Performance and Postsocialism in Postmillennial China

Author(s)

Rossella Ferrari

Abstract

This Element examines performance in postmillennial China through the lens of postsocialism. The fragmented ontology of Chinese postsocialism captures the structural contradictions of a political system that supports a neoliberal economy while continuing to promote socialist values. This study explores how the ideological ambivalence and cultural paradoxes that characterise the postsocialist condition are embodied and represented in performance. Focusing on independent practitioners and postdramatic practices, it builds on theorisations of postsocialism as a state of temporal disjunction to propose a tripartite taxonomy structured around past, present, and future temporal regimes. The categories of postsocialist hauntologies, postsocialist realisms, and postsocialist futurities are introduced to investigate performance works that respectively revisit the socialist past, document present realities, and envision future imaginations. The intersection of competing temporalities and their performative manifestations reflects the disjunctive constitution of contemporary China, where past socialist legacies and futurological ambitions coexist within a fractured postsocialist present.

Organisation(s)

Department of East Asian Studies

Publication date

09-2024

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

604029 Theatre studies, 602045 Sinology

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Visual Arts and Performing Arts

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/performance-and-postsocialism-in-postmillennial-china(88a764cc-76ee-42d2-b24d-1607579afd41).html