ABSTRACT

In this ground-breaking study, Hongwei Bao analyses queer theatre and performance in contemporary China.

This book documents various forms of queer performance – including music, film, theatre, and political activism – in the first two decades of the twenty first century. In doing so, Bao argues for the importance of performance for queer identity and community formation. This trailblazing work uses queer performance as an analytical lens to challenge heteronormative modes of social relations and hegemonic narratives of historiography.

It will be of great interest to students and scholars of theatre and performance studies, gender and sexuality studies and Asian studies.

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

part I|32 pages

Performing queer memory

chapter 141|16 pages

A queer way of life

Ren Hang's photography

chapter 2|14 pages

Postsocialist structures of feeling

Coming out in global queer cinema

part II|36 pages

Mediating queer activism

chapter 463|15 pages

‘Gently change the world with singing’

Beijing Queer Chorus and queer audibility

chapter 4|19 pages

Performing queer at the theatre–documentary convergence

Fan Popo's screen activism

part III|55 pages

Enacting intercultural communication

chapter 825|18 pages

Theatre of cruelty

Performing queer desire in East Palace, West Palace

chapter 6|19 pages

About My Parents and Their Child

Intergenerational communication in transcultural documentary theatre

chapter 7|16 pages

Sharing food, vulnerability and intimacy

The digital performance of the queer diaspora in a global pandemic