It is generally believed that the original ecological dance is a square rather than a theater, entertaining itself rather than performing, participating rather than watching, being casual rather than standardized, saving energy rather than deliberately, and inheriting rather than creating. Original ecological dance is a folk dance handed down by ordinary people in folk ceremonies or activities.
At present, the so-called folk dance in the dance world is a concept that is easily misunderstood by domestic art circles and international counterparts except the dance world. Because the meaning of folk dance is originally a dance spontaneously created by the people and passed down from generation to generation (more appropriately called "folk dance"). Today, what we call "folk dance" is actually a theater folk dance performed on the stage, which is created by various professional art groups under the academic training system. "Folk dance" has clearly formed the cultural and aesthetic attributes independent of folk culture, and has become a dance variety with strong upper-level cultural nature, showing rational thinking, artistic thinking and artist's distinctive culture.
Strictly speaking, folk dance (hereinafter referred to as "original ecological folk dance") has rich peasant cultural characteristics, such as true colors, frankness, liveliness, simplicity, fun, little variety, strong national consciousness and demands from life itself, which is obviously different from theater folk dance in cultural nature. The following is a brief and rational observation of the essence of dance from three aspects:
From the material basis of dance-the human body. The original ecological folk dance is used to keeping the body in a natural state, which can be clearly felt from many videos collecting local folk songs and dances. However, the people in the theater (this post is from www.05005.com, Zero Dance Network) have a solid dance material foundation, and the dancers have all received strict and systematic training without exception, and their bodies are in a prescribed state at any time when performing.
From the perspective of dance's noumenon-action form. The original ecological folk dance with casual posture has some corresponding requirements and even internal regulations in the performance, but after all, the original ecological folk dance is not subject to too many constraints, with greater freedom and more improvisation. Theater folk dance is to extract the style factors (including movement, posture, shape and rhythm) of a certain nation and a certain region to transform and develop-or to maintain its form and carry forward its spirit, or to change its form and preserve its spirit, and the style of strokes requires standardization. Because of this (this post is from www.05005.com, Zero Dance Network), compared with the original folk dance, the theater folk dance is an abstract deformation of the action form of the original folk dance and the ultimate enhancement of style and rhythm.
Analysis from the function and purpose of dance. The original ecological folk dance is an indispensable and inseparable part of people's lives of all ethnic groups, with the participation and spontaneity of the whole people. It is common for Tibetan, Mongolian, Miao, Dai, Uygur and other ethnic groups to improvise anytime and anywhere, which is also a feature of other ethnic minorities in China. Therefore, for ordinary people, the original ecological folk dance is mainly a means of entertainment, a spontaneous activity and a way of venting. Therefore, in the original ecological folk dance, the content of simple emotional release or interruption is mostly, and the dance shows what people see and hear in their daily lives, which is simple and clear and close to the people. In addition, the original ecological folk dance, as an important part of folk ceremony, has strong practicability. In addition to its non-utilitarian aesthetic attributes (this post is from www.05005.com, Zero Dance Network), theater folk dance has a completely different cultural mission from the original ecological folk dance. That is to say, as an "art", theater folk dance must reflect the reality and the spirit of the times, and must have its own independent cultural thinking and cultural symbols, which determines its essential difference from the original ecological folk dance-a conscious rational behavior and high-level artistic creation. Therefore, we advocate the innovation of expression forms and the excavation of cultural connotation. The innovation of expression involves drawing lessons from different kinds of dances and creative techniques, and the excavation of cultural connotation involves understanding, learning and studying different regional environments, national traditions and real life. It is precisely because of this that loess yellow, which sublimates loess into the "root" of national spirit dependence, came into being. On the Nirvana of Yangko from A Man Dancing Yangko: As the sad time goes by, Can Chun; Praise the mother's feelings with "Mosuo woman"; With fear of the life cycle of sister drums; What a big wind that collides with soul and society; Face vicissitudes with "Fan Gu"; With ... there is no doubt that the propositions and thoughts of national spirit, life realm, or deep culture such as life, society, destiny and soul are obviously not the inherent conscious pursuit of peasant culture or folk culture-although these things, as cultural accumulation, will be reflected in the original ecological folk dance to varying degrees (this post comes from www.05005.com and Zero Dance Network), they are by no means the content consciously expressed by the original ecological folk dance, but undoubtedly the philosophical thinking and culture of cultural people.
To sum up, the so-called "folk dance" in the domestic dance industry (in fact, it is a theater folk dance) is actually not a "folk dance". Because, as mentioned above, theater folk dance has cultural and aesthetic attributes independent of folk culture, and it is the product of being taken from the folk, purified, refined, rational, standardized, technical and aesthetic. In this transformation process, the original ecological folk dance experienced a process of cultural filtration and foreign cultural input. After this process, the original ecological folk dance has been transformed into an artistic aesthetic form-theater (including academic) folk dance, which is a pure stage performance with a considerable distance from the original state of the folk. It can be seen that the folk dance on the stage in China did not take folk culture as its cultural support in the end, but changed the perspective of the original peasant culture from the establishment of dance varieties intentionally or unintentionally under the artistic creation mission of "Portrait of the Spirit of the Times", which is understandable.