Performing Poetry on the Intermedial Stage: Flowers in the Mirror, Moon on the Water, and Beijing Avant-Garde Theatre in the New Millennium

Abstract

Within a fast-changing political and cultural environment, theatre practitioners from mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan attest to equally rapid transformations in the theatrical world over the past two decades. The first collection of its kind in English, Staging China explores a diverse range of productions that has encapsulated these socio-cultural shifts. Topics discussed include: innovative approaches to classical plays, the emergence of new propaganda theatres, responses to the challenges posed by commercialism, and the contribution of independent theatres to the cultural landscape. Taken together, this rich collection of essays shows how "spoken drama" has grown from an imported Western genre into a modern theatre deeply rooted in the Chinese soil.