150136 SE Documentary Film and Performance in Contemporary China (2023W)

This seminar focuses on documentary film and performance in contemporary China. Through discussion and comparison of selected film, theatre, dance, and intermedia works, and supported by relevant scholarship, the seminar will explore the socio-cultural and economic contexts that have shaped the development of independent filmmaking and performance ecologies since the early 1990s and critically analyze the aesthetic strategies, visual and narrative techniques, and thematic concerns addressed by filmmakers and performance practitioners during this period. Discussions will highlight the ways in which these independent practices challenge dominant narratives and aesthetic frameworks while engaging with collective memories of major historical events and contemporary socio-political realities, for example through the representation and participation of subaltern subjects (e.g., marginalized artists, migrant workers), activist issues, and embodied memory.
The intersections between screen-based media and performance will also be foregrounded. General theories of performative documentary and documentary theatre and performance as well as specific Chinese concepts and discourses will be introduced to examine the relationship between liveness and mediatization, the integration and function of performative elements in documentary film and, conversely, of film and video elements in documentary theatre and dance productions, and how these approaches blur the boundaries between objectivity and subjectivity, fact and fiction, ‘truthful’ recording and artistic representation.

By the end of the seminar, participants will have gained an understanding of the cultural and economic forces that have influenced the production and reception of independent documentary film and performance in postsocialist China, as well as the critical discourse surrounding these art forms. They will have developed an appreciation of the diversity of contemporary voices and perspectives, a critical sensitivity to the aesthetic characteristics and socio-political implications of independent documentary practices, and an awareness of the expressive possibilities offered by the hybridization of media and performance formats. They will have become familiar with aspects of critical theory in film, performance, and cultural studies, as well as methods of film and performance analysis, visual and textual analysis, and close reading, and will be encouraged to apply relevant theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches to their own analysis.