Shifting Gender Roles: Male Dan in Chinese Theatre
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Shifting Gender Roles: Male Dan in Chinese Theatre Chao Guo A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History University of Otago, Dunedin October, 2018 This is dedicated to Zhang Lifang 張立芳 (1935–24 October 2018), my grandfather, who passed away on the day of submission of this thesis. He created for me the brightest childhood life. i ABSTRACT In this thesis I examine male dan, male actors who perform female roles in Chinese theatre. I argue that due to the function of theatre as a key site of public discourse, the rise and fall of male dan actors illustrates changes in the social zeitgeist of China, especially the politics of gender and sexuality. The rise to prominence of male dan actors during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1636–1911) dynasties was partly due to their artistry, but it also reflected a homoerotic sensibility amongst the scholar-élite and well-off patrons. Following the fall of the Qing dynasty male dan came to be seen as remnants of the past. In response, prominent male dan and their supporters redefined the role and developed its artistry, making the female roles in jingju accord with their ideal of “new women.” Their use of qiao, or stilted footwear, was an integral part of this redefinition of the role, but following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China this became the focus for renewed attacks on male dan. The Chinese Communist Party equated qiao with bound feet, a “feudal” remnant that had no place in the new China. The Party-State fostered a rigid gender hierarchy that constrained the space for male dan, and it was only by “aestheticizing” the cross-dressing integral to their artistry that they have been able to escape the accusation that their artistry is nothing more than a manifestation of deviance. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I gratefully acknowledge the wholehearted support of my primary supervisor, Professor Brian Moloughney, with thanks for the considerable time and energy that he has put into my PhD study over the past three years. He has generously provided insightful feedbacks to my thesis, and painstakingly revised numerous versions of it. Without the profound knowledge and selfless help of him this thesis would never take shape. I must also express my appreciation to my secondary supervisor, Professor Stuart Young, who has given many constructive suggestions on my chapters notwithstanding his involvement in administrative affairs. I am grateful to the administration team, Sue Lang, Katherine Caderas, and Peter Cadogan, for their friendly support. I am also grateful to Professor Takashi Shogimen, the Head of Department, and Professor Angela McCarthy and Associate Professor John Stenhouse, the Chairs of Postgraduate Study, for their advice when I turned to them for unexpected difficulties that occurred during my study. I am indebted to Professor Ruru Li, who helped me develop networking in the jingju domain. I have also been fortunate to know Dr. Wei Feng, Dr. Josh Stenberg, Professor Junpeng Li, and Assistant Professor Hiu-Yu Cheung, who generously shared with me their valuable experience on both my research and career. I am also thankful that my friends Rui Dai and Liming Jiao have been the first readers of my thesis voluntarily ever since 2015, when I was still a postgraduate student at Beijing Normal University and applying iii for the opportunity to study at the University of Otago. I have been fortunate to secure funding for my PhD study under the auspices of the University of Otago Doctoral Scholarship. I was also sponsored by the Department of History and Art History and the Division of Humanities so that I was able to conduct my fieldwork in China and attend a conference in Hong Kong. My thanks also go to the staff at National Beijing Opera Company and Shanghai Jingju Theatre Company, where I had the privilege of doing archive work in the winter of 2017, as well as all the jingju professionals that I interviewed over the course of my research, primarily in June and July, 2017, which were also followed up by conversations by distance. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my family and friends, and in particular my parents and grandparents, who encouraged me to pursue my dream in a distant country. My thanks extend to my office friends that I made the acquaintance of in 2015, Dr. Catherine Cooper, Dr. Armando Alfaro, Sophie Gilmore, and Radhika Raghav, who became my first friends in Dunedin. Also, thanks to my other office friends, Inano Walter, Alexander Dickie, Dorothy McManamin, Violeta Gilabert, Claire Macindoe, Peita Ferens-Green, Michelle Moffat, and Jeffrey Roger, whose kind support and warm encouragement helped me enormously in different stages of my candidature. Last but not the least, I would also like to offer my thanks to Dr. Weiwei Zhang, Zhe Ji, and Timothy McRobbie, for all the love and care they has shown to me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION. Chinese Theatre and Male Dan ......................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE. Practising Homoeroticism: The Rise of Male Dan Actors in the Ming and Qing Periods ......................................................................................................... 37 CHAPTER TWO. Light from the West(?): The Recreation of Tradition ................ 88 CHAPTER THREE. Reinventing Disciplinary Femininity: Traditions and Innovations of Male Dan Actors ....................................................................................... 136 CHAPTER FOUR. Virtuosic Artistry or “Feudal Remnants”?: the Use and Prohibition of Stilts in Chinese Theatre ......................................................................... 176 CHAPTER FIVE. Reconstructing Chinese Masculinity: The Prohibition of Male Dan Actors ................................................................................................................................ 208 CHAPTER SIX. A Millennial Predicament: Male Dan Actors in a Homophobic Country ...................................................................................................................................... 247 CONCLUSION. Male Dan Actors and Chinese Society in Transition.................. 287 GLOSSARY OF CHINESE TERMS ..................................................................................... 294 APPENDIX. The Musical Dimension of Jingju ............................................................. 303 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 309 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Jinghu 京胡 ····························································································· 172 Figure 2 Meng Jinbang 孟金榜, in Yanmen Pass ··············································· 173 Figure 3 Shang Xiaoyun 尚小雲, in Shelter in a Mulberry Garden ·················· 174 Figure 4 Mei Lanfang 梅蘭芳, in The Regrets of Life and Death ······················· 175 Figure 5 Ying qiao 硬蹻 ························································································ 206 Figure 6 The way to use ying qiao ······································································· 206 Figure 7 Bi Guyun 畢谷雲, in Visiting the Grave ··············································· 207 Figure 8 Wen Ruhua 溫如華 and Zhang Junqiu 張君秋 ······························· 243 Figure 9 Yang Chunxia 楊春霞, in Azalea Mountain ········································ 244 Figure 10 Wen Ruhua smoking in full dan costume ········································ 245 Figure 11 Wang Peiyu 王珮瑜 ············································································ 246 vi INTRODUCTION Chinese Theatre and Male Dan This thesis focuses on male dan, male actors who perform female roles in Chinese theatre (xiqu 戲曲). By exploring Chinese history through the lens of male dan, I intend to analyse the evolution of jingju (Beijing/Peking Opera) artistry, as well as examine the politics of gender and sexuality in China from the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644) down to the present. As one of the most popular forms of entertainment for Chinese people, theatre has been “a key site” of public discourse.1 It was a place where different voices, derived both from the lower levels of society and promulgated by the court and the local élites conflicted. Successive generations of rulers strove to exert their influence over the theatre, transforming it into a highly politicised medium through which they could promulgate their ideological concerns and pragmatic demands across all social, cultural, and political levels. At the same time, as Andrea S. Goldman argues, the theatre was able to “upset social hierarchies” by making “men of means and privilege vulnerable to the charms of lowly cross-dressing boy actresses.”2 Therefore, theatre can be considered as a bellwether for Chinese society, and the issue of male dan provides a lens through which we can explore Chinese understanding of gender and sexuality. 1 Andrea S. Goldman, Opera and the City: The Politics of Culture in Beijing 1770–1900 (California: Stanford University Press, 2012), 14. 2 Goldman, Opera and the City, 13. 1 Many actors performed dual roles, both as performers and prostitutes (or courtesans). A majority of the male dan actors in the Ming and Qing were forced to serve well-off patrons as social companions and sometimes as sexual partners. As they were primarily “consumed” by people