The Dances of the Six Ages

Introduction

By tradition the music and dances of six ages, from the Yellow Emperor to King Wu of Zhou, recorded in the Rites of Zhou

The Dances of the Six Ages are the music-and-dance works that, according to the Rites of Zhou, the Grand Director of Music taught to the sons of the nobility; the text lists Yunmen, Dajuan, Daxian, Dashao, Daxia, Dahuo and Dawu, and the Eastern Han commentator Zheng Xuan joins Yunmen and Dajuan into one work and assigns the six to the Yellow Emperor, Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang of Shang and King Wu of Zhou. The Rites of Zhou also gives each dance its rite: Yunmen for the spirits of heaven, Xianchi for the spirits of the earth, Dashao for the four distant quarters, Daxia for mountains and rivers, Dahuo for the ancestral mothers and Dawu for the ancestors. The Lüshi chunqiu tells a different set of stories, in which Yao has Zhi make the Dazhang, Yu has Gao Yao make the Xia Yue in nine parts, Tang has Yi Yin make the Dahu and the Duke of Zhou makes the Dawu; it does not mention Yunmen and gives Xianchi to the Yellow Emperor, so the names and their owners differ from text to text. In the Analects, Confucius judged the Shao perfectly beautiful and perfectly good, and the Wu perfectly beautiful but not perfectly good, and Zhu Xi's commentary reads the Shao as Shun's music and the Wu as King Wu's. The makers and dates of the dances rest on tradition only and cannot be fixed.

Parts

1. Yunmen (Cloud Gate)By tradition the Yellow Emperor's music; the Rites of Zhou uses it to worship the spirits of heaven
2. DaxianBy tradition Yao's music, also called Dazhang and Xianchi
3. Dashao (Great Shao)By tradition Shun's music, which Confucius called perfectly beautiful and perfectly good
4. Daxia (Great Xia)By tradition Yu's music; the Rites of Zhou uses it in offerings to mountains and rivers
5. DahuoBy tradition the music of Tang of Shang; the Rites of Zhou uses it to honour the ancestral mothers
6. Dawu (Great Martial Dance)By tradition the music of King Wu of Zhou, made by the Duke of Zhou according to the Lüshi chunqiu