As China becomes increasingly important in world relations, many components of the country’s cultural arts remain unknown outside China. Shih-Ming Li Chang and Lynn E. Frederiksen’s Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land and Beyond undertakes the challenge of discovering the relationship between Chinese dance in its many forms and the cultural contexts of dance within the region and abroad.
As a comprehensive resource, Chinese Dance offers students and scholars an invaluable introduction to the subject. It serves as a foundation of common knowledge from which Chinese and English-language communities CAN begin a cross-cultural conversation about Chinese dance. The chapter on Chinese dance history, along with an excellent glossary of key terms, gives English-language readers a chance to understand the development of Chinese dance as it is officially articulated by historians and dance scholars in Asia. Through the online database of video clips, an extensive bibliography and appendices, Chinese Dance provides a broad collection of primary source images, videos, and text that invite interactive and flexible engagement by a range of users. The collection of interviews with Chinese dance practitioners in North America offers a view into the Asian diaspora experience.