Women In The Wind-and-Percussion Ensembles

Female instrumental players and singers emerged in Liao Cheng (Shandong Province) after 1949. Together with the male musicians, they provide service to funerals and sacrificial rites, locally and in the surrounding districts. The emergence of female musicians is associated with the process of women's emancipation, sexual equality, political revolution and reforms to the economic system in modern China.This thesis pays particular attention to female performers in the folk wind-and-percussion ensembles by adopting a'gender'perspective. It investigates and offers a comprehensive description of their participation and performances. The research method employs oral accounts to reconstruct the history of their engagement in the originally all-male troupes, and diachronically accounts for the socio-cultural factors that affected their involvement and performances.I tried to search for the reasons behind the indispensability of female performers by taking into consideration various aspects such as their duties in ceremonial events, the division of labour between female and male musicians, the initial absence of female roles, the social responsibility of women, the transformation of the functions of wind-and-percussion ensembles and so on. I also explored how marriage has a balancing influence on the relationship between male and female performers.