This paper investigates the cross-border circulation of the “Pan Wang Dance,” a sacred ritual of the Yao ethnic group from Yunnan, China, as it becomes re-contextualized within Japanese and Korean performance settings. Centered on the ritual function, the Yao dance in Yunnan is mostly attached to ceremonies such as "Du Jie" and "Tiao Pan Wang", with the pan drum as the main accompanying instrument, and is associated with the rituals of Chinese Taoism. Moving from its native ritual space to the professional stages of East Asia, the dance undergoes performative adaptation.

This study is guided by three central questions: (1) Through what channels is this transmission facilitated? (2) How are its core movements and symbolic props strategically curated? (3) How do East Asian audiences and scholars decode these performances—as expressions of cultural otherness, or through shared regional performative vocabularies?

To address these questions, the research integrates ethnographic fieldwork in Yunnan with semiotic and comparative analysis of staged performances in Japan and Korea. By scrutinizing performance recordings and critical discourse, it maps the transformation of the dance's bodily semiotics.The findings contribute to understanding cultural flow within East Asia, demonstrating how regional affinities foster the reinterpretation of intra-regional heritage, thereby advancing discourses on cultural dialogue and adaptive resilience.