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    • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Lang. Lit. Linguist.
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    • DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL
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HOME > Archives > 2024 > Volume 10 Number 6 (2024) >
IJLLL 2024 Vol.10(6): 458-464
DOI: 10.18178/IJLLL.2024.10.6.560

The Ritualism and Chinese Shamanic Culture in Tan Dun’s Music

Zijie Xing
Music Department, Tufts University, Medford, United States
Email: Zijie.Xing@tufts.edu (Z.J.X.)

Manuscript received August 2, 2024; revised September 11, 2024; accepted October 11, 2024; published December 27, 2024.

Abstract—The Nuo opera, also known as Ghost Opera, is the oldest ritualistic dance among the Han ethnic group in China, primarily used for worshipping gods, exorcising spirits, warding off epidemics, and expressing gratitude to deities. It originated from the Fangxiangshi exorcism activities during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. It gradually evolved into a ceremonial rite with strong entertainment and theatrical elements after the Han dynasty, prevailing in the southern regions of China. Its spiritual essence primarily revolves around the shamanic culture of communication between humans and divine. Shamanic culture serves as the most intuitive and emotive expression of nature for individuals, actively ingrained in human cognitive mechanisms since the dawn of humanity, thereby becoming a universal phenomenon in human society and spiritual life. Shamanic rituals represent the fusion of this intuitive thinking and specific trance state behaviors, constituting a cultural phenomenon wherein the human spirit and material converge. Serving as a regulatory mechanism, it enables individuals to understand and transformation of nature and engage in communication with the divine. This paper takes excerpts from Tan Dun’s two works - On Taoism, and Ghost Opera,- as examples, and explores the influence of sacrificial rituals and Shamanic culture on Tan Dun’s music from the perspectives of sacrificial culture, musical compositional thinking, and musical ontology analysis (melody, rhythm, instrumentation).

Keywords—ritualism, Chinese Shamanism, “Nuo” culture, shamanic culture

Cite: Zijie Xing, "The Ritualism and Chinese Shamanic Culture in Tan Dun’s Music," International Journal of Languages, Literature and Linguistics, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 458-464, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

 

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