Feminism and androgyny: Gender politics in contemporary classical Chinese opera
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Keywords

doubleness
feminism
androgyny
fandom
queer sensibility
classical Chinese opera

How to Cite

Xu, L. (2025). Feminism and androgyny: Gender politics in contemporary classical Chinese opera. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 43(43), 12–25. https://doi.org/10.26034/cm.jostrans.2025.6941

Abstract

This article explores gender politics in China through the intersection of feminism and androgyny in contemporary classical Chinese opera, focusing on how gender fluidity and feminist representation on the contemporary xiqu stage create the conditions of connection with new audiences today. The discussion focuses on two examples, firstly, feminism in Amy Ng’s translation of Rescuing one’s sister in the wind and dust (2021) and, secondly, the androgynous body in the all-female Yue Opera productions New Dragon Gate Inn (2023) and Coriolanus and Du Liniang (2016). It investigates how translation and performance as representational forms interrogate entrenched gender norms, and engage with themes of marked relevance today, such as domestic violence and the commodification of women’s bodies. In particular, gendered representation in xiqu not only provides an aesthetic revival of the past, but also subtly contests the perceived binary of traditional gender constructions by establishing portals of relatedness between past and present, both of which are unfixed and destabilised by the way in which these performance traffic in simultaneity. By exploiting connections across different temporal layers, these forms can enable feminism and a queer sensibility to permeate contemporary performances of classical Chinese art, enriching the current discourse available for promoting gender politics within this particular socio-cultural framework in (but not limited to) China.

https://doi.org/10.26034/cm.jostrans.2025.6941
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Copyright (c) 2025 Lisha Xu