Woman Playing Man: The Practice and Politics of Women's Yue Opera in China

Performance artist and master teacher Wang Jun’an will perform excerpts from the Yue Opera Dream of the Red Chamber, followed by a hands-on workshop.

Women’s Yue Opera is an all-female Chinese theater that emerged within the context of urban popular culture in Shanghai in the early twentieth century. In 1924, a group of semi-literate female opera singers initiated and completed the transformation of Yue opera from rural entertainment to urban theater and from an all-male to all-female cast. With aesthetic innovations, commitment, and solidarity, these female opera singers traversed the boundaries of gender performance, social class, as well as rural and urban modernity. Remarkably independent, these female opera singers’ bold and strategic endeavors mark a significant episode in the history of Chinese theater, women, and China’s nascent modernity.

Exactly one hundred years later, here at Williams (Goodrich Hall), Ms. Wang Jun’an, the winner of the Plum Blossom Award and Magnolia Stage Award, will present her workshop, guiding us to a deeper appreciation of both the onstage performance and the embodied training theory that she has inherited and further developed. The workshop will include Ms. Wang’s performance of an excerpt from Dream of the Red Chamber, followed by her hands-on teaching of gestures, body movements, stylized gaits, characterization skills, and vocal presentations.

The workshop will be conducted in English. Musical and theatre experience is welcome, but not required. All that’s needed is our sincere curiosity and willingness to work together, just like those female opera singers who boldly ventured forth a century ago. Sushi and light refreshment will be served. 

This event is made possible with generous support from Gaudino Creative Residencies, the Department of Asian Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Asian Studies Program and the Class of 1960 Scholars, Asian American Studies Program, Theatre Department, Global Studies Program, Comparative Literature Program, the Lecture Committee and the Class of ’56 Fund for World Brotherhood.