Xiqu at the Margin: How “Chinese” is “Chinese Opera”?

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

Xiqu is frequently deployed as an emblem of Chinese culture, positioned as both a unique and an essentially Chinese family of performance arts. Compared with other types of Chinese expression, xiqu must contend with a discourse inexorably connecting its performance with a supposedly fixed “tradition.” This can be valorizing, but is also in tension with the variability in all forms of its practice, be it in socioeconomic, ethnic, pedagogical, or aesthetic terms.
Following on work examining xiqu in diasporic and hybrid performance contexts, this panel seeks to shed light on how xiqu on the margins of Chineseness—generically, geographically, linguistically, ethnically—interrogates monolithic accounts of this complex system and enriches understandings of performing “Chineseness” in diaspora. Each paper examines different genres of xiqu performance (puppetry, Kunqu, Cantonese opera) in a different site or region outside of China, while finding common ground in a similar concern with the multiethnicity of xiqu performance and its global history and practice.
On empirical as well as theoretical grounds, the panel contributes to a reading of xiqu as a transnational form, to be integrated into specific theatre histories and understood as forming networks which—far more than simply being reproductions of xiqu as performed on China—are generative and intriguing practices, adapting as performance techniques and narratives are passed down to members of troupes in hybrid communities. Whether approaching the question through perspectives of research-performance, historical diaspora, or research-performance all panelists find themselves questioning unexamined assumptions about the performance of Chineseness on the ‘traditional’ stage.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing

Session Organizer

• Josh Stenberg, University of British Columbia

Individual Presentations

• Xiqu in London: A Cross-Cultural Performer's Perspective - Kim Hunter Gordon, Royal Holloway, University of London

• Teatro de las Delicias: Xiqu in Two Latin American Metropolises - Josh Stenberg, University of British Columbia

• Chinese Temple Puppet Theatre in the Context of Urban, Secular Singapore - Caroline Chia, University of Melbourne