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I am a Professor of Chinese Studies in the Department of East Asian Studies. I hold a BA and MA (Laurea summa cum laude) from the University of Venice and an MA and PhD from SOAS University of London, where I taught before joining the University of Vienna. I specialize in the performance cultures of the Chinese-speaking world. In "Pop Goes the Avant-garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China" (2012), I propose the concept of “pop avant-garde” to understand aesthetic and power relationships between performance, politics, and economics in postsocialist China. Research on Hong Kong’s collective, Zuni Icosahedron, has led me to explore connections between theatre and other disciplines (e.g. film, architecture, visual arts) and to think through the idea of what I call “Xiqu 2.0”, namely, how classical performance genres interact with new techniques and technologies. I have drawn on Asia-focused methodologies to formulate the notion of “Asian theatre as method”, which wishes to destabilize Western-centred approaches to intercultural analysis while investigating processes of informal reconciliation through the arts. My third monograph, "Transnational Chinese Theatres: Intercultural Performance Networks in East Asia" (2020), explores transnational performance networks in the contemporary Sinosphere and across East Asia to see how contested historical memories and socio-political conflicts have been tackled collectively and comparatively through intercultural collaboration. Another book, "Asian City Crossings: Pathways of Performance Through Hong Kong and Singapore" (2021, co-edited with Ashley Thorpe) proposes the notion of “city as method” to look at city-to-city networks centred on Hong Kong and Singapore. I have also researched strategies of intertextuality and adaptation between Chinese, Asian, and global performance cultures (e.g. Latin America), and I am currently working on a new long-term project on “performing postsocialism" in 21st century China.

Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften

Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2 (Campus)
1090 Wien
Zimmer: 2F-O1-03.A

T: +43-1-4277-43854
F: +43-1-4277-843854

rossella.ferrari@univie.ac.at