Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance

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.

Hongwei Bao is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK

List of figures List of abbreviations Notes on translation, transliteration, and names Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. Performing queer memory - A queer way of life: Ren Hang's photography - Post socialist structures of feeling: Coming out in global queer cinema Part II. Mediating queer activism - 'Gently change the world with singing': Beijing Queer Chorus and queer audibility - Performing queer at the theatre-documentary convergence: Fan Popo's screen activism Part III. Enacting intercultural communication - Theatre of Cruelty: Performing queer desire in East Palace, West Palace - About My Parents and Their Child: Intergenerational communication in transcultural documentary theatre - Sharing food, vulnerability, and intimacy: The digital performance of the queer diaspora in a global pandemic Bibliography Index