Event

Lasting from the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 to the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the Mao era is often misunderstood as a time of “isolation” and “closing off from the world.” On the contrary, as I demonstrate in this study, Mao’s China was a place seething with new international connections and rapidly evolving visions of the world and China’s place in it. These connections, moreover, were not limited to the socialist world but stretched far beyond, engaging diverse artistic communities in countries across the political spectrum. In this talk, I examine China’s international dance exchanges and internationally themed choreographies inspired by these exchanges that took place in China during the 1950s and 1960s. From tours by Mexican modern dancers and British and Japanese ballet dancers in the 1950s to a Chinese dance drama about the US Civil Rights Movement inspired by visits of African American activists, these encounters challenge us to rethink current understandings of the circuits of cultural exchange during the Cold War, as well as China’s artists’ conceptions of and access to the wider world during this period.