A Study Of The Dancing Ideas By Xunzi

One Hundred Schools of Thought in Contention occurring in the field of culture in the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period, performs glorious movements in the intellectual history of China. Then there was a debate three hundreds years across. The discussion allows us to have a taste of the intellectual power of ancient philosophers and scholars and leaves us a lasting splendid spiritual heritage.Xunzi was one of the leading philosophers who contributed to One Hundred Schools of Thought in Contention. His thoughts on Yuewu, namely music and dance being full of philosophical speculations had been passed on from Confucian ethics rites and music, and integrated with independent studies of music and dance. The study also exerts a great influence on the development of Confucian studies of Yuewu. Xunzi’s thoughts on music and dance were his own understanding of the development of Yuewu at that period of time, but as a matter of fact, his arguments about music boiled down to the essence, function and aesthetic understanding of activities of music and dance. The core of his Yuewu study provides us with practical and insightful ideas to focus on the development of Chinese dancing art. Hence, it is an important research topic for us with regard to the development of Yuewu study in ancient China.This paper presents outcomes of research on Xunzi’s understanding of Yuewu from different perspectives in three chapters. The first one is to introduce his life and the time period he lived in from the viewpoint of the historical background of the Warring States period and his own surroundings with an effort to review the necessity and feasibility for him to advance the traditional Confucianism. The second one is to interpret the idea that Xunzi’s study of Yuewu was not rootless. The arguments are on the basis of those influential and characteristic ideas and studies of the School of Xun, which derives from the Confucian ethics rites and music firmly held by Confucius and Xunzi’s school of thought. It turns out that Yuewu was not only rooted in the Confucian ethics rites and music, but also integrated with his own independent studies. The foundation of the third chapter is the transcript of Xunzi Music Theory. Based on the revised logic and a summary of the book, this part of the paper recites four significant relations explained in Xunzi’s study of Yuewu and provides a comparison between Xunzi Music Theory and Mozi Deny Art to analyze the similarity and difference, as well as the loss and gain between Xunzi’s music theory and that of Mozi.