Chinese Dance: In the Vast Land and Beyond

As China becomes increasingly important in world relations, many components of the country's cultural arts remain unknown outside its borders. 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 text, along with a comprehensive 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. An online database of video clips, an extensive bibliography, and Web-based appendices provide a broad collection of primary source materials that invite interactive and flexible engagement by a range of users. The inclusion of interviews with Chinese dance practitioners in North America offers a view into the Asian diaspora experience.

Shih-Ming Li Chang is an associate professor of theatre and dance at Wittenberg University, where she teaches dance ethnology, dance history, and dance composition in addition to Chinese opera dance, Western technique classes, and tai chi. Lynn E. Frederiksen taught dance for fifteen years at Tufts University and is now an adjunct professor of theater arts at Clark University. Her coursework focuses on the music-movement ＂conversation＂ to facilitate cross-cultural dance explorations. Both authors are alumni of the Smith College MFA program in dance. EMILY WILCOX is assistant professor of modern Chinese studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.