ABSTRACT
This chapter will depart from the historicization of cross-gender performance in xiqu to its extension into lived realities in the process of the contemporary revival of nandan. I will present cases that explore new readings of the old aesthetic tradition in a new socio-political context and rediscover genders and gendered behaviours, sexual orientation, sexual desire, transgressive potential and feminism in aesthetic practices as well as lived realities. Revival does not mean that the nandan art will resume its historic status, but rather profoundly suggests a regime of genders in relation to internal and external impacts with jingju contextualized in which I seek more accessible vehicles to assist me in deconstructing the cultural implications of interrogating the constructedness and performativity of gender in order to explore the interplay between gender, sexuality and sexual desires.
