Here's an excerpt from the work I just cited:
"
Theater of combat: A critical look at the Chinese martial Arts, by Charles Holcombem, Historian.
Vol. 52 No. 3 May.1990, Pp.411-431
Copyright by Michigan State University Press
Some martial arts enthusiasts themselves admit that "the relationship
between the martial arts and entertainment has a long history in China."
[63] Martial entertainments are known from the beginning of the written
record. One of China's oldest books, the Book of Songs, documents an early
division of theatrical performances into civil and military; the Rites of
Chou describes a "dance with bows and arrows"; and texts and stone reliefs
from the Hah dynasty attest to martial acrobatic performances. [64] These
intertwined traditions of theater and the martial arts came together in
their most peculiar form in the "butting game" (chiao-ti hsi) of the Ch'in
and Han dynasties.
The eighteenth century T'u-shu chi-ch'eng, an encyclopedia in 10,000
sections (chuan) that is one of the largest and most complete ever compiled
anywhere, lists this butting game as its first entry under the subject of
boxing. In the original form of this game, people donned cow's horns and
butted one another, in commemoration of a mythological event from the time
of the Yellow Emperor. [65] Eventually, however, it became a generic name
referring to games of combat such as wrestling, acrobatics and other
assorted forms of entertainment. This transformation was in progress in 209
B.C., when the second emperor of Ch'in "made merry with games of butting
and comedic actors." In this, one of their earliest manifestations, the
martial arts appear to have taken the form of faintly ridiculous
entertainment. [66]
When true drama evolved in China during the Sung (960-1279) and Yuan
(1279-1368) dynasties, military entertainments composed a popular part of
the new theatrical tradition. Stage-fighting was a principal attraction in
the famous Peking Opera of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and
fantastic acrobatic feats were a regular and expected part of performances.
67]
Robert Fortune, an Englishman, witnessed one such performance in rural
China sometime between 1853 and 1856, and left the following account:
An actor rushed upon the stage amid the clashing of timbrels, beating
of gongs, and squeaking of other instruments. He was brandishing a
short sword in each hand, now and then wheeling round apparently to
protect himself in the rear, and all the time performing the most
extraordinary actions with his feet, which seemed as if they had to do
as much of the fighting as the hands. People who have seen much of the
manoeuvering of Chinese troops will not call this unnatural acting.
[68]
As Fortune noted, such stage fighting was an accurate, if exaggerated,
portrayal of actual Chinese fighting techniques. It would be a mistake,
however, to dismiss this theatrical tradition as a mere imitation of the
real martial arts. Image and reality have reflected each other for
millennia, and real martial artists have often found the most practical use
for their skills in earning a living as entertainers.
In late imperial times Boxers toured the countryside, fighting in
competitions at market fairs as a way of life. An eighteenth-century
satirical novel, The Scholars, provides an excellent description of a
typical knight-errant (ywhsia) hero who is "seen at his best in a sword
dance," and who turns out to be something of a fraud. Today, in Beijing,
martial arts experts can still be found performing breathing exercises and
splitting bricks with their heads in sideshows at amusement parks. [69] If
the actual moves of the martial arts are enmeshed in the theatrical
tradition, the image of the martial arts hero comes from another source
altogether. This is the knight-errant, champion of the down-trodden, who
roams the land righting injustice with his practiced sword arm. [70]
