ABSTRACT
The Chinese Communist Party employed a more rigorous political intervention in the country’s art and literature after the founding of the PRC, which culminated during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Since my study deals with the revival of cross-gender performance, I will first uncover the downfall of cross-gender performance during the political campaigns, particularly in jingju and yueju, the two most influential xiqu genres. In doing so, I am hoping to bring to critical attention that not only male-to-female cross-gender performance, which was considered to be “feudal legacy” as aforementioned, but also female-to-male cross-gender performance in yueju, which was once considered “progressive” and anti-feudal, were largely terminated. Why was cross-gender performance not encouraged anymore? Why did the PRC stop training nandan students officially? And when and how did cross-gender performance become a social taboo in the PRC? Was the ban influenced by Western homophobia or transphobia?
