Transnational Chinese Theatres

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

   PDF

2. Introduction: A Tale of Multiple Cities—Setting the Stage for Transnational Chinese Theatres

   • Rossella Ferrari

   Pages 1-31

3. Rhizomes, Radicants, and Journeys: Transnational Chinese Theatres as Networks of Intercultural Collaboration

   • Rossella Ferrari

   Pages 33-69

4. Hong Kong Transfers: Transmedial Travels in the Theatre of Relations

   • Rossella Ferrari

   Pages 71-137

5. Performing the 38th Parallel Across the Taiwan Strait: Territorial Divides and Theatrical Dialogues in East Asia

   • Rossella Ferrari

   Pages 139-206

6. Trans-Asian Spectropoetics: Conjuring War and Violence on the Haunted Stage of History

   • Rossella Ferrari

   Pages 207-279

7. Epilogue: Out of Asia—Transnational Chinese Theatres’ Global Itineraries

   • Rossella Ferrari

   Pages 281-287

8. Back Matter

   Pages 289-306

   PDF

This is the first systematic study of networks of performance collaboration in the contemporary Chinese-speaking world and of their interactions with the artistic communities of the wider East Asian region. It investigates the aesthetics and politics of collaboration to propose a new transnational model for the analysis of Sinophone theatre cultures and to foreground the mobility and relationality of intercultural performance in East Asia. The research draws on extensive fieldwork, interviews with practitioners, and direct observation of performances, rehearsals, and festivals in Asia and Europe. It offers provocative close readings and discourse analysis of an extensive corpus of hitherto untapped sources, including unreleased video materials and unpublished scripts, production notes, and archival documentation.

• Aesthetics
• Collaboration
• Sinophone
• East Asia
• Spoken drama
• Chinese opera
• huaju
• xiqu
• Taiwan
• Singapore
• Hong Kong
• Stanley Kwan
• Edward Yang
• Geopolitics

“Transnational Chinese Theatres: Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia makes an invaluable contribution … to the decolonization of the academic enterprise. … A must-read for scholars and graduate students across disciplines, Transnational Chinese Theatres will go far to fill gaps in the field’s knowledge of contemporary Chinese theatre and modern East Asian history, while its sophisticated theoretical model will open new paths for the study of the marginalized and the minor in theatre and performance studies.” (Tarryn Li-Min Chun, Theatre Journal, Vol. 72 (3), 2020)

• SOAS, University of London, London, UK

  Rossella Ferrari

Rossella Ferrari is Reader in Chinese and Theatre Studies at SOAS University of London, UK. She is the author of Pop Goes the Avant-garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China (Seagull Books/University of Chicago Press, 2012), the first English-language monograph to examine the development of Chinese avant-garde theatre since the Cultural Revolution, and Da Madre Coraggio e i suoi figli a Jiang Qing e i suoi mariti: Percorsi brechtiani in Cina (Cafoscarina, 2004), on the reception of Bertolt Brecht in China.

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