Presented By: Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies
LRCCS Noon Lecture Series | Zoom Webinar: "Cold War Counterpublics and the Ghosts of Pan-Asianism: The Japanese Matsuyama Ballet’s 1958 White-Haired Girl Tour in China"
Emily Wilcox, Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Studies, Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Michigan
The Fall 2020 lecture series will be only available on-line as a Zoom webinar.
In 1958, the Matsuyama Ballet of Japan toured the first ever ballet adaptation of the classic Chinese land reform opera "The White-Haired Girl" in China. Examining Chinese-language sources such as newspaper and magazine reviews and rare original programs held in the University of Michigan Asia Library's Chinese Dance Collection, Professor Wilcox reconstructs the circulation and reception of this work in China, arguing that the production represented an attempt to create a leftist Sino-Japanese counter-public at a time of Cold War tensions between the two countries. She suggests that the Japanese ballet dancers' cross-ethnic performances of Chinese characters critically reconfigured pre-1945 Japanese imperialist discourses of pan-Asianism, leading them to be interpreted as acts of inter-ethnic solidarity in the context of 1950s Asian internationalism.
Emily Wilcox is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. She is the author of "Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy" (University of California Press, 2019, winner of the de la Torre Bueno Prize from the Dance Studies Association) and co-editor of "Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia" (University of Michigan Press, 2020). Her articles, in English and Chinese, have appeared in "China Perspectives," "Inter-Asia Cultural Studies," "The Journal of Asian Studies," positions: asia critique, "TDR: The Drama Review," "Asian Theatre Journal," "The Journal of the Beijing Dance Academy," "Dance Review," and other venues.
Registration required. Zoom Registration Link: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hXiihGy0Qj2Qh8dYZeJ10g
In 1958, the Matsuyama Ballet of Japan toured the first ever ballet adaptation of the classic Chinese land reform opera "The White-Haired Girl" in China. Examining Chinese-language sources such as newspaper and magazine reviews and rare original programs held in the University of Michigan Asia Library's Chinese Dance Collection, Professor Wilcox reconstructs the circulation and reception of this work in China, arguing that the production represented an attempt to create a leftist Sino-Japanese counter-public at a time of Cold War tensions between the two countries. She suggests that the Japanese ballet dancers' cross-ethnic performances of Chinese characters critically reconfigured pre-1945 Japanese imperialist discourses of pan-Asianism, leading them to be interpreted as acts of inter-ethnic solidarity in the context of 1950s Asian internationalism.
Emily Wilcox is Associate Professor of Modern Chinese Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan. She is the author of "Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy" (University of California Press, 2019, winner of the de la Torre Bueno Prize from the Dance Studies Association) and co-editor of "Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia" (University of Michigan Press, 2020). Her articles, in English and Chinese, have appeared in "China Perspectives," "Inter-Asia Cultural Studies," "The Journal of Asian Studies," positions: asia critique, "TDR: The Drama Review," "Asian Theatre Journal," "The Journal of the Beijing Dance Academy," "Dance Review," and other venues.
Registration required. Zoom Registration Link: https://umich.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hXiihGy0Qj2Qh8dYZeJ10g
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