang Dynasty, the Hu Dance occupied a good proportion of entertainment. Take the"nine episode music, the ten episode music, the sitting style dance, the standing style dance, the sports dance and the soft (or muscle) dance"for example, the shadow of the Hu Dance can be traced in all of these above. It can be said that it was this dance that supported the whole court music and dance in Tang Dynasty. This can not be separated from the charming force and the unique art style of the dance from the western regions. This paper does a careful study of the concrete styles among the three noted western region Hu Dances: the Never-ending Whirling Dance, the Never-ending Jumping Dance and the Tuozhi Dance. From the description in the Tang poems, the general style and features of the dances can be identified. Next, this paper looks at the actual presentation and the causes of the dance's declining after the dynasties of Song and Yuan and points out that the declining of the dance is closely related to the historical background, the sense of aesthetic appreciation and ideology of the people at that time. The close of the Silk Road and the rise of the Neo-Confucianism originated by Confucian school of idealist philosophy of the Song and Ming dynasties severely shackled people's thought and behavior and limited all the ancient classical dances including the Hu Dance. In the last two parts, the author of the paper gives her own viewpoints and opinion on the protection and inheritance of the Never-ending Whirling Dance based on ancient dance. She also mentions her views on the importance of inherit and develop the folk dances in Xinjiang autonomous region. Since entering the 21st century, there appear in Chinese society an enthusiastic fervor among the whole nation for the saving and protecting of the cultural heritage. Especially since the 70s in the 20th century, the dancers in China have made great achievement in searching and saving various dances and plays of the minority nationalities under the support of the government and non-government organizations at different levels. The new problem for people to face and consider is how to develop and innovate Hu Dance based of the folk ones. To solve this problem, the author of this paper has made some exploration and offered some plans which can be used for reference.