Cross-Gender China

Across Yin-Yang, Across Cultures, and Beyond Jingju

Huai Bao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351674713
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Cross-Gender China, the outcome of more than twenty years of theatrical and sociological research, deconstructs the cultural implications of cross-gender performance in today's China.

The recent revival in male-to-female cross-gender nandan performance in Chinese theatre raises a multitude of questions: it may suggest new gender dynamics, or new readings of old aesthetic traditions in new socio-cultural contexts. Interrogating the positions of the gender being performed and the gender doing the performing, this volume gives a broad cultural account of the contexts in which this unique performance style has found new life.

1 Introduction

I believe that I should begin with a brief self-introduction. My name is Huai Bao. I have also used the pen name, H. B. Dhawa, for some of my earlier publications on spirituality. Born in a military family in Xuzhou, China, I have lived, studied and worked in China, Canada and the USA. I worked for many years between my master’s degree and Ph.D., and in different industry sectors. Although I have been told that I may have lost a certain degree of competitivity due to my age when I entered the academic job market after completing my Ph.D., in those years, I gained a bit more of history and a bit more of wisdom, as well as extensive social and professional experiences, from which my later research in social sciences and the humanities has benefitted greatly.

My research requires extensive fieldwork and deals with histories, cultures, societies, religions and humans, using gender and sexuality as central terms for analysis. Having interviewed a large number of people, I believe that qualitative interviews are more important to me than large-scale surveys to help me find out “truth” as well as “facts.”

Before settling into academia, I worked in popular media in China for several years and even became an independent filmmaker. In addition to a few short films, in 2009, I wrote, produced and directed one full-length feature film based on a true story featuring a friend of mine who also became one of my interviewees for this book. Through these experiences, I gained more insight into humans as gendered and sexual beings, became interested in studying humans and eventually decided to land a career in academia.

As a keen reader of Jungian psychoanalysis, I have trained in hypnotherapy in the USA, and I am currently conducting case studies on age and past-life regressions exploring retrieved memories of gender-related trauma.

Envisioning a wide range of research interests, I chose to begin my doctoral work in gender studies. I was drawn to it primarily because I had always felt that though in scholarship gender as a social category had been discussed frequently, the role that gender played in one’s individuation as well as the collective human psyche had been greatly ignored or underestimated. We know that gender makes us who we are, but it does not just make us male or female; it also shapes our destiny and leads our trajectory. The making of gender is a part of the natural process for the integration of the psyche. Gendered qualities, which are integrated into the whole personality through imagination, association, assimilation and sythesization, make us the psychological individuals we are. In fact, the entire process of gendered individuation, albeit ever incomplete, is a conscious or unconscious struggle with imagined gendered archetypes in the ego to become the Self.

My study is set in jingju — also known as Beijing Opera or Peking Opera — the most representative genre of xiqu¹ because I find that jingju offers a perfect context for studying gender issues through negotiating the interplay between reality and theatricality, and between its historical glory, disappearance and contemporary revival. It is an epitome of the larger world of gender spectrum; it answers many questions that have confused and frustrated us as subjects or observers, and yet raises new questions, rendering gender studies a sustainable field of research.

This text is the outcome of 22 years of theatrical, sociological and socio-psychological research as well as journalistic experiences with several generations of nandan artists — male-to-female cross-gender performers of jingju. Notably, since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), nandan performers were no longer trained officially. In recent years, however, there have been quite a number of newly emerged nandan performers along with cross-gender performers of other forms, signifying a vibrant revival of the nandan art.

The nandan art has raised numerous questions prior to this study revolving around the making of gender, both onstage and offstage, and of desires deeply reflected in practice that almost always go unnoticed. If the nandan art is perceived as a stylized male construct of women rather than a mere mimetic practice intended to produce an intelligible reflection of reality, then what is the original referent of the female gender for the construction? If it is simply a conscious mimicry of women, then what is the prototype for the stylized conventions that define and distinguish the female gender from the male one? If all performers follow the same stylized conventions, why are some accepted by audience members as producing high culture while others end up exposing themselves to ridicule and laughter? How much unconscious mimicry does a performer bring to his performance out of his own gender identity or sense of gendered self? How much of a psychological hurdle (if any) does the performer’s male gender identity cause to his performance? Conversely, how much does the reiteration of the cross-gender performance affect or shape the performer’s gender identity? Is there really no pre-existing gender identity? If gender is a process, instead of a stable essence, is it constructed at the same time as the personal identity in its totality is formed? If it comes afterwards, when does gender identity become an integral part of personal identity or first-person perspective? And if household labour pre-eminently and fundamentally constitutes the routine production of gender, as believed by most sociologists, what else contributes to the making of what is socially, culturally and politically perceived as gender? If gender has been discursively produced, reiterated and socially constructed into a fixed pattern, why do we see cross-gender practice cross-culturally and trans-historically not only as a theatrical technique but also a socio-psychological phenomenon? Why has this tradition not totally perished from the patriarchal societies where women were kept off the stage? Why is it reappearing vibrantly and unabashedly when cross-gender performance is no longer a theatrical norm? Does this reappearance reflect a desire to seek transgressive pleasure, which may not be so restricted in theatre, which by itself may serve as a means of self-justification? Is there such a desire in our lived realities and among human beings in general? The prefix “cross-” suggests a kind of fluidity within the gender spectrum, signifying transgression across established boundaries. This gender transgression exists everywhere and elsewhere, extending from its most representational form in theatre and other media, such as film and television, to our lived realities, disrupting societal or cultural norms, mobilizing the imaginative and creating a new reality.

My study goes beyond cross-gender performance in xiqu to its relational extension into realities during the contemporary revival, as theatre is a means, via anti-mimetic theatricalizations of cross-gender performance, for us to rethink the hegemonic epistemologies of sex and gender. The revival has become phenomenal. Sun Peihong (1947–), an adjunct professor at the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts (NACTA) (Zhongguo xiqu xueyuan) and a former xiaosheng² performer with China’s National Jingju Theatre (guojia jingju yuan) observes that after decades of absence from the stage, nandan performers in jingju “are increasing rapidly, more and more are being trained” (Interview, 2012). In particular, my study focuses on historical and cultural studies of the nandan tradition and its vibrant revival during the last few decades. Much scholarship has been done on cross-gender performance, but little on its revival. As such, scholars have concentrated on the male-to-female cross-gender performance that was set in historically patriarchal Chinese society, but have largely ignored the revival of the tradition in present-day China, where women are actively involved in all theatrical activities, playing legitimately female roles that no longer have to be done by their male counterparts. The ongoing revival has also raised numerous questions, after such a long time of disappearance from most stages across China. Female performers of female roles, known as nüdan or kundan as opposed to nandan or qiandan,³ have emerged, flourished and replaced most of the nandan performers who had been active before the PRC’s ban on the cross-gender performance, and many of them have achieved artistic perfection and secured their position on the jingju stage. What then has triggered the contemporary revival of the nandan art? What is validating this revival? Have there been any voices from above that sought to justify the necessity and legitimacy of the revival? How do these newly emerged nandan performers foresee their future careers? Do they encounter more or fewer institutional obstacles nowadays than before? Do they have any concerns about the public or state attitudes? Do they have sufficient opportunities to appear on the stage? Is the revival creating any competition between nandan and kundan? How do kundan performers see the revival of nandan and their nandan counterparts? And does their perception of their nandan counterparts mingle with their reverence towards the renowned nandan masters from the older generations, especially the Four Great Dan⁴ in Republican China (1912–49)?

The revival does not mean that the nandan art will regain its past glamour, glory and male dominance of the dan roles in jingju from that historical era when women were not allowed onstage. It may suggest, however, new readings of the old aesthetic tradition in a new socio-cultural and political context, as well as new discoveries with respect to the gender dynamics within the practice enabled by our cognitive progress. The revival also requires analytical positioning of the gender performed and the gender performing.

Additionally, I will examine yueju (Yue Opera or Shaoxing Opera), which is a gendered parallel to jingju, given its predominantly all-female casting. Yueju has experienced a “roller-coaster” journey from its original all-male casting, to male-and-female mixed casting and, finally, to its contemporary nearly all-female status under Western-influenced feminism in Republican China, then Maoist feminism in the PRC and its own naturalized feminine aesthetic mechanism, suggesting a gendered accommodation to its aesthetic specificity. The normalization of all-female yueju indicates that femininity in male characters constructed through female impersonation by males is more acceptable in the public eye than male femininity, even when manifested unconsciously, in reality. In examining the revival of all-female yueju, we will be able to find out how and why it has undergone far fewer institutional obstacles than has been the case with the revival of the nandan art of jingju, all of which points to the drastically different societal and institutional tolerance levels of female masculinity and male femininity.

The revival of nandan in jingju during the last few decades is not a singular case. It is also interesting to note that almost simultaneously Western societies have experienced an unprecedented revival in the cross-gender casting of Shakespeare’s plays, where actors play the opposite sex. Male-to-female cross-gender practice in Shakespeare’s plays seeks to advocate “historical authenticity” in male actors’ construction of femininity and creation of “double consciousness” of “old and new” and “then and now” (Conkie, 2008, 190). Both male-to-female and female-to-male cross-gender productions have come back to the stage, echoing their Eastern parallels, jingju and yueju. I see this as an interesting intersection of a globalized trend that establishes grounds for part of my argument: behind the advocacy of return to “historic authenticity” lies a re-discovered transgressive potential that puts the theatre and other media at the forefront of the political agenda envisioned for its execution. I describe this potential as “transgressive” because given women’s status onstage, the subject is not actually following current norms regardless of the normative status of male-to-female cross-gender performance in history. As one of my interviewees has said, “We say in public that [male-to-female cross-gender performance] is and should be normal and authentic, but we are pretty clear that it is not; and that’s why it has been so difficult” (Sun, interview, 2014).

Historically, nandan performers in jingju were following the law, not transgressing it. The nandan students and performers who have emerged especially during this past decade, however, seem to be giving a transgressive meaning to the revival. Cross-gender performance is simply one of the “symptoms” of the transgressive instinct, while theatre has created a safe space for its presentation. I have, therefore, coined the term “transgressionism” to define this instinct and desire to transgress, drawing on behavioural studies and socio-psychology. This term, along with a grouping of ideas, may contest modern beliefs and classifications of gender and sexual deviance, with a strategic significance in building a more inclusive coalition of sexual minorities.

As a particular gendered culture has long shaped its people’s attitudes towards gender patterns, my research will first examine the gendered aesthetic tradition in the history of jingju. The larger part will be based on qualitative analysis of the aesthetic tradition of the nandan in jingju and the recurring nandan and male-and-female mixed casting. I will also review comparable revival trends in other theatrical traditions globally (Conkie, 189–209, Rose, 210–30 and Bulman, 231–45). While all-male casting in the early modern period was partly a means of policing gender norms,⁵ the revival of the cross-gender performance tradition is underlined by a revolution of rediscovering genders and gendered behaviours, sexual orientation, sexual desire, transgressive potential and feminism. This study will be an original contribution that will also deconstruct the cultural implications behind the revival, interrogating the constructedness and performativity of gender. While my work is chiefly concerned with the interpretation of the revival of that tradition under the influence of queer theory ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Cultural Obsession
• 3 Mao’s “Gender Trouble”
• 4 The Revival
• 5 The New Generation
• 6 Rebel or Follow
• 7 Conclusion
• References
• Appendix A: major interview questions
• Appendix B: list of interviewees
• Appendix C: glossary
• Index