EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 5 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 67 theatre, handwritten scripts and historic magazine materials, this paper attempts to reconstruct the strategies of Riguang in the intense commercial struggles of postwar gezaixi theatre. The troupe had to strategize about how to expend resources on hiring scriptwriters to produce new material, making new scenery, costume and prop designs, training rural performers and students, and sound system purchases. The diverse strategies adopted by Riguang to appeal to the sensory experience of its audiences in an atmosphere of intense competition allowed it to generate a distinct brand. Given the difficulty faced by Taiwanese troupes today in attracting audiences, Riguang’s strategies of diversification can provide a salutary lesson in innovation. Xu Meimei (University of Bonn) Identity, Mobility and Opportunism: Mooser Brothers’ Entertainment Businesses in China, 1901–1915 Key words: Mooser, Variety, Anti-American Boycott, Ching Ling Foo, late Qing Reform Little has been known about variety troupes brought in and out China around the turn of twentieth century and even lesser about variety managers and their careers in this part of world. This paper is a case study on George Mooser and Leon Mooser, the American brothers widely known as “Ching Ling Foo’s manager.” Mooser brothers travelled to China at the near end of Boxer Rebellion (ca. 1901) and energetically engaged in entertainment business thereafter. They organized two world tours for Ching Ling Foo, took over the management of Shanghai’s first amusement park “Chang Su Ho’s Gardens”, and participated in the first Chinese exposition Nan-yan Industrial Exposition at Nanjing. In this article, I will investigate on the broth- ers’ various enterprises and analyze their relationships with Manchu government, Shanghai International Settlement and Chinese audiences, focusing on strategies they adopted to mobilize social sources as well as to take advantage of their multiple identities to achieve commercial successes. The central argument is that the brothers’ venture in late Qing China is a typical but marginal one. Although they are capitalists who heavily invest in insurance and industrial businesses, their main interest remains in entertainment business, which is rare at that time. In the complicated social milieu of late Qing China, their “foreigner” identity is constantly challenged and show business’ mobility makes it difficult for them to maintain a stable social status. Their entertainment enterprise in China hence is characterized by opportunism. Yeh Catherine (Boston University) Peking Opera and Modern Dance: Mei Lanfang’s The Goddess Spreads Flowers and the Inherent Ambiguity of Modernism Key words: Peking opera, dance, Mei Lanfang, Modernism, Transcultural interaction This study focuses on the insertion of dance into Peking opera since Mei Lanfang’s 梅蘭芳 Tiannü sanhua 天女散花 in 1917. It will explore the inherent contradiction between the desire to create, on the one hand, new performing art forms which were interacting with globally shared efforts to overcome the restrictions imposed by the existing performance routines and the hierarchy among actors they supported and the need on the other hand to authenticate the new by claiming cultural continuity with a recreated past that had been lost. Specifically I will analyze the inspiration and motivation for Peking opera reform by studying the creation of dance for Tiannü sanhua by Qi Rushan 齊如山 and Mei Lanfang, the traditional and transcultural sources they drew on, and the aims they pursued. In the process I will address the specific features in the creation of this opera that were inspired by modern dance performances in Europe and Japan as well as the impact this reformed Peking opera in turn had on modern dance performances, for example by Loie Fuller, the Ballets Russes, and the Denishawn dancers. Ultimately, the hybrid artistic nature of Tiannü sanhua, which accounts for the unease among scholars in situating it within the history of Peking opera, reflects the twin nature of culture: to secure identity and authenticity while at the same time drawing on transcultural exchanges as its lifeline.