Linking Violence and Sexuality in Revolutionary China: Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军 1964) Katheryn M. Linduff

Abstract

The modern Chinese revolutionary dance drama, Red Detachment of Women, was created in 1964 under the guidance of Chairman Mao’s teaching on literature and art “…to make the past serve the present and the foreign serve China”[1].  Under the personal direction of Comrade Jiang Qing, its plot and staging were boasted as an antidote to the fierce struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between socialism and capitalism.  The Red Detachment of Women describes the birth, growth and maturing of a women’s company of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army on Hainan Island during the Second Revolutionary Civil War (1927-1937).  The plot praises the Party representative’s revolutionary spirit and towering heroism and a poor peasant girl’s loyalty to the revolution, her refusal to submit to the cruel oppression of the despot landlord, and her resolve to join the Red Army.  As one of the eight model plays developed during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Red Detachment glorified the potency of the new communist social policies.

 In this period of dramatic change, the struggle of the people, including their militarization and its byproduct, the call to violence, were valorized symbolically through appropriation of the ‘foreign’ and the feminization of gallantry and bravery.  Orchestras played Western musical-style scores with western musical instruments to accompany performances using Hainanese themes and vocal forms; peasant women were transformed into soldiers equipped with rifles and handguns of ‘foreign’ Russian manufacture.  This essay intends to show that the merging of violence with a sexualized choreography, costuming and storyline in Red Detachment of Women was an official tool that both emboldened and revalued women while at the same time devalued and objectified them as sexualized beings dressed in scant military uniforms, thus reinforcing many traditional values that the new socialist ideology meant to overthrow. 

Keywords: China, Red Detachment of Women, Revolutionary ballet/dance drama, gender hierarchy, sexuality, violence

Résumé

Le ballet révolutionnaire chinois moderne Détachement féminin rouge a été créé en 1964 sous l’égide du président Mao afin d’illustrer ses idées en matière de littérature et d’art, “…pour que le passé serve le présent et que l’étranger serve la Chine”[1].  Sous la direction personnelle du camarade Jiang Qing, l’intrigue et sa mise en scène ont été présentées comme un antidote à la lutte acharnée entre prolétariat et bourgeoisie, entre socialisme et capitalisme.  Le Détachement féminin rouge décrit la naissance, la croissance et la maturation d’une compagnie de femmes de l’Armée rouge sur l’île de Hainan pendant la deuxième guerre civile révolutionnaire (1927-1937).  Il célèbre l’esprit révolutionnaire et l’immense héroïsme du représentant du parti, ainsi que la loyauté d’une pauvre paysanne envers la révolution, son refus de se soumettre à l’oppression cruelle d’un propriétaire despote et sa détermination à rejoindre l’Armée rouge.  Ce ballet fait partie des huit pièces modèles élaborées pendant la révolution culturelle (1966-1976), qui glorifient la nouvelle politique sociale communiste.

Au cours de cette période de changements spectaculaires, la lutte du peuple, y compris sa militarisation et son sous-produit, l’appel à la violence, ont été valorisés symboliquement par l’appropriation de l'”étranger” et la féminisation de la bravoure.  Les orchestres jouaient des partitions de style occidental avec des instruments de musique occidentaux pour accompagner des spectacles utilisant des thèmes et des formes vocales de Hainan ; les paysannes se muent en soldats équipés de fusils et d’armes de poing de fabrication russe, “étrangère”.  Cet article entend montrer que l’association de la violence avec une chorégraphie, des costumes et un scénario sexualisés dans Détachement féminin rouge est un outil qui a permis de revaloriser à certains égards les femmes, tout en les dévalorisant par ailleurs et en les objectivant en tant qu’êtres sexualisés que leurs uniformes militaires ne couvrent qu’en partie, renforçant ainsi en fait de nombreuses valeurs traditionnelles que la nouvelle idéologie socialiste était censée rejeter.

Mots-clés: Chine, Détachement féminin rouge, ballet révolutionnaire, genre, sexualité, violence

Linking Violence and Sexuality in Revolutionary China: Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军 1964)

Katheryn M. Linduff

UCIS Professor of East Asian and Eurasian Art and Archaeology, University of Pittsburgh

 

Introduction

Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军), was one of eight model dramas (yangbanxi 样板戏) planned and engineered during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) by Jiang Qing (江青), an actress, major political figure, and the third wife of Chairman Mao Zedong (毛泽东).  The Eight Model Plays included five Peking operas—The Legend of the Red Lantern (红灯记); Shajiabang (沙家浜), formerly Romanized as Shachiapang); Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy (智取威虎山); Raid on the White Tiger Regiment (奇袭白虎团); On the Docks (海港, also known as The Harbor); two ballets—Red Detachment of Women (红色娘子军); The White-Haired Girl (白毛女); and Shajiabang, a symphony.   All dramatized the Chinese people’s struggle to win internal political and social power and demonstrated the successes of ordinary people through loyalty to the goals of the government.  Red Detachment, presented here as a case study, was adapted from an earlier 1961 film of the same name under the direction of Zhou Enlai (周恩来), which was in turn converted from a novel by Liang Xin (梁信). The ballet was adapted in 1964 into an opera and in 1970 into a film (Xie Jin 谢晋).  These later versions were collaboratively written, with music by Du Minxin, Wu Zuqiang, Wang Yanqiao, Shi Wanchun and Dai Hongcheng.

The plays were both revolutionary and modern in terms of their thematic and musical features when compared to traditional Chinese operas. Unlike most traditional operas that were performed largely for the elite, these were aimed at the general public.  They became not only widely known, but also wildly popular. Several were adapted to film, and their imagery appeared on jackets of vinal recordings, in comic books, on posters, postcards and stamps, plates, teapots, wash basins, cigarette packages, vases and calendars (fig. 1: Cover for Vinyl Recording of Red Detachment of Women). Theme songs were played on loudspeakers in schools, factories, and fields and the dramas were performed by special troupes of players all over the Peoples Republic of China—in villages, the countryside, as well as urban areas. So prevalent were they heard that tunes from them could frequently be heard hummed or sung by adults as well as children in parks, fields, at work, in schools, and at family gatherings[2] (fig. 2: Set of Postcards of the Red Detachment of Women). 

The Red Detachment was promoted by the government to glorify the People’s Liberation Army, the bravery of the common people, and the advantages of Mao’s socialist and social agenda.  Guided by Chairman Mao’s teaching on literature and art of 1943 they followed particular objectives expounded in his well-known and oft recited sayings:

“…to make the past serve the present and the foreign serve China” (古为今用, 洋    为中用)[3];

and for women:

“…to face the powder, rather than powder the face” (不爱红装爱武装), a line from Mao’s poetry written for a member of the all-female militia in February 1961[4].

The forms of dance and music as well as themes shown off in the Red Detachment were not invented wholesale or without precedent. Elements of elite European and Chinese forms of music and dance, especially Western ballet, xiqu (戲曲) theater forms[5], including Peking opera and Kunqu (崑曲)[6] were apparent throughout the Red Detachment ballet. In addition, time-honored themes of love and death, violence and sex, known both from exposure to and examination of western European corresponding ideas earlier in the 20^th century as well as from Confucian thought and Daoist notions of Yin and Yang, were integrated into a new “modernized” forms. The works of Sigmund Freud, for instance, were translated into Chinese in the 1920s, and his dichotomous view of life and death, sex and violence embedded in the subjectivist and sexualized images of the mind were studied in China. Its premise was ultimately rejected as a model for human behavior in China because its antithetical templet was neither familiar nor adaptable to traditional yin/yang thought which saw opposites on a continuum, not as representative of a rupture[7].  How such entanglements of the historical models with newly proposed social orders were articulated throughout the Red Detachment of Women is the focus of this essay.

The Plot:

The Red Detachment of Women was created with clear goals in mind.  It takes a common circumstance where women historically had been exploited by powerful and successful men and describes a path to emancipation and self-empowerment.  The objectification of women had been fostered during the previous period—such as in their images as glamourous, modernized proponents of cigarettes or soaps in advertisements during the 1930s[8]. But the narrative of the Red Detachment of Women was very different and recounted the birth, growth and maturing of an actual women’s company of the Chinese Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army on Hainan Island during the Second Revolutionary Civil War (1927-1937).  The figure of the Party representative, Hong Changqing, is presented as a model of revolutionary spirit and heroism and the poor peasant girl’s situation is eulogized.  Played by ballerina Xue Jinghua (薛菁华), the heroine (Wu Qinghua) exhibited loyalty to the revolution, however, and refused to submit to the cruel oppression of the despot landlord (Nanbatian 南霸天) and showed her resolve to join the Red Army.  She escaped from Nanbatian’s dungeon where she was chained to a column after kicking Laosi (老四)[9], who had come with an order from Nanbatian to sell her (fig. 2).  She eventually freed herself and escaped to join the Red Army.  Likewise, in another of these plays, The White-Haired Girl, the young protagonist escaped from her role as a slave to an evil landlord to whom she had been sold, to live in hiding in a cave where her hair turns white due to depravation of nutritious food.  She (Xi‘er 喜儿) is discovered and liberated by her fiancé, a member of the Eighth Army, and returns to see the landlord receive punishment.  Both this play and Red Detachment of Women dramatically demonstrate the possibility of and the process by which internal social power could be and was gained. 

 

As a model play for the modern times, the production of Red Detachment appropriated Western-forms such as Western-style scores for orchestras which were performed on Western musical instruments. Dancers were outfitted either in local Hainan peasant clothing or in military uniforms depending on their roles, and the soldiers were equipped with rifles and handguns of ‘foreign’ Russian manufacture[10] (fig. 3: Female dancers en pointe with peasant counterparts in Hainan dress, fig. 4: All Female Troupe of Warriors with Rifles). It showed assignation with a larger, more global world, and provided the opportunity to display their success in achieving gender and class neutrality or parity.  During the Cultural Revolution, the bitter struggles of the people, including their militarization and its byproduct the call to violence, were also valorized symbolically through the arrogation of the ‘foreign’ and the feminization of gallantry and bravery using traditional figures such as Mulan.  Thus, with the PRC government’s perceived need and desire to modernize and compete with the West, transformation of ancient Chinese themes of love and death, sexuality and violence, also familiar in the West as Eros and Thenatos, provided effective thematic ideas for “laboratory experimentation” in the theater that was thought to exhibit radical societal change. The merging of violence with sensualized choreography, revealing costuming and romanticizing storylines in Red Detachment of Women encouraged a new lifestyle while revaluating the society of the past.  It also risked devaluing women in the process. 

Background Context

The role of historical models

Expressions of love, death, and sexuality as had been conveyed especially in traditional Chinese literature and thought were intentionally altered during the Cultural Revolution to expose and suppress oppressive gendered behavior, dress, gesture, and societal roles. Past models were used as a backdrop from which revolutionary change could be measured.  The communist model heroine in the Red Detachment exemplified a common feature, for instance—that a woman could act like a man and join the military. Roles for women in the military were meant to be transformed through revolutionary thinking as the theme song of the Red Detachment clearly declared:

                        Forward forward (向前进 向前进)

                        The warrior’s responsibility is heavy (战士的责任重)

                        Women’s grievances are deep (妇女的冤仇深)

                        In ancient times, Mulan went to the army for her father (古有花木兰替父去从军)

                        Today there are women soldiers carrying guns for the people (今有娘子军扛枪为人民)

 

The message was clear. Written in 1958 at the height of the period when Mao was breaking ties with The Soviet Union, he called on women to fight on behalf of the Chinese revolutionary cause.  As a folk heroine known from poems, songs and legends dating from as early as 4^th to 6^th century, Hua Mulan (花木兰) was believed to have taken up her father’s position in the conscription army to lead the Chinese troops to victory.  Her example suited the goals of the new Chinese social order because her story provided historical precedence for the emboldening of women through her prowess gained as a military leader. The past was brought up to the present in light of Mao’s version of communism that could appreciate a model from the past as well as call for continuous reassessment and revolution, but not rupture as expected in the Soviet example.

This lesson was carried into the period of the Cultural Revolution and inspired the “revolutionary realist” and “revolutionary romantic” movements in literature and the visual arts —called “revolutionary romanticism combined with revolutionary realism” (革命现实主义与革命浪漫主义) in the late 1950s.  Red Detachment was one result of the new spirit—an example of how to emerge from the past into the future.  Centered on the process of transformation of the past rather than denying it, downtrodden, poor peasant women were restyled into warrior women who boldly darted across the stage and/or in front of the camera.  They were dressed in military uniforms that revealed their silhouettes and flesh that simultaneously presented them as feminine and vulnerable while being masculinized in role and spirit, as will be discussed further below.

 Although one does not directly witness explicit expressions of either love or sex in the play, often settings, movements, and gestures, especially in dance and dress exaggerated and gendered behavior. There was a love scene between the main characters of Red Detachment, Hong Changqing (洪常青) and Wu Qinghua (吴清华)[11], in the 1960 script that was cut, apparently, because of censorship of love scenes at the time[12]. The juxtaposition of past and present forms of behavior and appearance and of the foreign at the service of the new China have been pointed out by others[13], but this essay suggests that the visual messages presented in the Red Detachment also perpetuated aspects of a hierarchically gendered social order, while suggesting equality for women by militarizing and masculinizing them.  That is, the new trappings in the play both reinforced the past order where women were sexualized before the gaze of men while they were simultaneously literally empowered (perhaps largely for the gaze of women?) by being outfitted with weapons.  These messages drew from both Confucian notions of ranked social order that were meant to be shattered in Maoist thinking and from Daoist ideas about the continuum of male and female forces constantly inspiring and stimulating each other.  Nevertheless, reconciliation of these very distinctive paths into a harmonious society in the atmosphere of revolutionary reform was not fully resolved in the Red Detachment.

The discussion below will consider how this dilemma was articulated in the plot and in the performance in the Red Detachment.  Its aim was to display the goals of the leadership of the CCP by dramatizing and showing the intersectionality of class and gender in which revolutionary ideology valorized and restructured gendered space and performance[14]. These goals, perhaps unintentionally, also corresponded well with the familiar traditional dialectical yet complimentary relationship between Yin and Yang, in this case of femininity and masculinity, while purportedly challenging the Confucian hierarchical social order of the past. The plot of the Red Detachment, for instance, restaged traditional gender relationships to see the rise of women in status and role, but the traditional power hierarchy persisted even though class structure was reversed. Through examination of visual forms in which performances of the Red Detachment were staged, we will see that supposedly liberated women continued to be displayed as feminine, erotic objects to be rescued and gazed at in their austere but close-fitting, albeit military, outfits, while they were also masculinized in contrast to the landlord and the guards, often shown as timid, hesitant short figures frightened by righteous revolutionary forces. Interestingly, this contradiction provided an indefinite space for the protagonist Wu Qinghua to change and grow in the story from a powerless, female victim into a formidable soldier. In that space she fluctuates and absorbs both her feminine and masculine personas only to be rescued by her male counterpart. This creates both a progressive as well as a regressive message couched in the conventional thinking about fluctuation of the powers of both Yin and Yang.

Thus, both historical, philosophical views and contemporary revolutionary thinking played a fundamental role in the plots, the choreography, the costuming, and music. Complimentary, if also contradictory, messages persisted: revolutionary and traditional, masculine vs feminine behaviors and boundaries were intertwined and sent various messages to the audience.  Many older conventions were recast during the Cultural Revolution in the Red Detachment: notions of love, the immanent possibility of violence and death, and sexual tension created with policies of restraint and prohibition deeply rooted and embedded in Chinese culture were foremost among the ideas examined. The ballet and the messages in the plot, the performance style and the visual presentation blatantly present didactic views of the new society. Even so, those expressions of the triumph of the new social order were also repeatedly upended by the enduring power of traditional themes which contradicted the lessons of the revolution.            

Historical Environment

The period from the late 19^th century up to and through the Cultural Revolution is formative when considering the new socialist policies and their overall effect on literature and visual culture.  As argued by Paul Clark[15],  the social and cultural developments of the early 20^th century had deep roots in the Chinese experience since China’s encounter with Western powers and cultures beginning in the 19^th century.  Faced with an ineffectual and weakening monarchy, social reformers began to produce new ideas, media (film, for instance), and even institutions (education, for example) based on Western models that they thought would strengthen the nation[16].  Familiarity with Western dance (ballet) and music (orchestral) continued throughout the early 20^th century in large cities where conservatories had already been established.  The 1911 collapse of the monarchy made the need for change and modernization painfully apparent—and it had already been accomplished by their modernizing neighbor, Japan, bringing regional pressure to the fore especially after Japan had assertively invaded Manchuria in 1931 and waged the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937-1945. 

The May Fourth Movement (begun on May 4, 1919) in China added momentum to the efforts to reevaluate the past.  While it advocated its complete rejection, ambivalence toward the past continued.  The most radical May Fourth adherents called forth complete abandonment of Chinese values, and to most that meant Confucianism and its replacement by foreign morality and ways of organizing society. Among their exponents were the founders of the Communist Party in 1921.  Marxism, and the Leninist iteration, were proposed to provide the way forward[17].  This period, the first half of the 20^th century, saw literary and artistic innovation emanating from the headquarters of the Communist Party in Yan’an (延安) that included the introduction and continued adoption and adaptation of Western modes of expression as well as ideas.  It resulted in literature written in a new-style vernacular, themes of social reform, the modernization of musical theater, film (especially in Shanghai), and the recasting of traditional ideas about the social function of the arts.  These efforts were meant to enlighten, uplift, and ignite a popular understanding of the world and to incorporate imported concepts with local traditions to produce a new hybrid form that would serve the Party’s purposes. 

Institutional circulations of art and creative professionals, exhibitions as well as writings and commissions within the International socialist sphere from the late 1940s until the early 1960s took place at the peak of de-Stalinization. Artists from Albania, East Germany, North Korea, and China went to Leningrad to learn Russian Socialist Realism and art instructors from the USSR went to China to teach. Art exhibitions from the Soviet Union, Hungary and Poland opened in Beijing. Showings of radical leftist Mexican artists’ works were then organized by the FNAP (Frente Nacional de Artes Plásticas). They were first shown in February 1955 in Poland, then in Bulgaria, Romania, and in October in East Germany. In February 1956, the exhibits visited Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, the USSR and arrived in China in the summer of that year[18]. The decades long project in China which sought to create and display an alternative modernity was based in such cross-cultural art exchange, based especially across a transnational socialist network.  These state-supported exchanges mobilized artists, administrators, and the public throughout the network, including China, and exposed socialist visions of the modern world, often rooted in local histories.

As outlined by McDougall and Kam the enunciation of policies on art and literature practices marked deep changes in the “Reassertion of Modernity” in China (1966-1989), not simply in political arenas, but in efforts to connect popular and elite Chinese cultural traditions[19].  Encouraged by newly available visual examples on exhibition that came from outside of China, Westernized writers and visual artists were obliged to explore ways to use popular or folk cultural traditions for new revolutionary purposes.  Social policies first in effect in Yan’an[20] were then applied across the nation after 1949.  The commissioning of the eight model dramas mentioned above during the years between 1966 and 1976 grew out of the above exposés.

Inception of Western forms of dance and music may have satisfied the Party in order to compete on an international arena, but the aims of these ballets were to make a mass culture statement—in other words, they had to speak to everyone.  Reforming past values and ideas was a goal that was apparently accomplished by reviving the familiar and the telling of griping, didactic stories such as the Red Detachment, where ideas and cultural markers such as Hainan folk dress reenacting actual heroic tales were foregrounded and performed with bold and decisive movement and gestures, often informed by Soviet realist stylized models. These stories were accompanied by Hainanese folk-infused music, thus blending local minority stories mostly about love between men and women or of the homeland that were regularly sung in several dialects in simple tonal ranges in antiphonal structure.  The accompanying instrumental music was interspersed with the Western symphonic knock-off rhythms performed on both Western and traditional Han style instruments including drums and erhu (二胡).  In addition, obvious themes deeply embedded in Confucian social hierarchies such as the evil of landlords and perhaps even Daoist binodal thought like the pairing and comparing of female and male potencies (via cultural notions of Yin nourishment and Yang invigoration) could be and were manipulated for socialist purposes. More subtly and certainly unintentionally such themes must also have resonated with the public and both reinforced and preserved past values and ideas. 

The historical ways of thought appeared in updated revolutionary form as the following variety of examples will illustrate. Old ideas about romantic forms of love, such as invigorating notions of the Yang updated in the form of male intercession where a hero saves the damsel in distress, and the nourishing aspect of Yin as female protagonists were clearly present. 

Past ideas of love, death, sex and violence

Themes of love, death, eroticism, and violence were familiar in China as early as the Han Dynasty[21]. One modern reminder of the persistence of these traditional themes was surprisingly provided by the advent and governmental support of systematic archaeology in the 1920s and continuing throughout the 20^th century. A deep reverence for tradition was reinforced with this new endeavor, and publications on finds were located in state sponsored scholarly as well as popular journals where the focus was on the excavation of tombs of the elite. Such reports confirmed the antiquity and significance of China on the worldwide stage and also operated as an adjutant to the telling of “new” history.  It provided concrete examples of the concentration of wealth and power in the ruling elite that could be analyzed to show the evolution of class inequality according to Marxist thinking and could decry it as detrimental to the society under transformation in the PRC.  Standard comments were regularly inserted into field reports stating that the elite (represented in elaborate burials just unearthed) of the past were supported by the toil of the laborers[22].  These excavation materials were housed in “new socialist scientific” establishments (CASS, Institutes of Archaeology) and exhibitions sponsored by the government both at home and abroad[23], so they inevitably kept past traditions current because they documented tributes to the glory of the bourgeoise past. These ideas about ancient, familiar and unequal social hierarchies included values and attitudes about sexuality, death, love and violence.

For example, newly discovered painted clay relief tiles were found displayed in tombs of the Eastern Han (CE 25-220). Some images were deliberately erotic and documented the domination or privilege of males in copulation (fig. 5: Bricks decorated in relief with erotic scene[24]).  The scenes depicted a public event more than an intimate or loving sexual union and, according to Rawson, show what she thinks were well-known stories or legends[25].  Other “narrative” tiles most often illustrated scenes of salt extraction, alcohol production, harvest, fishing and hunting, and funerary chariot processions or scenes of acrobats and musicians—perhaps all providing natural settings for the afterlife, but they also showcased the work of common folk.  Yet others depicted deities, especially the Queen Mother of the West with the sun and moon.  In most scenes females stand by as observers or bow in passive motionless positions, while the males are energetic hunters, acrobats and charioteers, not unlike the actors in the Red Detachment (fig. 6.a: Female warrior/dancers looking aside and fig. 6.b: Male warriors looking directly at the camera).  Although specific interpretation of the subject matter of the tomb tiles is elusive, scenes of sexual encounters and gendered roles were placed in burials, necessarily linking themes of sex and death and probably the notion of regeneration.  When displayed in the 1960s and 1970s, the production of such objects by laborers allowed class disparities to be exploited even in catalogue Introductions listed above[26].

As Paul Golden has investigated in his study of philosophical, literary, and religious texts of the period from ca. 500 BCE to ca. CE 400, Chinese authors wrote earnestly about sexual activity.  Sexual intercourse “constituted a fundamental source of imagery and terminology that informed the classical Chinese conception of social and political relationships.”[27]. Importantly, he demonstrates that, influential texts such as the Shijing (詩經), Zuozhuan (左傳) and Chuci (楚辭) copulation was a metaphor for human relations, such as between worshipper and a deity, or between classes such as the ruler and his subjects[28].  And, since all human beings were made up of qi (氣), or undifferentiated matter manifest as Yin (陰) and Yang (陽), and healthy human beings needed a balance of both, sexual intercourse could provide a much-needed concentrated form of qi called qing (情).  The point for us to take here is that sexuality was beneficial to good health, and although sex manuals were intended for male audiences almost exclusively, sexuality could as well be conceived of as the most telling indication of one’s political intentions and social position.  Unregulated sex or illicit sexual activity was associated with, or construed of, as symptomatic of unregulated or illicit political activity since antiquity. The tendency to tighten the reins on permissible sexual activity was, thereby, an attempt to contain lawlessness in political life according to Golden[29], perhaps even in the modern period.  Indeed, Maoist policy discouraged and censured overt public behavior that might arouse erotic or sensual responses[30].

The complexity of Yin and Yang as a Daoist concept that defined the flow of qi, the vital life force thought to animate the body and universe, could also be reflected as social ideals according to Lagerway[31]. Thus, he argues, harmony or balance of Yin and Yang forces was the goal, and this was achievable only when positive qi energy was generated, and a well-balanced environment was achieved.  Such aspects of Daoist belief persisted and were expressed, if altered, in the Red Detachment of Women. Colors, for example, were conventionally important signs of Yin and Yang. In Red Detachment contrast of Yin colors (blues and greens of the exterior environment) with Yang colors (red, yellow, and gold of costumes of the lead dancer when in her local dress) was created by reversing traditional applications of color that were auspicious by representing the carefully constructed balance of masculine and feminine energies, stability, and harmony (figs. 3, 7: Wu Qinghua and Hong Changqing dancing).  Such features were surely manipulated to provide new models for women. 

More subtle constructions in the choreography of dances—tightly spaced ballerinas dancing en pointe[32] in expansive open spaces, for instance—both show the power of collective activity by displaying a community of dancers synchronously moving in a binding formation. Overall, such scenes yielded a less radical and more conventional attitude toward gender because when the supposedly transformed modern, empowered female dancers were dressed in skimpy military outfits and bore grimacing or neutral facial expressions while they were delicately balancing en pointe! (figs. 3, 4) This fragile equilibrium between apparent opposite forces would not have been unfamiliar as a variation of a Daoist binary trope if seen in the Han period as it was similarly viewed in 1964!  But then, this display also portrayed emerging Maoist thinking on femininity meant to offset traditional emotive behavior of women with a more rational approach.

In post-Imperial China, under Mao’s direction, the Cultural Revolution moral discourse and cultural policy forbade overt depiction of sensuality, sexuality and romantic love[33].  Yet, even the analysis of the imagery in the Red Detachment of Women cannot overlook the fact that female ballerinas were dressed in scant, form-fitting uniforms that exposed body silhouettes and flesh.  These images were inherently sensual.  As no cultural tradition regarding the body as an object of aesthetic appreciation was found in traditional China, as existed in the West, invisibility of body movements was expected[34] even when Western forms of dance were borrowed.  Images that exposed the female body shape with bared flesh in the dances would have been shocking to the average viewer[35].

During the 1950s experimentation with different forms of dance had taken place culminating in the formation of national ensembles, national festivals, and finally in the development of a national curriculum.  It seemed that Chinese dance was coming together as a coherent and recognizable medium.  The training provided a process through which bodies could attain habits and skills that transformed them into dance mediums.  The national dance curriculum established a standard that extended beyond any single ensemble, choreographer, region, style or production[36].  Newly trained Chinese dance troops performed on tour in Canada, Columbia, Cuba, Venezuela and many locations in Europe and Asia in the late 1950s and 60s[37]. In their treatment of such themes as marriage as well as in the intersection between sex and gender, ethnicity, class and race these productions meant to challenge traditional social hierarchies[38]. The Cultural Revolution took dance to a different level and in a distinctive direction—again producing “national” forms that drew on skills and forms known previously, but their overtly revolutionary themes promoted the political ambitions of the top leadership of the PRC. 

Premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) came up with the idea for a ballet version of the Red Detachment after seeing Xie’s film and suggested that the Central Ballet Troupe (Beijing) create such a revolutionary ballet. The original dancers trained with members of the Hainan group during the making of the work. The choreographers of the ballet had studied in North Korea, Russia and Eastern Europe and managed to transform movement into something with strong domestic appeal, full of rousing songs and gymnastic athleticism as well as familiar balletic passages. Alongside the military drill were traditional Hainan folk song and movement, and highly stylized forms of traditional Peking Opera, such as from the Peony Pavilion in which the heroine dies and comes back to life to join her lover, reborn into an imaginary social order. Along with the highly idealized storylines of revolutionary propaganda, the Red Detachment presented a flawless, handsome local communist party leader who vanquished grotesque enemies and who will die saving the Detachment (fig. 7).  He showed the heroine the way to a new life. Their relationship is explicitly marked by Wu’s desire to follow a male lead, and to dance with him in a sensual entanglement of desire and passion for that life.

Traditionally, Chinese intellectual elites in imperial China made an effort to explain erotic forces of the feminine within moral discourse that defined beauty and sexuality as notions of etiquette, propriety, social exclusion, etc.  In the Maoist period, this issue continued with questions about how to incorporate other forms of “femininity” and contain the erotic in the revolutionary discourse.  Women performing what had been male roles was one such solution.

Analysis of gendered features of Red Detachment

            The most extensive study of movement in the revolutionary performances has been undertaken by Rosemary Roberts[39].  She challenges the notion that the works erased gender and sensuality.  It is her opinion that costume, props, kinesics, and various audio and linguistic systems display subtle, if traditional, views on gender inequality in Maoist China and especially during the Cultural Revolution.  Following Judith Hanna’s method of digital coding of variables[40] that catalogued gendered modes of interaction between dancers and various aspects of individual action, music, and costume, Roberts focused especially on kinetics of and between dancers.  She divided positioning, locomotion, gesture, and touch as either A (assertive) or P (passive) as it pertains to individual action, effort of action, timing, and interaction[41].

She catalogued movement/action as follows:

Individual action:

Wide Postural stance predominates (A)

Narrow Postural stance predominates (P)

Relatively larger movement (in verticality, horizontality, distance covered excluding effect of body type)

Throws own body (gymnastic moves such as tumbling, handstand, falling to knees, rolling) (A)

Limb moved as unit (A)

Successive, differentiated, or articulated movement within limbs (as break in wrist) (P)

Makes fist, flexes bicep (A)

Cries (P)

Smiles (Caring).

Effort

Strong, tense (A)

Gentle, relaxed (P)

Time

Does not wait, begins action (A)

Waits for action, responds to action (P)

Interaction

Pushes, propels, lifts, dips, fights another dancer (A)

Pushed, propelled, lifted, lowered, defends self (P)

Grasps, squeezes, or manipulates other’s body parts (A)

Grasped, squeezed or manipulated (P)

Supports a dancer (A)

Stares/glares (A)

Stared/glared at (P)

Initiates directional changes in group interaction (A)

Reacts to such changes (P)

She argues that A-type actions are culturally understood to denote authority, power, dominance, and aggression.  P-type actions denote dependence, subordination, and empathy.  In classical Western ballet, A-type actions were usually performed by males and P-type movements were performed by females.  This system has the effect of reinforcing ideologies of male dominance and gender hierarchy in broader society[42].  When applied to model Chinese ballets, the question is to what extent they challenged or supported those classical gender conventions.

In Roberts’ analysis of 2010, this method was applied to a single scene (Scene Two) of the Red Detachment and showed the challenges as well as reinforcement to stereotypical gender conventions[43].

Scene Two: depicts women soldiers’ base and training camp. Women drill in tightly arranged and bound teams under the direction of a female company commander and the male party representative (Hong Changqing). Challenges to classical ballet roles included women commanding troops and when she dances independently, she strode along with authoritative steps, matching the male officer beside her.  Her solo dance and that of the female soldiers practicing grenade throwing characterized by high leaps, lunges and expansive gestures and arabesques with fists, not delicate graceful fingers of classical ballerinas (fig. 8: Wu Qinghua in ecstasy leap).  Arm and leg movements are energetic and forceful, not dainty self-enclosing movements as in classical Peking opera.  All express the themes of class struggle and spirit with female faces that often express anger and determination.  The use of individual body space and more overtly energetic movements are a mark of increased assertiveness and power[44].  However, as Roberts notes, the stance and movement of men continue to command a much greater space on stage with speed and energy where they dominate the stage and are not contained in smaller areas.  The women’s movement is limited to either straight line or small circles while the choreography of men’s dances has them moving quickly and expansively all over the stage[45].

Camera angle and the use of gaze are elementary features of any filmed stage performance. For instance, when the women dance the army drill, it is from a distance—only rarely does any woman glance at the camera (fig. 6.a).  The camera angle is generally on the diagonal, looking down and across the stage to the right of the audience. The dancers turn when they approach the camera and flick heads to the other side avoiding eye contact with the camera.  The women’s movements are brave and determined but are a spectacle to be observed unchallenged by the audience[46].

By contrast the male militia includes a series of steps in which the groups of five dancers begin at the rear of the stage and move to the front and back again.  As they move forward all males engage the camera with a bold and challenging stare.  They dominate in a way not given to the women[47]. When male and female dancers join, traditional stereotypes are reasserted.  Women move behind the men; women en pointe execute rapid tiny steps; men perform energic steps while women just raise and lower their arms[48].  Male dominance and gender hierarchy are maintained by stage positioning. The contrast is obvious between the males with wide open stance and assertive movement and the narrow postural stance, low energy movement and semi-concealment was choreographed for the females.  Thus, interactions between dancers show P (positive) male actors/dancers occupy the highest level of power and dominance.  Red Detachment attempts to promote female equality, but as in the concept of Yin, female forces are fluid and sometimes unpredictable[49].

The Cultural Revolution’s cultural policy did not allow overt depiction of sensuality, sexuality, and romantic love, and even common activities such as ballroom dancing were forbidden. A man and woman dancing and touching as in Red Detachment, therefore, easily evoked connotations of heterosexuality[50].  The interactions between Wu Qinghua and Hong Changqing in this regard are especially interesting as sexual tension between the two was allowed (fig. 7).  They both followed a common goal and moved in concert with each other (fig. 8) and/or actually touched as in the version captured on the poster for the Lincoln Center performance in New York from July 6 to August 7, 2015 (fig. 9: Wu and Hong Dance at Lincoln Center Festival).

In Chinese tradition male and female bodies displayed together or interlinked meant sex, not art, and thus had to be restrained.  A result of this sentiment was to present a sanitized pas de deux where limited touching was permitted, but the implication and power of tradition were not suppressed. With women waving colorful ribbons and men practicing a military drill with long handled pikes, the symbols of masculine power and of female objectification persisted. Sexual tension was created by even the smallest touch or glance and in grand gestures alike, all were enhanced by rousing music and stirring story lines.

The following examples taken from the film version summarize and exemplify these conflicting features:

1. Masculinized women brandished rifles and wore baggy military uniforms, others danced en pointe in scant uniforms that simultaneously sexualized and empowered them (fig. 3);
2. Mixed sex couples in corresponding soldierly uniforms danced with intermingled body movements in public settings (fig. 7);
3. Exuberant if desperate heroines executed solo balletic leaps (grand jeté or firebird leaps) and displayed a volatile mix of fragile beauty according to traditional definitions with formidable athleticism which formed a new socialist definition for women or even male heroes (using barrel turns for instance) (fig. 8);
4. Peking and other opera modes of behavior were exhibited in highly stylized movements and gestures that presented revolutionary messages (fig. 2);
5. Deliberately arranged spaces placed men above or looking down at women giving direction or offering escape and freedom for women (fig. 10: Female warrior dancers overseen by male officer/dancer above). 
   

   fig.10 Female warrior dancers overseen by male officer/dancer above, Red Detachment of Women, photo of performance 1972. (Adapted from link: linelightmagazine.com.au) (Accessed: 21/07/21)                         

Conclusion

Contrasting ideology, the traditional and revolutionary, is the bedrock of this tale. The heroine Wu Qinghua is transformed from a powerless, female victim into a formidable soldier. She fluctuates to and fro but also absorbs both her feminine and masculine personas not unlike a complimentary expression of both Yin and Yang.  In the case of the male lead, Hong Changqing, masculinity is associated with his status as a representative of the party; his martyrdom is deified in the scene when he is torched—literally becoming a revolutionary torch that leads others to follow his footsteps. His symbolism also shows the continuity of traditional ways of thinking as his final disappearance conveys authority and masculinity. As emperors of the past had power to castrate other men (violently, literally and symbolically), for instance, the Party could empower and suppress women. In the modern authoritarian framework, masculinity and femininity were relational constructs, just as Yin and Yang responded to each other. Once Wu Qinghua is empowered by revolutionary ideology and equipped with guns, she could take a masculine position against the landlord, while the reactionary guards are immobilized by Hong’s heroic stance.  Finally, alas, Wu is led out of poverty by a male hero.

Thus complimentary, if not contradictory, messages persisted; revolutionary and traditional, masculine vs feminine behaviors and boundaries were intertwined and sent various messages to the audience.  The intersection between past and present was necessarily a challenge since it both preserved familiar behavior and tried to transform it.  Liberated women were empowered by being in the military, but they were presented as sexualized beings, saved by even more powerful men.  Attempts were made to recast traditions deeply rooted and embedded in Chinese culture of the past, such as love relationships, and although social engineering allowed women to recognize exploitation of the past and to assert themselves into more responsible roles, the message was mixed. 

The evaluation of oppression and change displayed in the plots, and even performance style and visual presentation in Red Detachment have, however, persisted and resonate even today.  The current interest in Maoist policy among young people in the PRC has spawned a recent escalation of performances of the Red Detachment and clearly suggests that there is a new wave of applicability for its lessons and the continuous struggle for class, economic and gender parity[51] (figs. 9, 11: Poster Calendar for performance)[52].

 

With thanks to my “native informants” who are friends and colleagues many of whom witnessed the performances and films of the Red Detachment as children and looked with me at these forms intellectually and critically (Qian Kun, Gao Minglu, Anne Weis, Sheri Lullo, Wang Dongning, Sun Yan, Yang Hongyu, Marisol Villela Balderrama, Mandy Wu, Wu Xiaolong, and Zhang Haihui).  They answered my many questions and discussed this topic whenever I asked!  Thanks, as well goes to Christine Vial Kayser whose thoughtful comments on the essay strengthened the argument and allowed for a better presentation.

 

Bibliography

 

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GOLDEN Paul Rakita, The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2002.

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HANNA Judith Lynn, Dance, Sex and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance and Desire, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988.

HAY Jonathan, “The Body as Invisible in Chinese Art?”, in Angela Zeto and Tani Barlow, eds., Body, Subject and Power in China, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994, p.42-77.

HESTLER Anna and Jaime COX, eds., Shanghai Posters: The Power of Advertising. Hong Kong: Form Asia Books, 2005.

HUANG Wei 黄巍, Wéngé shíqí nǚxìng xíngxiàng zhèngzhì huà yánjiū 文革时期女性形象政治化研究 (Research on the politicization of female images during the Cultural Revolution), unpublished dissertation, Běijīng, shǒudū shīfàn dàxué北京，首都师范大学 (Beijing, Capital Normal University), 2012.

LARSON Wendy, From Ah Q to Lei Feng: Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century, China, Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University Press, 2009.

LI Jing 李静, Yán’ān wényì jiàngòu jí qí yǐngxiǎng yánjiū (1930—1970 niándài 延安文艺建构及其影响研究 (1930—1970年代) (Research on the Construction and Influence of Yan’an Literature and Art (1930s-1970s), unpublished dissertation, Xi’an, PRC, 中国西安，Shǎnxī shīfàn dàxué 陕西师范大学 (Shaanxi Normal University), 2014.

LI Zhuying, The Image of Women in the Revolutionary Opera Films of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), unpublished dissertation, Melbourne, Australia, College of Design and Social Context Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, 2018.

LINDUFF, Katheryn M., Jianhua YANG, “Ritualization of Weapons in a Contact Zone: Between the Past and the Present”, in Charles W. Hartley, G. Bike Yazicioglu, and Adam T. Smith, The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia: Regimes and Revolutions, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2012, p.173-187.

McDOUGALL Bonnie S., Louie KAM, The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century, New York, Columbia University Press, 1997.

McLELLAND Rowan, Examining the Red Corps: An Investigation into the Adoption, Revolution, and Continued Development of Ballet in China, unpublished dissertation, London, Department of Dance, University of Roehampton, 2018.

MIN Anchee, Red Azalea, New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2006.

RAWSON Jessica, Mysteries of Ancient China: New Discoveries from the Early Dynasties, New York, George Braziller, 1996.

ROBERTS Rosemary A., “Performing Gender in Maoist Ballet: Mutual Subversions of Genre and Ideology, The Red Detachment of Women”, Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 2008, vol.16, p.1–26.

ROBERTS Rosemary A., Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2010.

The Chinese Exhibition: Archaeological Finds of The People’s Republic of China, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, December 13, 1974 – March 30, 1975, Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum, April 20 – June 8, 1975.

Trésors d’Art Chinois: récentes découvertes archéologiques de la République Populaire de Chine, Paris, Petit Palais, Mai – Septembre 1973.

VILLELA BALDERRAMA Marisol, “Doves and Machetes: Rina Lazo’s Movable Mural Venceremos (1959) in Guatemala, North Korea, and Beyond”, Art History (UK edition), in process.

WANG Yingjie 王英洁, Zhōngguó gémìng yǐngpiàn zhōng de nán quán sīxiǎng yǔ nǚquán zhǔyì中国革命影片中的男权思想与女权主义 (“Male Power and Feminism in Chinese Revolutionary Films”), Diànyǐng wénxué电影文学 (Film Literature), 2017, vol.22, p.43-45.

WILCOX Emily, Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2019.

YUAN Li, “’Who Are Our Enemies?’ China’s Bitter Youths Embrace Mao”, New York Times, July 8, 2021.

Online Texts

CRENSHAW Kimberlé, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color”, Stanford Law Review, July, 1991, vol.43, n°6, pp.1241-1299. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.695.5934. doi:10.2307/1229039. JSTOR 1229039 Accessed 12/11/21.

LAGERWEY John, “Daoist Ritual in Social and Historical Perspective”, China: A Religious State, 57-94. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010. Link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ffjp92.6 Accessed 15/07/21.

MA Ruohan 马若涵, Yǐngpiàn “hóngsè niángzǐjūn” pāishè de qián qiánhòu hòu 红色娘子军》拍摄的前前后后 (Before and After the Filming of the Red Detachment of Women), Zhōngguó xuéshù qíkān diànzǐ chūbǎn shè中国学术期刊电子出版社 (China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House), no date, link: http://www.cnki.net Accessed 12/13/21.

MAO Zedong 毛泽东, Zài yán’ān wényì zuòtán huì shàng de jiǎnghuà 在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话 (Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art), May 2, 1942, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (trans.), link: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm (Accessed 22/07/2021).  MAO Zedong 毛泽东, Duìyú zhōngguó hé wàiguó guòqù shídài suǒ yíliú xiàlái de fēngfù de wénxué yìshù yíchǎn hé yōuliáng de wénxué yìshù chuántǒng, wǒmen shì yào jìchéng de, dànshì mùdì réngrán shì wèile rénmín dàzhòng对于中国和外国过去时代所遗留下来的丰富的文学艺术遗产和优良的文学艺术传统，我们是要继承的，但是目的仍然是为了人民大众 (We want to inherit the rich literary and artistic heritage and fine literary and artistic traditions left by China and foreign countries in the past, but the purpose is still for the people), link: https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/marxist.org-chinese-mao-194205.htm 1942. Accessed 04/08/21.

MAO Zedong 毛泽东, Duì zhōngyāng yīnyuè xuéyuàn de yìjiàn de pīshì 对中央音乐学院的意见的批示 (Comments on the opinions of the Central Conservatory of Music), 1964, link: https://ppfocus.com/cn/0/cu08f56c5.html. Accessed 04/08/21.

XU Yuanchong (trans.), Illustrated Poems of Mao Zedong, Beijing: China International Press, 2006, link: https://quotepark.com/quotes/2107630-xu-yuanchong-to-face-the-powder-not-powder-the-face/ Accessed 04/08/21.

 

[1] Mao Zedong 毛泽东, Zài yán’ān wényì zuòtán huì shàng de jiǎnghuà 在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话 (Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art), 23 May 1942, link: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-3/mswv3_08.htm, Mao Zedong 毛泽东, Duìyú zhōngguó hé wàiguó guòqù shídài suǒ yíliú xiàlái de fēngfù de wénxué yìshù yíchǎn hé yōuliáng de wénxué yìshù chuántǒng, wǒmen shì yào jìchéng de, dànshì mùdì réngrán shì wèile rénmín dàzhòng 对于中国和外国过去时代所遗留下来的丰富的文学艺术遗产和优良的文学艺术传统，我们是要继承的，但是目的仍然是为了人民大众 (We want to inherit the rich literary and artistic heritage and fine literary and artistic traditions left by China and foreign countries in the past, but the purpose is still for the people) https://www.marxists.org/chinese/maozedong/marxist.org-chinese-mao-194205.htm 1964.

[2] Li Jing, 李静, Yán’ān wényì jiàngòu jí qí yǐngxiǎng yánjiū (1930—1970 niándài 延安文艺建构及其影响研究 (1930—1970年代 (Research on the Construction and Influence of Yan’an Literature and Art (1930s-1970s), unpublished dissertation, Xi’an, PRC, 中国西安，Shǎnxī shīfàn dàxué 陕西师范大学 (Shaanxi Normal University), 2014, Anchee Min, Red Azalea, New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2006, Wang Dongning personal communication.

[3] A quotation from Mao’s letter to a student in the Central Conservatory of Music, see Mao Zedong毛泽东, Duì zhōngyāng yīnyuè xuéyuàn de yìjiàn de pīshì 对中央音乐学院的意见的批示 (Comments on the opinions of the Central Conservatory of Music), 1964, link: https://ppfocus.com/cn/0/cu08f56c5.html

[4] Thanks to Sun Yan for pointing out this quote to me. See Mao Zedong 毛泽东, Duì zhōngyāng yīnyuè xuéyuàn de yìjiàn de pīshì 对中央音乐学院的意见的批示 (Comments on the opinions of the Central Conservatory of Music), 1964, link: https://ppfocus.com/cn/0/cu08f56c5.html. The translation is from Yuanchong Xu, Illustrated Poems of Mao Zedong, Beijing, China International Press, 2006, link: https://quotepark.com/quotes/2107630-xu-yuanchong-to-face-the-powder-not-powder-the-face/

[5] An ancient form of Chinese musical theater that incorporated various art forms, such as music, song and dance, martial arts, acrobatics, costume, and make-up art, as well as literary art forms to become traditional Chinese opera. See Emily Wilcox, Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2019, p.66ff.., for more discussion.

[6] Emily Wilcox, Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy, op. cit., p.2ff.

[7] Wendy Larson, From Ah Q to Lei Feng: Freud and Revolutionary Spirit in 20th Century China, Palo Alto, CA, Stanford University Press, 2009, p.31-76.

[8] Anna Hestler and Jaime Cox, eds., Shanghai Posters: The Power of Advertising, Hong Kong, FormAsia Books, 2005.

[9] His full name is Qu Guangsi 区广四, hence Laosi 老四.  Was this a play on words on Laosi 老四 (Old Fourth) as it appears in the cast listing, to Laozi 老寺 (the founder of Daoism) and to the character “si” 死 (meaning “death”)?

[10] Katheryn M. Linduff and Jianhua Yang, “Ritualization of Weapons in a Contact Zone: Between the Past and the Present, in Charles W. Hartley, G. Bike Yazicioglu, Adam T. Smith, eds., The Archaeology of Power and Politics in Eurasia: Regimes and Revolutions, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, p.174.

[11] She is known as Wu Qionghua 吴琼花in the earlier film version.

[12] Ma Ruohan, 马若涵, Yǐngpiàn “hóngsè niángzǐjūn” pāishè de qián qiánhòu hòu 红色娘子军》拍摄的前前后后 (Before and After the Filming of the Red Detachment of Women), Zhōngguó xuéshù qíkān diànzǐ chūbǎn shè中国学术期刊电子出版社 (China Academic Journal Electronic Publishing House), no date, link: http://www.cnki.net.

[13] See especially Li Jing, 李静, Yán’ān wényì jiàngòu jí qí yǐngxiǎng yánjiū (1930—1970 niándài 延安文艺建构及其影响研究(1930—1970年代) (Research on the Construction and Influence of Yan’an Literature and Art (1930s-1970s), op. cit., Rowan McLelland, Examining the Red Corps: An Investigation into the Adoption, Revolution, and Continued Development of ballet in China. unpublished dissertation, Department of Dance, University of Roehampton, London, UK, 2018, Wang Yingjie, 王英洁, Zhōngguó gémìng yǐngpiàn zhōng de nán quán sīxiǎng yǔ nǚquán zhǔyì中国革命影片中的男权思想与女权主义 (Male Power and Feminism in Chinese Revolutionary Films), Diànyǐng wénxué电影文学 (Film Literature), 2017, vol.22, p.43-45, Katheryn M. Linduff, Jianhua Yang, “Ritualization of Weapons in a Contact Zone: Between the Past and the Present, op. cit., Huang Wei 黄巍, Wéngé shíqí nǚxìng xíngxiàng zhèngzhì huà yánjiū 文革时期女性形象政治化研究 (Research on the politicization of female images during the Cultural Revolution), unpublished dissertation, Běijīng, shǒudū shīfàn dàxué北京，首都师范大学 (Beijing, Capital Normal University), 2012, Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Leiden, Boston, Brill, 2010, Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History, Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2008.

[14] Thanks to Qian Kun for walking me through this discussion on what Crenshaw called “intersectionality”. See Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color”, Stanford Law Review July 1991, vol.43, n°6, p.1241-1299, link: CiteSeerX 10.1.1.695.5934. doi:10.2307/1229039. JSTOR 1229039.

[15] Paul Clark, The Chinese Cultural Revolution: A History, op. cit.

[16] Ibid., p.5.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Guillermina U. Guadarrama Peña, “El Frente Nacional de Artes Plásticas (1952-1962)”, Abrevian: Ensayos, México City. INBA, CENIDIAP (Centro Nacional de Investigación, Documentación e Información de Artes Plásticas), Centro Nacional de las Artes, 2005, Marisol Villela Balderrama, “Doves and Machetes: Rina Lazo’s Movable Mural Venceremos (1959) in Guatemala, North Korea, and Beyond”, Art History (UK edition), in process.

[19] Bonnie S. McDougall, Louie Kam, The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century, New York, Columbia University Press, 1997.

[20] For instance, “We should take over the rich legacy and the good traditions in literature and art that have been handed down from past ages in China and foreign countries, but the aim must still be to serve the masses of the people.” 对于中国和外国过去时代所遗留下来的丰富的文学艺术遗产和优良的文学艺术传统，我们是要继承的，但是目的仍然是为了人民大众), Mao Zedong 毛泽东, Zài yán’ān wényì zuòtán huì shàng de jiǎnghuà 在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话 (Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art), op. cit.

[21] Paul Rakita Golden, The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press 2002.

[22] See the archaeological journals Kaogu 考古 and Wenwu 文物 from the years of the Cultural Revolution.

[23] See for example, Trésors d’Art Chinois: récentes découvertes archéologiques de la République Populaire de Chine, Paris, Petit Palais, Mai – Septembre 1973, The Chinese Exhibition: Archaeological Finds of The People’s Republic of China, Washington DC, National Gallery of Art, 13 December 1974 –30 March 1975, and Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum, 20 April –8 June 1975.

[24] Jessica Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China: New Discoveries from the Early Dynasties, New York, George Braziller, 1996, p.105.

[25] Ibid., p.203.

[26] Paul Rakita Golden, The Culture of Sex in Ancient China, op. cit.

[27] Ibid., p.1.

[28] Ibid., p.2. 

[29] Ibid., p.3.

[30] Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), op. cit., 2010, p.134.

[31] John Lagerwey, “Daoist Ritual in Social and Historical Perspective”, China: A Religious State, Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2010, p.57-94, link: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ffjp92.6.

[32] The parallel to women’s foot binding in imperial China and the binding of the ballerinas’ feet in the opera is obvious.  In neither case were men’s feet wrapped.

[33] Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), op. cit., 2010, p.134.

[34] Jonathan Hay, “The Body as Invisible in Chinese Art?”, in Angela Zeto, Tani Barlow, eds., Body, Subject and Power in China, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1994, p.42-77.

[35] Gao Minglu, personal communication.

[36] Emily Wilcox, Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy, op. cit., p.74.

[37] The Red Detachment was performed at Lincoln Center in New York City as late as 2015!

[38] Emily Wilcox, Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy, op. cit., p.83.

[39] Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), op. cit.

[40] Judith Lynn Hanna, Dance, Sex and Gender: Signs of Identity, Dominance, Defiance and Desire, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988, p.160.

[41] Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), op. cit., p.124.

[42] Ibid., p.124.

[43] Ibid., p.125.

[44] Ibid., p.128. 

[45] Ibid., p.129.

[46] Ibid., p.130.

[47] Ibid., p.130.

[48] Ibid., p.131.

[49] As also suggested by Harriet Evans, “Comrade Sisters”, in Harriet Evans, Stephanie Donald, eds., Picturing Power in the People’s Republic of China, Lanham, Boulder, New York, Oxford, Rowman and Littlefield, 1997, p.63, men have more important jobs and dominate in revolutionary posters.

[50] Rosemary A. Roberts, Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), op. cit., p.134.

[51] Li Yuan, “‘Who Are Our Enemies?’ China’s Bitter Youths Embrace Mao”, New York Times, July 8, 2021.

[52] The US President Richard Nixon as a foreign dignitary was invited to watch the ballet drama along with Jiang Qing in 1972 when he visited China for the first time, link: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/396877/pdf. One can find performances of Red Detachment both inside and outside of the PRC today (figs. 9, 11).