歌舞
gē wǔ · HSK 7
singing and dancing
🎤💃 歌舞 = 歌 (song) + 舞 (dance)
Compound of 歌 gē 'song/sing' and 舞 wǔ 'dance'. Together they name the paired performance art of singing and dancing, often seen in phrases like 歌舞表演 (song-and-dance show).
歌 — 哥 (phonetic 'gē') + 欠 (open mouth)
A semantic-phonetic compound. The right side 欠 depicts a person with an open mouth, supplying the meaning of singing or vocalizing. The left side 哥 gives the sound 'gē'. Together they form the verb and noun for 'song' or 'to sing'.
舞 — dancer with tassels 無 + opposing feet 舛
舞 is a pictograph of a person dancing while holding ox-tail tassels or feathered streamers in both hands; the upper part 無 originally depicted the dancer with ornaments, and 舛 below shows two feet stepping in opposite directions. When 無 was borrowed to mean 'not/none,' 舛 was added to preserve the original 'dance' meaning.