A queer feminist anthropologist exploring the realities of culture, gender, and sexuality in contemporary Asia
I was born in China. It is in China I must be reborn as a woman. Jin Xing was the first transgender person to undergo sex reassignment surgery in China with government approval, and the first whose sex change was officially recognized by the Chinese government. As a boy, Jin had an affinity for dancing and soon [...]
National Ballet of China’s The Chinese New Year, a Chinese adaptation of the Christmas classic The Nutcracker, is without a doubt the most extravagant celebration of the national holiday that anyone could hope for. Using the original Tchaikovsky score, this version was choreographed in 2010. One wonders how Petipa and Tchaikovsky would feel about The Dance of [...]
Unlike some contemporary Giselle being performed in the West, National Ballet of China’s version harks back to the delicacy and romance of the 1841 original. The choreography performed at Beijing’s NCPA last Friday was strikingly beautiful, wonderfully capturing the profound emotion of the piece. This performance resonated profoundly; National Ballet of China set the bar [...]
Last Friday, a first blanket of snow covered Beijing for a few hours. I was safely tucked away, out of the cold, in a classroom on the third floor, overlooking the university's playing fields. The more curious of the class peered out of the windows at the heavy dollops of snow coming down past the silvery trees [...]
What time is it? It's Chinese Dentist Time! When I was a kid, just as ten to ten became Cowboy Time (ten to ten to ten ten ten..., two thirty became tooth hurty - Chinese Dentist Time. It was years before I realised the racism of this joke. But it has nonetheless been circling my head for the [...]
Dance is one of the major loves of my life. It is my therapy. It gives me focus and energy. It calms me down. It is always there when I need it. I can find the soothing power of movement within me wherever I have a little free space and time. Thus I have long [...]
Beijing Dance / LTDX premiered Earth / Quake, a contemporary dance work by well-known traditional Chinese choreographer Yang Wei at the People’s Liberation Army Theater last week to a noticeably mixed and highly enthusiastic crowd of foreigners and locals alike. This is the first time Yang has done a modern dance piece, announced good-humoured Artistic Director [...]
At five past three (China time) today, I saw some fantastic news, via the Guardian's breaking news app: Myanmar elections: ruling party concedes defeat to Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party This was the best news I could possibly imagine. I shared it. But I knew it was too good, or at least too fast, [...]
Tao Dance Theatre left their Beijing audience dumbfounded last Thursday evening with a performance of weight x 3 and 2 at the NCPA. Tao Dance Theatre quickly became internationally famous, but it took a little time before they gained recognition in China. So it is a big deal for Tao to be performing in China. Plus this [...]
On the second night of San Francisco Ballet’s second visit to Beijing, the American ballet company treated their Chinese audience to a varied programme in four parts. Tomasson’s own Caprice opened the event, followed by Christopher Wheeldon’s Rush and Hans van Manen’s Variations for Two Couples, finally closing the evening with George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations. [...]
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