AAS-in-Asia Call for Proposals

Dear Community Members,

My name is Jason Pan. I'm looking for the panelists who is interested in Chinese Classical Dance and Martial Arts.

My topic is The Relationship and Etymology of Traditional Chinese Dance and Martial Arts, and its Implications in Modern Day China.

Tradition and culture is a bonding chain for stability in every society, furthermore, it is the pride of every nation and civilization, as it symbolizes the culmination of human achievement and wisdom.

Throughout history, Chinese culture has interacted in great depth with its surrounding countries. A prominent example would be Japan and Korea; Japan and especially its traditional architecture adapted much from Tang culture, and Korean culture has always held an active role in the promotion of Confucianism. There is therefore many possibilities we can explore as to how different Asian countries have adapted such influence under their own unique circumstance.

 I spent last 12years study and practice classical Chinese dance, gain some in-depth understanding in some perspectives. I hope to help the revival of traditional culture in Asia, and to do this, I hope to explore the duality of Chinese culture, which in turn influenced the whole Asian hemisphere.

There is a strikingly huge amount of similarities between traditional Chinese dance and Chinese martial arts; such relationship is in fact quite similar to that of "yin" and "yang." This is because of a special feature that permeates throughout the whole cultural sphere in China, and that is the concept of "duality," or that everything has two sides for interpretation. Reflected on this particular aspect, becomes martial arts and dance respectively, and that they hail from a same origin. It is perhaps no coincidence that the words for both martial arts and dance are pronounced the same in Chinese. In fact, in ancient times, the imperial courts often invite martial artists as performers, and their performances are basically their respective fighting styles, and those moves and routines eventually influenced opera in the Song Dynasty. The bearings, routines, flipping techniques, and weaponry, all came directly from martial arts.

Submitted by Jason Ko Chi Pan as graduate student from the Department of Dance of Fei Tian College, Nov 7, 2022