DANCES OF THE CHINESE, THE JAPANESE AND THE AMERICAN INDIANS
Influence of the Chinese moral teachings; general characteristics
of Chinese dancing; court and social dances of ancient China;
Yu-Vang’s ‘historical ballet’; modern Chinese dancing; dancing
Mandarins; modern imitations; the Lantern Festival--Japan: the
legend of Amaterasu; emotional variety of the Japanese dance;
pantomime and mimicry; general characteristics and classification
of Japanese dances--The American Indians: The Dream dance; the
Ghost dance; the Snake dance.
I
In China the art of dancing was in full bloom for centuries before
the Christian era. The great Chinese historians tell us that music
and dancing were developed and stood in high esteem in China from the
dynasty of Huang-Ta till the rule of They, which is a period of not
less than 2450 years. Europe with its civilization did not yet exist
when choreography was publicly taught in China. Like every other form
of Chinese evolution, dancing thus fell into a state of spiritual
torpidity. Forbearance, the foremost virtue of the Chinese race, that
was preached by their ancient moralists, like Kon-Fu-Tse and others,
stifled in the long run all the passionate emotions of the people
and exerted a most detrimental influence upon the arts. Under such
conditions the Chinese view of life grew materialistic and dry, the
very opposite of the Indian. This peculiarity did not fail to make
itself felt in Chinese dancing. The gradual killing of passionate
emotions killed also the tendency to imagination in the race. The
fantasy that populated the air and water, the mountains and forests of
other nations with myths, legends, gods and goddesses, was transformed
in China into the most realistic reasonings and mechanical dexterity.
The industrial spirit of the great nation killed all romantic and
poetic aspirations in art, religion and literature. The music of China
is as syncopated and monotonous as her views of life. The only poetry
that the Chinese possess is that which was written 4000 years ago.
_You_, which means in Chinese language ‘dance,’ lacks the principal
forms of agility of our choreography. _Pirouettes_, _jetés_,
_cabrioles_ and _pas’s_ are unknown terms to a Chinese _ballerina_.
Their dancing, consisting of slow gestures of the arms, the shaking of
head, bowing to the ceiling, and other similar manipulations, makes
at the first glance an impression that suggests to our imagination
the officiating of Greek priests. The power of a dancer lies in the
atmosphere that she creates and the peculiar imitating poses of the
body. Chinese dance music is correspondingly slow of rhythm and reminds
us in many ways of our ultra-modern orchestral music. However, we read
in the works of the Chinese classics that their art of dancing was much
higher about two and three thousand years ago.
The ancient Chinese philosophers recommended dancing to strengthen the
human body and mind. They emphasized the mimic expressions which all
races of the world should learn as an unspoken and universal language.
It is written that the great ruler Li-Kaong-Ti took dancing and music
lessons from the great teacher of music, Teu-Kung, so that he was able
to give entertainments in these arts to his family and guests. He
founded a dancing academy at the court and invited learned Mandarins to
take charge of the institution. Gradually dancing was introduced in all
the colleges and public schools. All Chinese educated classes had to
be good dancers at that time. The rulers used to dance to the public at
great annual festivals to express their gratitude or dissatisfaction.
The receptions of various Viceroys at the national capital were opened
with dancing performed by the great functionaries and statesmen of the
empire. People judged the characteristics of their newly appointed
officials and judges from the individual peculiarities of their dance.
The Chinese court kept regularly 64 sworn dancers, who were obliged
to give historic ‘ballets’ to the rulers. The orchestra was composed
of flutes, a drum, one or several tambourines with bells, and a queer
instrument in the shape of the figure ‘2.’ About a thousand years
before Christ an imperial decree was issued for the purpose of limiting
the number of dancers that one or another of the statesmen could employ.
Eight different dances were performed at the Chinese court and
eight dancers participated in each dance. The first dance was
_Ivi-Men_--Moving Clouds; this was given in honor of the celestial
spirits. The second dance was the _Ta-knen_--Great Circle; this was
performed when the Emperor brought sacrifice at a round votive altar.
The third dance was _Ta-gien_--General Motion; this was performed
during the sacrificial festival at the square altar. The fourth
dance was _Ta-mao_--Dance of Harmony; this was the most graceful
dance and was dedicated to the Four Elements. The fifth dance was
_Gia_--Beneficial Dance; this dance was dedicated to the spirits of
the mountains and rivers, and was slow and majestic. The sixth dance
was _Ta-gu_--Dance of Gratitude; this was dedicated to women. The
seventh dance was _Ta-u_--Great War Dance; this was dedicated to the
spirit of Man. The eighth dance was _U-gientze_--Dance of Waves; this
was dedicated to the ancestors and was of elaborate form, containing
nine different movements and nine different rhythms. These were all
long ‘ballets’ and lasted for several hours each. But besides these
there were six smaller dances. One of these was called the Dance of
the Mystic Bird; another the Dance of Oxtail; another the Dance of the
Flag; another the Dance of Feathers; another the Sword Dance; and the
last the Dance of Humanity. This was performed only by the Mandarins.
The Chinese historians write that Confucius did not like the Sword
Dance, but highly praised the others. Confucius describes the Emperor
Yu-Vang, who lived 1100 years before Christ, as the author of many
new dances and composer of music to accompany them. One of his dances
was a great historical ballet, which must have resembled the Roman
pantomimes. This ballet has been performed in a distorted form in the
nineteenth century and is mentioned by several Russian writers who
lived or travelled in China. Judging from the Chinese writers, the
historical ballet must have been a spectacular performance in the style
of the Oberammergau Passion Play. It opened with the creation of the
world and sea and ended with the latest phase of national history. Some
of the dancers represented fish, animals and birds; others, monsters,
spirits, rulers and social classes. The music of this ballet was of
peculiar symphonic form, very melodious and dramatic. Only fragmentary
records of the ancient notation had been preserved in the imperial
palace at Pekin, but during recent political disturbances even these
vanished and the world has thus been deprived of one of the most
valuable of musical documents.
In China the social and religious dancers were one and the same. The
touring dancing companies to be seen to-day in China give a faint
idea of the ancient choreography. Japanese dancing has made a deep
impression upon the Chinese dancers, so that there is a marked element
of mixture in the performances that one sees in the present Chinese
towns. The Chinese dancers from olden times on have been men and
women. It seems as if men predominated before, while now the feminine
element is in majority. The Chinese dancing costumes are bizarre and
picturesque. There are no barefoot dancers among them and their bodies
are heavily covered with garments. Nude dancers are unknown in China.
An odd class of Chinese dancers are the dancing Mandarins. In Su-Chu-Fu
there exists still an old school that was founded 2500 years ago for
the purpose of teaching dancing to the Mandarins. They presumably
learned with the idea of using the art in religious rituals. The style
of their dancing differs slightly from that of the professional class.
Dancing Mandarins can be seen now in China, but their cabalistic
gestures and queer mimic expressions are unintelligible to the Western
mind. There are no folk or national dances in China and the people do
not dance in the same sense as we in our social dances. The idea of
a social dance is a torture to an average Chinaman. He enjoys seeing
dancing, but never takes part in it. The rich Chinese frequently hire
professional dancers and let them give performances at their houses.
The Chinese wedding dances are never performed by the bride, groom, or
their guests, but by hired professional dancers or dancing Mandarins.
The historians tell us that this was not so in remote antiquity.
There was a time when the Chinese people danced, though their dances
were mostly slow and pantomimic. The Russian ballet dancers, who have
toured in China, have told that their performances filled the Chinese
audiences with horror and disgust, as our Western acrobatic technique
makes them afraid of possible neck-breaking accidents.
The attempts of Europeans to create Chinese ballets for our Western
stage have been in so far miserable failures. ‘Kia-King’ by Titus,
‘Chinese Wedding’ by Calzevaro, and ‘Lily’ by San-Leon give no true
impression of Chinese choreography of any age. Nor are their music
or their scenarios similar to any genuine Chinese ballets of the
above-named titles.
In our story of Chinese dancing it is worth while to mention the
celebrated ‘Lantern Festival’ that is performed every New Year night.
It is very likely that the Chinese had once long ago a lantern dance,
which has degenerated now into a simple marching procession, in which
the people participate in the same sense as the Italians do in their
carnival. Confucius writes of it as of a festival in honor of the sun,
the source of the light and life. This festival is celebrated three
nights continually. Everything considered, we come to the conclusion
that the art of dancing of the land of Mandarins has been of little
influence and significance to our choreography. The reason for this
lies partly in the racial morale, partly in a national psychology that
breathes peace and externalism.
II
Of a quite different character are the dances of Japan, of which
Marcella A. Hincks gives to us a comprehensive picture. According to
her, dancing in Japan is an essential part of religion and national
tradition. In one of the oldest Japanese legends we are told that the
Sun Goddess Amaterasu, being angry, hid herself in a cave, so that the
world was plunged in darkness and life on earth became intolerable. The
eight million deities of the Japanese heaven, seeing the sorrow and
destruction wrought by Amaterasu’s absence from the world, sought by
every means possible to coax her from her retreat. But nothing could
prevail on her to leave it, until one god, wiser than the others,
devised a plan whereby the angered goddess might be lured from her
hiding place. Among the immortals was the beautiful Ame-No-Azume, whom
they sent to dance and sing at the mouth of the cave, and the goddess,
attracted by the unusual sound of music and dancing, and unable to
withstand her curiosity, emerged from the concealment, to gaze upon the
dancer. So once more she gave the light of her smile to the world. The
people never forgot that dancing had been the means of bringing back
Amaterasu to Japan, therefore from time immemorial the dance has been
honored as a religious ceremony and practiced as a fine art throughout
the Land of the Rising Sun.
Dancing in Japan is not associated with pleasure and joyful feeling
alone; every emotion, grave or gay, may become the subject of a dance.
Some time ago funeral dances were performed around the corpse, which
was placed in a building specially constructed for that purpose, and
though it is said that originally the dancers hoped to recall the dead
to life by the power and charm of their dance, later the measures were
performed merely as a farewell ceremony.
The Japanese dance is of the greatest importance and interest
historically. Like her civilization, and the greater number of her
arts, Japan borrowed many of her dance ideas from China, though the
genius of the people very soon developed many new forms of dance, quite
distinct from the Chinese importation. From the earliest times dancing
has been closely associated with religion: in both the Shinto and the
Buddhist faiths we find it occupying foremost place in worship. The
Buddhist priests of the thirteenth century made use of dancing as a
refining influence, which helped to refine the uncultured military
class by which Japan was more or less ruled during the early Middle
Ages.
The Japanese dance, like that of the ancient Greeks, is predominantly
of a pantomimic nature, and strives to represent in gesture a historic
incident, some mythical legend, or a scene from folk-lore; its chief
characteristic is always expressiveness, and it invariably possesses
a strong emotional tendency. The Japanese have an extraordinary mimic
gift which they have cultivated to such an extent that it is doubtful
whether any other people has ever developed such a wide and expressive
art of gesture. Dancing in the European sense the Japanese would call
_dengaku_ or acrobatic.
Like the tea ceremony, the Japanese dance is esoteric as well as
exoteric, and to apprehend the meaning of every gesture is no easy task
to the uninitiated. Thus to arch the hand over the eyes conveys that
the dancer is weeping; to extend the arms while looking eagerly in the
direction indicated by the hand suggests that the dancer is thinking
of some one in a far-away country. The arms crossed at the chest mean
meditation, etc. There is, for instance, a set of special gestures
for the _No_ dances, divided first of all into a certain number of
fundamental gestures and poses, and then into numerous variations of
these, and figures devised from them, much as the technique of the
European ballet dancing consists of ‘fundamental positions’ and endless
less important ‘positions.’
The conventional gestures, sleeve-waving and fan-waving movements,
constitute the greatest difficulty in the way of an intelligent
interpretation of the Japanese dance. The technique is also elaborate
and the vocabulary of the dancing terms large, but the positions and
the attitudes of the limbs are radically different from those of the
European dance, the feet being little seen, and their action considered
subordinate, though the stamping of the feet is important in some
cases. The ease of movement, the smoothness and the legato effect of
a Japanese dance can only be obtained by the most rigorous physical
training. The Japanese strive to master the technique so thoroughly
that every movement of the body is produced with perfect ease and
spontaneity; their ideal is art hidden by its own perfection.
The dances of Japan may be grouped under three broad divisions of equal
importance: Religious, classical, and popular. The last vestiges of a
religious dance of great antiquity may still be seen at the half-yearly
ceremonials of Confucius, when eight pairs of dancers in gorgeous
robes, each holding a triple pheasant’s feather in one hand and a
six-holed flute in the other, posture and dance as an accompaniment to
the Confucian hymn. It is said that the _Bugaku_ dance was introduced
2000 years ago.
The Japanese history of dancing begins from the eighth to twelfth
centuries. The _Bugaku_ and the _Kagura_, another ancient Japanese
sacred dance, are considered the bases of all the other dances. The
movements in both dances strive to express reverence, adoration and
humility. The music of the old Japanese dances is solemn, weird and
always in a minor key, and the instruments used are flutes and a drum.
Stages were erected at all the principal Shinto temples and each temple
had its staff of dancers. The _Kagura_ dance can still be seen at the
temple of Kasuga at Nara. Like the Chinese, the Japanese lack dances
known to us as folk-dancing. In the art of dancing Japan far surpasses
China, this being due to the more emotional and poetic character of
the race. The dancing of Japan, like its other arts, is outspokenly
impressionistic and symbolic. It is graceful and dainty and gives
evidence of thorough refinement.
Dances of pungent racial tinge are those of the American Indians. The
best known of the Indian pantomimes are the Ghost, Snake, and Dream
Dances. Very little observed and recorded are their various war dances;
still less their social dances. Stolid, impassive and stoic as is
the man himself, so are his dances and other æsthetic expressions.
Void of frivolous gaiety and passionate joy as an Indian remains in
his life, so is his dance. His dance turns more about some mystic or
religious idea than about a sexual one. There is that peculiar heavy
and secretive trait in an Indian folk-dance that manifests itself so
conspicuously in the dances of the Siberian Mongolians, as the Buriats,
Kalmuks, and particularly the Finns. Though our space is limited, we
shall here attempt to give an outline of the better known peculiarities
of Indian folk-dances, particularly of the Dream Dance of the Chippewa
tribe.
The Chippewas or Ojibways were, at the arrival of the whites, one of
the largest of the tribes of North America. They originally occupied
the region embracing both shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron. We
owe the description of the Dream Dance to S. A. Barrett, according to
whose view it is based on the story of an Indian girl who escaped into
the lake upon the arrival of the white men and hid herself among the
lilies, thinking they would soon leave. She remained in the lake for
ten days without food or sleep, until the Great Spirit from the clouds
rescued her miraculously and carried her back to her people. In memory
of this event the ceremony of the Dream Dance was instituted and is
performed annually in the open air, about the first of July. A special
dance ground, from fifty to eighty feet in diameter, was prepared and
marked off by a circle of logs or by a low fence. This circle was
provided with an opening toward the west and one toward the east.
The objects about which this whole ceremony centres are a large drum
and a special calumet, the former elaborately decorated with strips of
fur, beadwork, cloth, coins, etc. It is hung by means of loops upon
four elaborately decorated stakes. Often they are provided with bells.
To this the greatest reverence is paid throughout the dance, a special
guard being kept for it. The calumet serves as a sacrificial altar,
the function of which is the burning of sacred tobacco, in order that
its incense may be carried to the particular deity in whose honor the
offering is made. The drum is beaten by ten to fifteen drummers, each
beating it with a stick two feet long, as an accompaniment to the
song which serves as the dance tune. Each song lasts from five to ten
minutes, and is repeated for several hours continually.
The drum-strokes are beaten in pairs, which gives the impression of
difference in the interval of time between the two strokes of one pair
and the initial stroke of the next. In this dance, which is always
performed by a man of highest standing in the community, a dancer may
go through the necessary motions with the feet without moving from the
position in which he is standing, or he may dance one or more times
around the circle. Frequently the dancers take at first a complete
turn around the circle and come back to the vicinity of the original
seats and dance here until the tune is finished. The movement is of
a skipping step, from the east to the west. Perfect time is kept in
the music no matter what movement may be employed by the dancer. Two
motions up and down are first made with one heel and then two motions
with the other, these being in perfect unison with the double strokes
of the drum sticks. The position assumed in the dancing is perfectly
erect, the weight of the body being rapidly shifted from one foot to
the other, as the dancing proceeds. The foot is kept in a position
which is nearly horizontal, the toe just touching the ground at each
stroke of the drum. The dance begins at eleven o’clock in the morning
and lasts until four in the afternoon. A special festival meal is
served during the dance in the circle.
Of somewhat different nature is the Ghost Dance, which is performed
in the unclosed area, the ground being consecrated by the priests
before the beginning of the ceremony. The features of this are the
sacred crow, certain feathers, arrows, and game sticks, and a large
pole which is placed in the centre of the dancing area. About this the
dancers circle in a more lively motion and with lighter steps than the
dancers in the Dream Dance. In this there are no musical instruments
used. The men, women and children take part in the Ghost Dance, their
faces painted with symbolic designs. The participants form a circle,
each person grasping the hand of his adjacent neighbor, and all moving
sidewise with a dragging, shuffling step, in time to the songs which
provide the music. The purpose of the Dream Dance is to communicate
with the Great Spirit of Life. The Ghost Dance has for its object the
communication of the participants with the spirits of the departed
relatives and friends, this being accomplished by hypnotic trances
induced through the agency of the medicine man.
The Snake Dance is a ceremony performed by the Indians of the
southern states. This is of a ghastly nature, as the dancer holds two
rattlesnakes in his mouth while executing his evolutions. Not only must
the dancer be an artist who can manage the movement of his face so that
the heads of the deadly snakes cannot touch his face or bare upper
body, but he has to know the secret words that neutralize the poison
of the snake, in case he should be bitten. This dance, like the two
above named, is executed in a circle to the chant of special singers.
Though the Indian uses musical instruments for his social ceremonies,
such as the turtle-shell harp, wooden flute and whistles, he never
applies their tunes to the dances that have a more serious or religious
meaning. The Snake Dance, like the Dream Dance, is based on a legend,
but the story of it is more involved, tragic and mystic, therefore
its ghastly nature and weird symbolic gestures appear more vivid and
direct than the themes of any other of the Indian folk-dances. But
the steps and poses of every Indian dance are similar to each other,
slow, compact, impassive and dignified. A strong mystic and symbolic
feeling pervades the limited gestures and mimic expressions. Æsthetic
ideas with the Indian are closely interwoven with those of ethics and
religion. There is nothing graceful, amusing, delicate or charming in
an Indian dance, therefore our dance authorities have ignored them.