Most arts can trace their origin to dance. Dance originates from human life and the basic emotional needs of human beings. It aptly reflects the society, history, ethics, aesthetics and customs of the ethnic group it represents. Dance as a visual art does not require translation in conveying its messages. It can easily serve as a bridge for harmonious relationships between people of different ethnic origins. In this sense, the appreciation of the dance art form helps one to broaden vision, cultivate poise, and enhance knowledge and wisdom. Communicating with dance breaks through barriers, develops mutual understanding and promotes cultural exchanges. Dance has been a loyal companion of mankind on his way toward higher civilizations. Among a variety of dance styles, folk dance is the most extensive and the deepest into life, and the closest to everyone's daily life. Folk dance covers a wide area, including most of the dances involved in various ethnic and folk customs and activities, such as production, the occasions to mark the climate and other natural phenomena of the seasons, marriage and funerals, beliefs and religions.
As a multi-ethnic nation, China has 56 distinct and culturally diverse ethnic groups which blanket the Chinese landscape, and which add rich variation to the social fabric of the nation. Each ethnic group has its own unique and versatile dances in its repertoire. The Chinese has more than 5000 years of civilized history. Each generation has its own brilliant dances that characterize that particular generation. Therefore, so called “Chinese dance” is an umbrella for all the ethnic dances created by the 56 ethnic groups. Due to differences of custom, religious belief, climate, and geographic location of the ethnic groups, each expresses their dance differently. For example, Tibetans wear long sleeves and do tap-dance; Mongolians mimic horseback riding in their shoulder movement. Moreover, within each group, there may be sub-groups, which have slightly different dance styles. One important factor to remember is that these ethnic Chinese dances are also "traditional" in the sense that they are passed down from generation to generation and that they survive with the community's people.
Each ethnic minority people of China has its own culture and performing art forms. They can be classified by topics and styles, etc. We can group Chinese ethnic cultural and performing arts into several “cultural clusters”. For example, ethnic cultures from Han, Zhuang, Dai, and Bouyi ethnic groups are put in the “farming cultures” category. Cultures from Mongolian, Kazakh, Khalkhas, Oroqen, Ewnki, Manchu and Xibe people are put into “pasture land cultures”, etc. It should be noted that there is no clustering method which can be used to describe the ethnic cultures fully and accurately. This is because any individual ethnic culture is determined not only by heritage, but also by other factors, such as regional and developmental differences. Taking Tibetan culture for instance, a careful observation shows the differentiation in performing arts created by those who live in the Qinghai-Tibet highlands and by those who mix with other ethnic groups in Sichuan province in southwestern China.
