150024 PS MA - Introductory Seminar (Literature and Culture) (M2) (2020W)

Title: Performance, Politics, and Pop: Avant-garde Theatre in Contemporary China

This seminar focuses on contemporary mainland Chinese experimental theatre (shiyan xiju). It begins with an historical overview of modern drama (huaju) and theatre since the early twentieth century to subsequently look at developments in the post-Mao period and particularly at the advent of a contemporary avant-garde (xianfeng) in the 1990s.

One aim of the seminar is to outline key authors, genres, styles, and approaches to playwriting, directing, acting, and stage design, highlighting how these have changed along with changes in the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the country in the transition from the Republican period to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, through the Cultural Revolution, and beyond.

The principal aim of the seminar is to take the theatre of Beijing-based dramatist and director Meng Jinghui (b. 1965) as a case study to investigate the aesthetic characteristics and ideological disposition of the contemporary avant-garde in the context of the post-1989 trauma on the one hand and, on the other hand, of the commercialization of the cultural field with the advent of a commodity economy in the reform era.

Meng’s creative trajectory illustrates the impact of mass culture and popular trends on society and the arts, and the complex interweaving of culture, politics, and market forces in this period. Meng’s dialogical approach encapsulates a shift from the radical and politicized forms of “pure” avant-garde that defined the early-to-mid 1990s to the “pop” avant-garde phenomenon which he pioneered at the turn of the twenty-first century. To understand this shift, the course traces the main stages of development of Meng’s creative trajectory – the so-called Meng style (Meng shi) – in the light of theories of intercultural performance and of the avant-garde and considering whether or not, and to what extent, prevailing (and prevalently Western-centric) perspectives on these notions suit the Chinese experience. Meng’s “absurdist” experiments (e.g., "I Love XXX"), cross-cultural collages (e.g. "Put Down Your Whip, Woyzeck"), satirical adaptations (e.g., "Accidental Death of an Anarchist") and popular productions of contemporary Chinese dramas ("Rhinoceros in Love") are surveyed along with more recent productions ("Teahouse") that have gained him international attention.

Methods include contextual lectures by the course leader, reading and discussion of specialist texts and relevant critical literature, text and performance analysis, group and/or individual presentations, and individual written work. With the support of selected audio-visual materials, play scripts, and associated scholarship, at the end of the course participants will have increased their knowledge of contemporary Chinese culture, built a foundation in avant-garde history, theory, and criticism, and acquired a comprehensive appreciation of Meng’s iconic status in Chinese and world theatre.