Creating with Roots Contemporary Chinese National Folk Dance Choreography

Free Download Creating with Roots: Contemporary Chinese National Folk Dance Choreography by Rui Xu, Emily Wilcox
English | February 4, 2025 | ISBN: 0472077155 | 254 pages | EPUB | 5.17 Mb
Creating with Roots is a critical introduction to the history, theory, and creative practice of Chinese national folk dance, the Chinese-speaking world's most popular contemporary dance form. A complex cultural and artistic phenomenon that resists simple categorization, Chinese national folk dance merges folkloric material with contemporary stage aesthetics and blends rural folk dances of the Han majority with dances representing China's minoritized ethnic communities, bridging cultural differences of geography, economic class, and ethnicity. As such, Chinese national folk dance has become a lightning rod for current debates in the arts worldwide-how to balance local heritage with artistic innovation, how to maintain cultural integrity amid commercialization and Eurocentrism, and the ethics of representation in contemporary multiculturalism. Chinese national folk dance is increasingly a globalized phenomenon: schools, classes, competitions, and performances of professionals and amateurs now exist all across the world. Originally published in Chinese and authored by prominent Chinese dance scholar, Rui Xu, this English translation will be an essential resource for the global conversation about how dancers and choreographers navigate tradition and innovation in contemporary national folk dance choreography.