Performance and Postsocialism in Postmillennial China

Condition: BRAND NEW ISBN: 9781009515948 Author(s): Rossella Ferrari Format: Paperback Year: 2025 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pages: 84 Series: Elements in Theatre, Performance and the Political

Description: This Element examines performance in postmillennial China through the lens of postsocialism. The fragmented ontology of Chinese postsocialism captures the structural contradictions of a political system that supports a neoliberal economy while continuing to promote socialist values. This study explores how the ideological ambivalence and cultural paradoxes that characterise the postsocialist condition are embodied and represented in performance. Focusing on independent practitioners and postdramatic practices, it builds on theorisations of postsocialism as a state of temporal disjunction to propose a tripartite taxonomy structured around past, present, and future temporal regimes. The categories of postsocialist hauntologies, postsocialist realisms, and postsocialist futurities are introduced to investigate performance works that respectively revisit the socialist past, document present realities, and envision future imaginations. The intersection of competing temporalities and their performative manifestations reflects the disjunctive constitution of contemporary China, where past socialist legacies and futurological ambitions coexist within a fractured postsocialist present.

BUYER OFFERS: We are a retail store with set pricing and unfortunately we can\t fulfil any requests to sell items for less than the listed price.