| The phenomenon of treating guests at the banquet has occurred early in the Xia Dynasty; the word related to the "banquet music" first appeared in the "Being Happy in Entertaining Guests" of "The Book of Songs -Life Is Music". But the banquet dance had born the main task of the feast in the palaces in the later generations, and was appreciated by people; it has the features of art and entertainment. And dance performance with a certain rituals and religious function originated from the Eastern Zhou Period; It not only originated in the treating guests of Western Zhou ritual system, but also inherited the rationality of ritual political and educational function in the banquet music, and the sensibility of taking up the wine cup and chatting merrily in the banquet music, and entertaining people as well.Banquet dance is an important art form in Chinese ancient palaces, which was performed for the celebration banquet, pleasing the emperor and ministers, exhibiting the friendliness between nations and representing the national culture level and art when the emperor treated guests from all places in the palace. Therefore, the banquet was almost magnificent, representing the highest dance art achievement of various dynasties. Because the entertainment performances used to treat guests in each dynasty represented the highest level of performance art of this dynasty, therefore, the banquet dance was not handed down from generation to generation and monotonous, and it had its different characteristics of each dynasty; and showed different characteristics of the stages of different periods.Banquet music belonged to the banquet entertainment in the palace; it is needed to have an in-depth understanding of the special cultural phenomenon of integrating music, dance, rite, system, ideology and culture in the Chinese history in order to conduct a detailed study on the banquet music. Therefore, this paper conducts the research in turn from the origin of banquet music to institution of banquet in various dynasties and the ritual process of treating guests, then to the overall style and characteristics of ancient banquet dance in a progressive layer way. Its law of development and the commonness and characteristics presented in the process of its development are summed up so as to have a more comprehensive, more three-dimensional grasp of the banquet dance in the palace. |
