Minor China: Affect, Performance, & Contemporary China in the Global by Hentyle Taiwan Yapp A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair Professor Mel Chen Professor Andrew Jones Professor Susan Kwan Spring 2014 1 Abstract Minor China: Affect, Performance, & Contemporary China in the Global by Hentyle Taiwan Yapp Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and the Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender and Sexuality University of California, Berkeley Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair In our globalized moment, cultural production emerging from China and other non-Western locations has become of central concern for critical theory, art history, and cultural studies. In order to counteract previous decontextualized and over-universalizing discussions of contemporary Chinese art, most art history, theatre, and performance studies scholars have emphasized how art and culture emerged within specific historical and political contexts. However, by repeatedly relying on contextualization, the Chinese are reproduced as lacking imagination, contradictions, and complexity. By examining the historical emergence of this discourse, I demonstrate the limits of past approaches in order to explore other methodological possibilities. In contrast to other scholars who have situated contemporary Chinese performance and art within over-determined modes of contextualization, this dissertation locates alternative methodological possibilities in affect and feelings. This project argues that historical contextualization reproduces presumptions around the Chinese state as authoritarian and its subjects as conscious actors. Thus, I develop a method called minor China that privileges the realms of affect, fantasy, and the immaterial over such presumptions. The minor, akin to the musical structure that feels melancholic and less prevalent than the major, focuses on such contours to direct attention to the assumptions that frame how we write about Chinese culture and the state. I develop the minor from the recent theoretical turns towards minor feelings and affects, from scholars such as Lauren Berlant, Sianne Ngai, Steven Shaviro, and Eve Sedgwick. As I engage these analytics for their methodological capabilities, I situate minor contours to understand what they offer for cultural and political economic analyses of China. i Table of Contents Minor China 1 Section 1: History 28 Chapter 1 – Shadows 29 Liu Ding’s Little Movements & Affect as Method Chapter 2 – Glitches & Specters (of Marx and other Martyrs with Chinese Characteristics) 47 Historical References in Feng Mengbo’s Game Over & Cao Fei’s Second Life Section 2: Institutions 61 Chapter 3 – Cybernetics & Being (Plural) Singular Plural 62 Ai Weiwei’s Fairytale, 1001 Chinese, & the Multitude Section 3: Subject & Agency 86 Intermission – Remarking 87 Tao Ye’s 4 & The Ethics of World Dance Chapter 4 – Lingering 94 Zhang Huan, He Chengyao, & Endurance Art Chapter 5 – Fabulating 112 Cao Fei & Cosplay Chapter 6 – Dying 123 The Politics of Game Over & Feng Mengbo’s Restart Conclusion – Mediation & Performance 140 Bibliography 151 ii Acknowledgements As a dancer, I have always identified with choreographic practice and performance because one generally has the option to reenact a choreographic structure each time one performs. Choreography involves a series of redos, restarts, and reperformances. Thus, it is with trepidation that I engage the form of the dissertation, with its sense of finality through the act of filing. The choreographic form with its restarts seems more appropriate for a project that has involved long-term and collective labor, interaction, and experimentation. A part of this collective was the artists that I interviewed; I am thankful for their generosity, time, and openness to my inquiries as a fan and scholar. My committee has pushed me more than any other dance partners I’ve encountered, including gravity. Shannon Jackson graciously guided this project with gravity’s invisible ease and constant presence throughout the research and writing process. Andrew Jones catalyzed many of the initial sparks of my, at times, unruly imagination. Mel Chen has become a feral companion. SanSan Kwan has lent a rigorous yet gracious model of academic performance within which I improvise. The intellectual community at Berkeley has become the buoyant force that has balanced the careful precision of my committee. Many thanks to Juana Rodriguez, Leti Volpp, Sue Schweik, Brandi Catanese, Gail DeKosnik, Robin Davidson, Michael Mansfield, Paul Rabinow, Winnie Wong, Aihwa Ong, Jenefer Johnson, Lisa Wymore, Catherine Cole, Shannon Steen, and Peter Glazer for being part of this balance. Ivan Rámos is my intellectual sibling, a role that includes not only theoretical engagement but also constant annoyances, inappropriate laughs, and committed friendship. In addition, I must similarly thank Tadashi Dozono, Ragini Srinivasan, Corey Byrnes, Katrina Dodson, Sophia Wang, Paige Johnson, Megan Hoetger, Kate Duffly, Kate Kokontis, Ashley Ferro-Murray, Sima Belmar, Caitlin Marshall, Scott Wallin, Karin Shankar, Heather Rastovac, and Omar Ricks for their time and care. Thank you to Marcia, Neetu, Megan, and Jesús who are in the rare category of friends who “happen” to be academics. For my friends who are not technically academics (but are certainly as, if not more, intellectually engaging), thank you for the meals, care, and laughs that have made this writing process a way to live and thrive. Part of this network is Alec who has made the latter part of dissertating invigorating, pleasurable, and hopeful. Although my parents will most likely never read the words below, I am forever grateful for repeatedly taking that chubby child to the public library rather than forcing him to join the other boys doing sports. And to my four siblings, I am grounded by your skepticism and nourished by your care. This project could not have occurred without the generous funding and support from the University of California Dissertation Completion and Normative Time Fellowships, the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies, the Program in Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for China Studies’ Liu Graduate Research Fellowship, and Chengchi University’s Doctoral Workshop. 1 MINOR CHINA In Kill (the) TV Set (2013), two black and white videos simultaneously play for about three minutes in a large dark space. One is a reperformance of “Charlotte Moorman with Human Cello,” where Moorman simulates playing John Cage’s “26’ 1.1499” (1955) across Nam June Paik’s back. In the original piece, their semi-naked bodies face each other, while Paik holds a string across his back. In the reperformance, the artist Yan Xing, dressed in a white collared button down and black trousers, stands in a similar position to Charlotte, while an African actor sits facing Yan Xing in the same semi-formal attire. Yan Xing’s face peers deeply into the space directly in front of him, while he lightly caresses his bow across the string held by the actor. The other video features a direct shot of a bonsai tree that Yan Xing groomed for a year before the shoot. In between shots of the bonsai, the screen flashes, in bold white letters, the following sequence: “Kill,” “(the),” and “TV-Set.” Both of Yan Xing’s videos run in silence. Although this dissertation analyzes contemporary Chinese performance-based practices spanning from the 1980’s to the early 2010’s, I begin with this more recent piece as it brings many of my methodological, artistic, and critical concerns to the fore. Such concerns circulate around global art, specifically how non-Western art is discussed in relation to the contemporary, modern, and aesthetic. By focusing on examples from contemporary Chinese art practices, this dissertation expands the ways in which the non-Western other is approached and understood within increased global circulation. In particular, I work through questions surrounding 1) method, 2) context, and 3) media to augment our current approaches to non-Western contemporary art. My first concern is about method. What methodological approaches are most appropriate in understanding the dynamics of this work? Is symbolic analysis enough to capture the relationship amongst bodies, objects, and audiences? For example, one could write about the bodies as symbolic representations of global relationships between Yan Xing from China and his African counterpart. These types of analyses rely upon a representational method that captures bodies as knowable objects. However, the slow video produces a sense of instability that cannot be captured solely by representational analysis. References to Nam June Paik’s iconic work, along with a queer sense of relationality between bodies, punctuate the slow pace of the work. What other interpretive methods might capture this instability and unique dimension in Yan Xing’s art? Second, in what contexts does this work arise? How can and should we situate an artist operating within a global art market, while simultaneously working in Beijing? Previous accounts of contemporary Chinese art have emphasized the role of globalization in the aesthetic production of these artists. One could posit that Yan Xing, who was born in 1986, grew up in an increasingly global world unhindered by the “legacy”