Staging traditional Chinese opera in the reform era: Conflicting local identities in modernization

This dissertation discusses the reinvention of "traditional" local Chinese opera in the context of national market reforms and modernization policies. All aspects of this process are examined, from the ways "traditional" local operas replaced the socialist operas of the Cultural Revolution, to the responses of local audiences to opera performances in light of opera as a contradictory marker of local identity and a tool for state nationalization projects. The reform era, which started in 1979, followed thirty years of socialist-era control of cultural production. Today, as a banner of "traditional" culture, local opera was both honored and reviled by different participants in the transformation toward modernity. Anxiety about "modern" or "backward" or "feudal" identities was intensified by the propaganda in opera content, while the occasions for performances revealed competing experiences among participants, including the sponsors, audience, and performers. Even within the troupes, among the leaders and corps members, interpretations differed as to whether opera was "educational" or "backward." The most important index of division in the experience of opera was generational. Appreciation for opera varied among generations because they grew up under profoundly differing political circumstances: the pre-socialist era, the socialist era, and the reform era. In the relatively more relaxed reform era, the significance to local audiences of revived, edited "traditional" opera was in producing an identity separate from the Party.;This study adds to understandings of Asian transformation to modernity by showing how a folk performance was shaped by particular historical and cultural processes. Contradictions in Asian modernity show that it does not correspond to Western expectations of a general transformation. The "traditional" aspects of local Chinese opera were not consistent in form or ideology and were used to claim an identity in the present. Similarly, the ways in which modernity in opera varied reveal contradictions in historical experiences and reform era experiences and in relationships to the Party.