Lindsay M. Harper

Dance 477

April 7, 2014

The Chinese Cultural Revolution and “Mao Dynasty” Dance

China’s dynastic dance styles have a rich cultural and historical heritage,

which began with the unification of imperial China under the Qin dynasty in 220 BC

and continued to mature over the next two centuries of Chinese history and

imperial rule (Nai-Ni Chen Dance Co. 2). In 1911 AD, the Japanese Empire invaded

China’s Northeastern province of Manchuria, eventually usurping the last Chinese

emperor from power, which led to the demise and overthrow of the Qing dynasty.

Dynastic dance styles have always been connected to China’s emperors and imperial

courts: as the fallen empire became a conglomeration of warlord-ruled territories

and then a newly founded and united People’s Republic, the imperial system, along

with its imperial dances, seemed to have fallen with its last “Son of Heaven”

(“Traditional Life in China”). Although Chinese imperial rule may have ended at the

beginning of the 20th century, a new form of “dynastic dance” blossomed and

bloomed under Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, developing its own form,

aesthetics, and legacy, as had happened during the dynasties preceding it.

Nearly four decades divided the fall of the Qing dynasty and the founding of

the People’s Republic of China by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1949; this period of time

was marked with world wars, regional wars, civil wars, local insurrections, and

overall unrest. The lack of an imperial court overseeing political, social, and cultural

organization led to a general freeze of many Chinese artistic developments and

pursuits; however, despite national difficulty and unrest, the Communist party’s

close relationship to the Soviet Union led to the introduction and adoption of

Russian ballet technique and Soviet teachers in Beijing (CBS). Although ballet’s

western nature and origin eventually led to its classical works and Soviet teachers

being banned from the People’s Republic of China, or the PRC, after Soviet ties

soured, ballet technique and training remained. China’s introduction to ballet may

have been relatively short and prematurely interrupted; however, ballet technique

became an essential building block and primary foundation for “Mao dynasty” dance

to be built upon. Over the next two decades, Chinese dance teachers and performers

would maintain the technical skill and artistry of their Soviet forefathers while

adapting the technique to form a uniquely Communist Chinese style.

When the Cultural Revolution began in 1966 Mao Zedong appointed four

individuals, later known as the “Gang of Four”, to revolutionize and rebuild Chinese

ideas, customs, culture, and habits to ensure they were in line with Communist

platforms and objectives for the young Republic ("China- Attacks on party

members”). These four individuals were aided in their pursuit to re-invent Chinese

cultural identity by the book, Quotations from Chairman Mao, also know as the

“Little Red Book”, “ ‘Precious Red Book’ in China, or ‘Mao Bible’ in the West”

(“Cultural Revolution” 375). This small red book contains hundreds of quotations

from Mao Zedong on dozens of subjects collected from speeches and articles he

wrote during his tenure as a Communist Party leader and the Chairman of the

People’s Republic of China; it was then conveniently compiled and published at the

beginning of the Cultural Revolution. It quickly became one of the most popular

books in history, just falling short of the Bible in the number of copies in print; over

one billion copies were sold and distributed in the ten short years encompassing the

Cultural Revolution (“Cultural Revolution” 375). Its pocket-size convenience and

mandatory recitation in schools, factories, and even the dance studios belonging to

the Beijing Dance Academy enabled Quotations from Chairman Mao to become a

tangible standard of what Chairman Mao expected of the new Communist Republic

and its people, including Chinese art and culture as addressed in the second to last

chapter of the “Little Red Book”.

As discussed in his book of quotations, Mao Zedong understood that

“revolutionary culture is a powerful revolutionary weapon for the broad masses of

the people. It prepares the ground ideologically before the revolution comes and is

an important, indeed essential, fighting front… during the revolution” (Zedong 299).

Artistic mediums were not exempt from being used as a “weapon” to establish the

PRC’s new “revolutionary culture” (Zedong 299); in fact, during the Cultural

Revolution, they were one of the most common forms of propaganda used to unify

and motivate the people to support the Chinese Communist Party’s political, social,

and cultural ambitions. In Mao Zedong's own words as quoted from Quotations from

Chairman Mao:

In the world today all culture, all literature and art belong to

definite classes and are geared to definite political lines. There

is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above

classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics.

[Our purpose is] to ensure that literature and art fit well into the

whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they

operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the

people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that

they help the people fight the enemy with one heart and mind

(Zedong 299, 301).

With art and culture encompassing such a key component to Mao Zedong’s

revolutionary machine, he sought a close friend and advocate to ensure that the

PRC’s new artistic ideas, customs, cultures, and habits were uniting and educating

the people towards social change and revolution.

Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, was a member of the Gang of Four and an advocate of

her husband’s book, Quotations from Chairman Mao. She was also trained in drama

and the arts in her youth, and was assigned as the Minister of Cultural Affairs by her

husband to scrutinize every work of art, whether film, drama, music, or dance, to

ensure that its plot, origin and theme did not support western, imperialist, capitalist,

traditional, or otherwise Communist-unsupported ideals ("Jiang Qing”). After

detailed and serious appraisal, Madam Mao concluded that no dance production

adequately supported the Cultural Revolution movement and Communist party;

therefore, she ordered her subordinates to create two ballets inspired by two of the

most famous pro-Communist productions of the decade: The Red Detachment of

Women (紅色娘子軍), from a movie produced in 1961 based on the true story of an

all-women detachment in the Red Army during the Chinese Civil War (Crow), and

The White-Haired Girl (白毛女), from an opera written in 1944 based on the true

stories of a number of peasant women from the Shanxi province of China (Wilkinson

168). Upon creative completion these two new ballets became the only two dance

productions and two of the eight stage productions governmentally supported

during the Cultural Revolution leading them to become nationally renowned and

recognized (Lavigne).

The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl not only became

two of the most well-known propaganda productions in Chinese history, but they

also set the stage for a new classification and style of dance which grew into full

maturity and fruition during the Cultural Revolution. The beginning of what

developed into “Mao Dynasty” dance flourished under the direction and support of

the Chinese Communist Party and Ministry of Cultural Affairs. While western dance

companies, including the Chinese ballet dancers’ former Soviet teachers, were

performing renditions of Swan Lake and Copellia, the Chinese were creating

production plots and dance themes unique to the Culture Revolution and the

Chinese Communist Party’s political, social, and cultural goals. These themes

included: the social injustice and abuse of the proletariat by the bourgeois land-

owning classes, hope in the future and collective strength through the Chinese

Communist Party, the importance of violence and a powerful military force among

the people, and the necessity for social revenge and revolution against their political

enemies. These themes remained central to the acceptance and approval of any

dance or artistic production from the Chinese Communist Party and are one of the

most recognizable qualifications for dance productions belonging to the Cultural

Revolution.

Social Injustice and Abuse from Landowners

Shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong

under the support of the Chinese Communist Party led a series of land and social

reforms against bourgeois landowners who he considered to be the state’s

“enemies” and “in league with imperialism” (Zedong 13). He promised the new

Republic that lands and possessions would be reclaimed from the rich and

distributed among the poor in an attempt to free commoners from the social

injustices of their landlords. A political, social, and cultural revolutionary attack

against members of the upper and middle class in China became the mission of Mao

Zedong, the Chinese Communist Party, the People’s Republic of China, and the

Cultural Revolution as supported by the “Little Red Book” and Madam Mao’s new

ballets, The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl.

In both Quotations from Chairman Mao and its Communist-inspired ballets,

landowners and bureaucrats are depicted as dangerous antagonists to the Chinese

people and their newly formed Republic because of the accused selfish, greedy, and

dishonest nature of their work. The protagonist and prima ballerina in The Red

Detachment of Women, is the daughter of a poor peasant who was unable to pay his

exorbitant rent to make a living for his family. The Landlord imprisons the daughter,

Wu Qinghua. He beats her and attempts to sell her as a slave to pay her father’s debt

(“Red Detachment of Women (ballet)”). Similarly, in The White-Haired Girl, the

prima ballerina, Xi’er, is forced into slavery as a concubine and servant of her

landlord when her father cannot pay his farm rent and is killed by the landlord’s

debt collector (“The White Haired Girl”). In both ballets, the two women are

portrayed as innocent victims to the impropriety and abuse of the bourgeois

landowner class; their stories provide the reason for a social revolution and serve as

a means to unite the people in Mao Zedong’s cause. As stated in Mao’s “Little Red

Book”, the Chinese people must eliminate “the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the

big landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them”

in order to ensure a unified, peaceful, and successful future for the Chinese

Communist Party and the PRC’s people (Zedong 13).

Hope and Strength in the Communist Party

The second noticeable theme in Quotations of Chairman Mao and the two

ballets approved by the Communist Party during the Cultural Revolution claimed

the Communist Party and its affiliated Red Army as the only method to overthrow

the Chinese landowning class and additional capitalist and imperialist enemies of

the state. Mao Zedong defended that the proletariats were the driving force behind

China’s political, social, and cultural revolution; however, they needed the

organization and leadership of trained Communist leaders to provide structural and

ideological assistance. Therefore, according to Mao and his “Little Red Book” the

best way for commoners to improve their social condition and further the

Communist cause was to support and join the Chinese Communist Party and Red

Army which was “sweeping the world with the momentum of an avalanche and the

force of a thunderbolt” preparing China for “a future of incomparable brightness and

splendor” (Zedong 24, 25).

The character Wu Qinghua in The Red Detachment of Women was created to

provide an example of nationalism, unity, and vigor for her countrymen to follow.

After running away from her landlord and being nearly beaten to death by her

pursuers, Wu Qinghua was left to die in the wilderness as an example to her peers of

the fate that awaited disobedient renters; however, she regained enough

consciousness and strength to stumble out of the wilderness into the camp of a

detachment of women serving in the Red Army. The exhausted protagonist is

welcomed and aided by the group who optimistically share their role in the revival

of China under the Communist regime and enthusiastically invite her to join their

fight against oppressors like her landlord. Wu Qinghua runs to the detachment’s Red

Army flag, embraces it with tears in her eyes and swears to become one of them,

eventually cutting her long hair into a military bob and replacing her traditional

clothing for an army uniform and gun (“Red Detachment of Women”).

In The White-Haired Girl, Xi’er also joins the Red Army after being rescued

from a mountaintop by a regiment sent to search for her after they heard word she

too had run away from her abusive landlord. The closing scene of The White-Haired

Girl portrays her happily reuniting with the Red Army and her fiancé, who is now

the captain of the regiment, as they march off to free oppressed peasants in

neighboring towns and communities (“芭蕾舞剧《白毛女》下集). In both ballets,

the storyline supports Mao Zedong’s promise and invitation to the peasants of the

PRC: the Communist Party and Red Army are the end of your woes, come and join

with us!

Importance of Violence and Powerful Military Force

One of the starkest differences between “Mao dynasty” ballets, or ballets

written and performed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the classical

ballets of the Western world is the use of violence to further the ballet’s plot. A

Western audience would find this ballet transformation unusual; their personal

emic and cultural biases associate ballet with tutus, princes and princesses, and

fairytales, not grenade-toting soldiers waging a violent revolution. Due to cultural

aesthetics and artistic norms, the Western world would never associate classical

pointe shoes with a military haircut, an army uniform, and weapons of war. For this

reason, it is important to develop an etic-based understanding of Chinese Cultural

Revolution ballets: understanding both why violence was so prevalent in the plots of

The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl and what that portrays

about Chinese culture and society at the time.

Local warlord insurrections, civil war, and Mao’s Red Army encompassed 50

years of Chinese history following the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 leading up to

the eve of the Cultural Revolution. Violence and military force became one of the

most predominant methods by which immediate political, social, and even cultural

change occurred; as bluntly stated in Quotations from Chairman Mao, “Political

power grows out of the barrel of a gun” (Zedong 61). It was through violence that

the Qing dynasty fell, the Nationalists were chased to Taiwan, the People’s Republic

of China was founded, and Mao believed that it was through violence that the

principles and teachings of the Cultural Revolution as contained in his “Little Red

Book” and the social war against landowning classes in China was to be waged and

won.

Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, aimed to create artistic works with plots and

characters that were relevant to the Chinese people and the aims of the People’s

Republic of China, art that had meaning and purpose rather than just entertainment

value. The violent nature of The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired

Girl provided a more realistic artistic portrayal of Chinese history from the past and

the Chinese revolutionary culture Mao desired the people to adopt in the future. Just

as Mao taught:

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting

a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so

leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained,

and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of

violence by which one class overthrows another (Zedong 11-12).

Likewise, attending The Red Detachment of Women or The White-Haired Girl was not

to be treated as one figuratively attending a “dinner party” or a performance of

Swan Lake. Dance in China was not intended to be ”refined”, “leisurely and gentle”, it

was established, taught, and performed to be revolutionary in nature and to move

its audience’s to unity and action on behalf of Mao Zedong and the Chinese

Communist Party. Therefore, one cannot compare the violence of The Red

Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl to the relatively peaceful Western

classical ballets of the same period; their purpose was not the same. Ballet in the

West was created to entertain, whereas ballet in China was created to supplement

and support an army and revolutionary cause.

Necessity for Social Revenge and Revolution

After social injustice has been brought to light, allegiance has been pledged to

the Chinese Communist Party, and weapons of war have been gathered, both the

dancers in The Red Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl and the

common people of the PRC are prepared for revenge and revolution against their

fictional or non-fictional foes. In The Red Detachment of Women, the ballet concludes

with Wu Qinghua and the detachment of women which she now leads storming her

former landlord’s housing complex. While the women soldiers raid his home

bringing justice to his debt collectors and freeing his slaves, Wu Qinghua separates

herself from the group to find the landlord himself. Upon finding him, she proceeds

to shoot him not once, but three times amidst the cheers and celebration of her

fellow soldiers and the peasants in the village. Finally, her foe has been defeated and

justice has been served (“Red Detachment of Women”). In The White-Haired Girl,

revenge is also sought, a revolution wages, the landlord is killed, and the people

rejoice.

The final act in both ballets culminates in the revenge and death of the

ballerinas’ oppressors. Despite the violent and abrupt nature of their conclusions,

Mao Zedong justified that such an uprising and act of revenge is to be expected

among the proletariat class in both the ballet and Chinese society. As stated in

Quotations from Chairman Mao, “The ruthless economic exploitation and political

oppression of the peasant by the landlord class forced them into numerous uprising

against its rule” (Zedong 9). In other words, the social state of the common people

and the political nature of the Cultural Revolution left them no choice but to seek

happiness and freedom through revolution and revenge against the bourgeois class.

For this reason, such behavior was not only justified, but also encouraged through

the romanticized actions of Wu Qinghua in The Red Detachment of Women and Xi’er

in The White-Haired Girl.

Besides these four reoccurring themes among dance productions of the

Cultural Revolution, “Mao Dynasty” dance can also be recognized by its stylistic

dance technique and training methods as well. Although Soviet ballet teachers

established a framework of technical dance training methods and ideas, the Chinese

developed it into their own dance teaching and training system inspired by Chinese

cultural dance forms, the Red Army, and the goals of the Cultural Revolution. Most of

what is associated with Chinese dance today developed during the Cultural

Revolution in an attempt to create political structure, identity, and meaning to

China’s revolutionary dance form. This legacy includes the establishment of the

Beijing Dance Academy which is currently one of the largest dance teaching and

training facilities in the world, the strict schedule and intense training of

professional or semi-professional dancers which was inspired by the regimented

schedule and training of the Red Army, the development of Chinese classical dance

which used the foundation of Soviet ballet training to create a unique dance form

distinctly Chinese in nature, and new ballet classics that would become the most

popular ballets in China for decades following the Cultural Revolution: The Red

Detachment of Women and The White-Haired Girl.

In conclusion, far from signaling the decline of dynastic dance and culture in

China, Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution provided the environment for

Chinese dance to thrive and develop an identity of its own, both artistically and

politically. The goal of the Cultural Revolution was to create a new Chinese culture

based off of new ideas, new customs and new habits as established by Mao Zedong,

the Chinese Communist Party, and the book, Quotations from Chairman Mao. As he

stated in the “Little Red Book”:

What we demand is the unity of politics and art, the unity of

content and form, the unity of revolutionary political content

and the highest possible perfection of artistic form. Works of art

which lack artistic quality have no force, however progressive they

are politically. Therefore, we oppose both works of art with a wrong

political viewpoint and the tendency towards the “poster

and slogan style” which is correct in political viewpoint but lacking

in artistic power (Zedong 301-302).

When assessing ballets of the Cultural Revolution and their cultural and aesthetic

legacy, it appears that Mao Zedong accomplished his vision for the new artistic

culture of the People’s Republic of China: political and artistic unity and a rich dance

legacy distinctly Chinese and distinctly Mao.

Works Cited

CBS. “Chinese Ballet Stems from Revolution.” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 30 Jan. 2011. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.

"China- Attacks on party members." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.

Crow, Jonathon. “Red Detachment of Women (1971) Movie Overview.” New York Times. New York Times, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

"Cultural Revolution, 1966–1969." Encyclopedia of Modern China. Ed. David Pong. Vol. 1. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2009. 371-376. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 7 Apr. 2014.

"Jiang Qing." Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.

Lavigne, Pierre-Loïc. “The Red Detachment of Women: Carry on the revolution with the Communist Party forever.” Maopost.com: Chinese propaganda posters. Maopost.com., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.

Mao, Zedong. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tsetung. Peking: Foreign Languages, 1972. Print.

Nai-Ni Chen Dance Company. The Art of Chinese Dance: A Study Guide. New Jersey: New Jersey State Council on the Arts, n.d. Print.

“Red Detachment of Women (ballet)”. Wikipedia. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.

“The Red Detachment of Women (紅色娘子軍, 1971).” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 4 Oct. 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.

“The White Haired Girl”. Wikipedia. Wikipedia, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.

“Traditional Life in China: Ruling A Unique Being.” Victoria and Albert Museum: The world’s greatest museum of art and design. Victoria and Albert Museum, n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2014.

Wilkinson, J. Norman. “"The White-Haired Girl": From "Yangko" to Revolutionary Modern Ballet.” Educational Theatre Journal 26.2 (1974): 164-174. Print.

“芭蕾舞剧 《白毛女》下集 (Model Ballet: The White Haired Girl).” Online video clip. YouTube. YouTube, 25 Feb. 2012. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.