Specialist Lecture on Chinese History and Culture (7)

‘Lotus Aloft:’ Dunhuang Dance Narratives

Historically a frontier metropolis, Dunhuang was a strategic site along the Silk Road in northwestern China, a crossroads of trade, and a locus for religious, cultural, and intellectual influences since the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.). The 492 caves at the Mogao cliff near the modern town of Dunhuang have served as temples, sites for performative events, and an archive that consisted of medieval Chinese paintings and Buddhist sutras. Today, the Dunhuang Mogao Caves is among one of the most well-known UNESCO heritage sites along the ancient Silk Road. This lecture presentation introduces the creation of the Dunhuang mural dance genre as a sociocultural phenomenon that emerges through interactions and negotiations among multiple actors and institutions to envision and enact a Chinese vision as well as China’s imaginations of “journeying abroad” from and to the country. This phenomenon is involved in the re-creation of historical memory and identity of China in contemporary moments of contestation and transformation. The lecture examines the semiotics in the present-day imagination of the Silk Road – specifically, staged performances of the Dunhuang dance as an embodied re-interpretation and re-creating of the arts from the Dunhuang.

Speaker's Profile：

Dr Lanlan Kuang
Currently working on a new book on the Silk Road arts as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Dunhuang Academy, Lanlan Kuang is an Associate Professor and the Director of Humanities and Cultural Studies Program at the University of Central Florida’s Philosophy Department. Specializing in Asian humanities, aesthetics, and heritage studies, her research focuses on China’s media and cultural policies and their impacts on the country’s socioeconomic developments. Aa a Florida State Department’s Folklife Council Member, Kuang also serves as the current President of Florida Folklore Society and is a Center for Ethnic and Folk Literature and Arts (CEFLA) Distinguished Fellow appointed by China's Ministry of Culture and Tourism for her contributions to safeguarding folk arts and heritage culture. A prize-winning documentary film producer, she worked with organizations such as the USIA and SCOLA Educational Network as liaison and project director. Kuang holds a PhD in Folklore and Ethnomusicology from Indiana University, Bloomington and was on a Fulbright in China in 2008-2009. Her monograph on the expressive arts from along the Silk Road, The Dunhuang Performing Arts in Global Context (2016) is available in Harvard-Yenching Library, Princeton-Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology, and other research venues.