Performing Postsocialism in Twenty-First-Century China

Wider research context: The project explores China’s postmillennial cultures of performance-making through the conceptual lens of postsocialism, focusing on experimental theatre, dance, and performance art produced by newly emerging independent practitioners since the 21st century. The project adopts a definition of Chinese postsocialism as a cultural condition characterized by the interpenetration of multiple temporalities and socio-economic structures, in which a capitalist economy coexists with a socialist state and traditional values with new globalized behaviours. It thus introduces the theoretical framework of “performing postsocialism” to assess both the implications of China’s postsocialist condition for performance cultures and how the study of performance cultures can enhance our understanding of postsocialist China.
Objectives: The main objective is to examine what the project terms “China’s postmillennial cultures of performance-making” in the historical context of postmillennial postsocialism. First, the research seeks to assess how the postsocialist zeitgeist is reflected in the practice of a cohort of performing and visual artists who work largely independently of state institutions, also considering changes that have occurred as a result of fluctuating cultural and political norms in the transition to the Xi Jinping era since 2013. A central hypothesis is that this practice exhibits three significant aesthetic modalities or cultural dispositions that reflect the inherent heterochronicity of postsocialism, characterized respectively by a hauntological engagement with the past, an impulse to capture present reality, and a future-oriented sensibility. Second, the project takes an expanded view of performance to suggest that postsocialist China itself can be seen as a culture of performance, as the country and its citizens engage in social acts that can be construed as performative. The research thus asks not only how China performs its postsocialist condition, but also what the study of performance can reveal about postsocialist China.
Approach/methods: The research bridges approaches from cultural studies, theatre and performance studies, and art history. It combines textual, performance, and visual analysis with critical discourse analysis, archival research, interviews, and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork.
Originality: The project extends the theory of Chinese postsocialism by applying it to performance studies for the first time. It also fills a gap in the study of Chinese performance cultures by documenting, analysing, and archiving a corpus of historically significant but under-researched practices and related critical discourses.
Primary researchers involved: The project team is based at the University of Vienna. The researchers involved are: Univ.-Prof. Dr. Rossella Ferrari (PI); Fabrizio Massini, M.A.; Yizhuo Li, M.A.; Dr. Ting Zhang, Ph.D.