4-23-2026 – Workshop on Gender and Performance in Chinese Theater

Thursday, April 23, 5 PM – 7 PM
See program below for speakers and commentators
121 Bay State Road, Boston MA

Please register here.

Gender as performance is nowhere more clearly articulated than on the theater stage and in opera-based films. On stage, the male and female characters are enacted through artistic mimesis based on societal conceptions of masculinity and femininity. Theater is also a great unifying force that standardizes these notions while at the same time offering stage characters a larger than life-size power to influence the audience and through them societal attitudes. Thus, gender is not only a form of social performance, but through theater, the artistic form embodies the normative ideals of gender roles and is one of the mechanisms through which it is formalized. This workshop explores different types of theatrical performance of gender – both on the social normative and personal levels – as forms of dialogue between the past, the present, and visions for the future. It explores this theme through different forms of theater including music, dance, and acting. Within this broad framework, the papers raise and address further related questions including the constraints imposed by existing hegemonic narratives of gender and identity, Asianess, and the impact of the transcultural flow of ideas.

Speakers:

Wai-yee Li (Havard University)
Nancy Rao (Rutgers University)
Daphne P. Lei (University of California, Irvine)

Commentators:

Catherine Yeh (Boston University)
Eileen Chow (Duke University)

PROGRAM

5:00-6:30 PM

Cross-Dressing on Stage in Ming-Qing Drama
Wai-yee Li

Cross-dressing is one of the most common tropes driving the plot in late imperial plays. I focus on the examples whereby the change of costume is enacted on stage as part of theatrical action and analyze the implications of such scenes. Examples include two of Xu Wei’s short plays, The

Female Mulan (Ci Mulan) and Girl Graduate (Nü zhuangyuan), Meng Chengshun’s Chastity and Talent (Zhenwen ji), and Li Yu’s Ideal Matches (Yi zhong yuan). Are these moments of transgression or conformity? Do they really test the limits of female agency and gender boundaries? How do they compare to the theatrical alternative (i.e., not enacting the change of costume on stage)? How are they linked to a meta-theatrical consciousness?

Ah Quin and Theater Going
Nancy Rao

What could the perspective of a cook, Ah Quin, reveal about nineteenth-century Chinese theater in San Francisco? An ambitious and pragmatic laborer, he left behind eleven volumes of diaries. The Ah Quin Diary is the earliest known diary written by a Chinese immigrant in the United States. It is a rare primary source that touches on many aspects of immigrant life. Several volumes record his daily activities between 1878 and 1880—a golden era of Chinese theater.

Within these seemingly mundane entries, however, we find a close connection to Chinese theater. This paper argues that Ah Quin’s diary entries not only document the stage but also illuminate the intimate and emotional world of a Chinese immigrant navigating life in nineteenth-century San Francisco through theatergoing.

Performing Hunger: Food Economy and Activist Theatre
Daphne P. Lei

Excess and lack are two conflicting phenomena sharing an absurd co-existence in the modern world. Why do excessive consumption and information overload often leave us feeling empty and depressed? How can obesity, food waste, and hunger share the same spotlight of the “first world problem”? Do we not have enough food to eat or not have the right kind of food to nourish our body and soul? Is hunger a personal, moral, systematic, educational, or political issue? This paper targets issues about hunger, satiation, food insecurity, and economy in our society by analyzing examples from contemporary performances such as works by Kristina Wong. Theatre, especially theatre that uses alternative space, community ensemble writing and performance, and other non-conventional tactics become a new form of performative activism that is effective, affective, and even efficacious.

6:30-7:00 Discussion

7:00-7:30 Reception