ABSTRACT
Focusing on the spatial grounding of amateur performances of revolutionary songs, this chapter discusses the expressive ambiguity of this form of public presence in post-Mao China. With their semiosis of centrality, resonant history, and leisurely functions, the public parks in the heart of Beijing amplify the ambiguity of these gatherings against the backdrop of contentious sociopolitical transformations in the post-Mao period. As the singing crowds signify in excess of the experience of participants, site-based visibility exposes the gatherings to a machinery of representations in both domestic and international media. The chapter traces how different institutions of interpretation foreclose the ambiguity of public performance. Casualness takes up its significance in relation to how these singing practices are being overwritten through such representations.
