Study On The Image Of Music And Dance In The History Of The Han Dynasty

The study on images of ancient Chinese musical dance depends largely upon historical materials in the form of written texts.Han Shu is the first dynastic history book in the form of annals-biography that covers events in Western Han Dynasty from the first year of the first ruler,Emperor Gaozu,to the fourth year of Wang Mang’s Xin Dynasty.It chronicles a myriad of topics,including the imperial sacrifices during the Han Dynasty,banquets of the emperors,folk musical dances,warfare among the dukes,love affairs and so on.This paper is written on the basis of Han Shu and carries out a systematic sorting,analyzing and interpreting of the historical events related to images of musical dances.The author has pinpointed three images of musical dance,i.e.“a means of entertainment ”,“a tool of ritual education ” and “the idea of harmony between man and heaven ”,which are corresponding with the three personal and social functions of musical dance,i.e.“pleasure for people ”,“promotion in government administration ” and “perfection in heaven-earth harmony ”,as have been proposed in Tai Ping Jing.First of all,this paper has defined the concept of musical dance image as the artistic epitome that is embedded with certain cultural thoughts and connotations and generated in the process of integrating artists’ subjective feelings and the objective presentation of musical dances;in other words,it is the artistic form of musical dance constructed through the incorporation of the creation subjects’ unique emotional activities.Following that,the paper interprets the three images of musical dance,i.e.“a means of entertainment”,“a tool of ritual education” and “the idea of harmony between man and heaven”.The image as “a means of entertainment” includes both the personal enjoyment of the dancers and the entertaining effects on the audiences.The paper analyzes the image in combination with Western Han Dynasty’s social ideology,i.e.Confucianism on the exterior and Taoism on the interior,and the common practice of “dancing out of sorrows” during that period.Under such considerations,the paper selects historical events or musical works like “Banquet at Hongmen”,Song of Gaixia,Song of Dafeng and so on to investigate the underneath musical dance images and discern the general attitudes of the times.In this sense,both the rulers and the people can gain pleasure from the musical dance,that’s why the first image of musical dance is corresponding to “pleasure for people”,the lowest-level achievement of musical dance.The image as “a tool of ritual education” includes the ritual image and education image of musical dance,which typically consists of poem,music and dance.On one hand,this type of musical dance is often utilized by the rulers to eulogize the former kings’ feats to enhance their status;on the other hand,in terms of its educational value,the musical dance is also used to cultivate the general public,manifest the country’s power and transform social custom as an attempt to facilitate the administration of the country.In this sense,both the ruling and the ruled are pleased with what they can achieve from the musical dance,that’s why this image is corresponding to “promotion in government administration ”,the intermediate-level achievement of musical dance.The image as “the idea of harmony between man and heaven” connotes two lines of thoughts,“harmony ” and “authorization from the grace of God of Heaven ”.“Harmony” refers to the unity among the nature,individuals and the society,and“authorization from the grace of God of Heaven” means that the musical dance artists,both the composers and performers,have been assigned by God of Heaven to choreograph and dance.Everybody can sense the supreme state of musical dance,i.e.the orderly presence of heaven and earth and the full integration between man and heaven.In this sense,the heaven,the earth and the mankind are coexisting in harmony and experiencing spiritual integration.That’s why this image is corresponding to “perfection in heaven-earth harmony ”,the top-level achievement of musical dance.