A Fascination with Folk Dance

Yang Zhao is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh who is particularly interested in dance education and researching people’s participation in social dancing in different cultures. Originally from Weihai, China, she has been dancing since the age of four, and studied dance in Ji’nan, the capital of Shandong Province, then at the Beijing Dance Academy and Beijing Normal University. In this article she describes what fascinates her about social dance.

In the second semester of my undergraduate studies, our class were fortunate enough to learn a traditional Wa dance from a teacher named Aikun who is of ethnic Wa origin. His dancing is completely different from what we had been learning for stage performance. The dances he taught had social, ceremonial and even religious functions and we sang as we danced. It made me realise that Chinese folk dances that have existed over many years are beginning to disappear because fewer people from the younger generation are interested in ‘old-fashioned’ folk dances. It was then that I decided to major in Chinese Language and Literature and to study folklore: the history and development of expressive culture. During the first year of my BA dance course in Beijing, I decided to study dance education abroad. In 2015, I came to the University of Edinburgh to study Dance Science and Education. When I went to my first ceilidh in Edinburgh my memories of why I started dancing re-appeared, and I wrote my dissertation titled ‘Participation in Scottish Ceilidh Dance’. In China, folk dances are often learnt by watching or attending dances and/or related events, especially in minority ethnic areas where people speak their own language instead of the national official language, Mandarin. Folk dance is also popular in urban China, and Chinese square dancing is especially popular among retired middle-aged women, who dance in town squares for exercise and social enjoyment. My grandma sometimes went to square dancing and/or exercises similar to Tai chi on a square near her home when I was about six years old, but I never saw anyone else in my family dance. Chinese national folk dance is now considered a performance art, which is stage-managed and choreographed for highly skilled professionals rather than something that ordinary people enjoy at social functions. While in Beijing, I was involved in a project on Tibetan dance, where a contrast was made between ordinary young Tibetans, who commonly participate in traditional Tibetan dance for their own enjoyment, and the presentation of folk/social dance at most dance academies and at many theatrical events in Beijing, where it is staged by professionals as a choreographed performance. Ordinary people are the audience, not the participants.

What surprised me when I first went Scottish country dancing is that, although it is possible to put on a performance or compete in festivals, most Scottish country dancers are not dance professionals, but ordinary people who enjoy social dancing at weddings, balls and evening classes. In European folk dance groups, it is not important to be a professionally qualified dancer to teach dance well. This is very different from Asian countries, including China. It would be thought very strange indeed if we were to dance at a wedding in my home town. Reflecting on this, my ambition after graduation is to work in dance education in China, promoting social folk dancing. Preserving our traditional Chinese dance heritage and persuading more people to participate in the shared pleasure of social dance will, I believe, increase cross-cultural understanding. Readers may be interested to see Chinese folk dance for themselves:

Wa Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYJAoR31cEQ

Tibetan dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVlucjpDIM

Uyghur dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAdhDuPAaKs around 4’ 00

Chinese National Dance: ZHAO Yang Dance Video (Tibetan Folk Dance) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJtQLs5fyWU

Yang attending an event in Lyon, France, as part of her research into Scottish country dancing