Contemporary Chinese Performance Artist Yang Liping's Regional Transculturalism

Abstract Contemporary Performance Artist Yang Liping's Regional Transculturalism by Gaoyingshan Feng Master of Arts in Theatre This thesis explores a contemporary Chinese performance artist, Yang Liping's work, including her dance theatre as well as native and folk musical dance dramas. Yang Liping is an intercultural and multicultural phenomenon in China, distinguished from her contemporaries in her modern use of both China's native and folk songs and dances, specifically indigenous to Yunnan province. Her performance art blends Chinese folk and popular music and dance in which native tradition and contemporary culture, native art and modern stage art coalesce. Musical dance drama Dynamic Yunnan reproduces China's native music and dance on the stage. This thesis argues for Yang Liping as a representative figure in leading the discovery, conservation, and development of native music and dance of Chinese minorities, specifically of Yunnan region. An in-depth analysis of her representative dance pieces and especially her Dynamic Yunnan elucidates the significant achievement of Yang Liping in the larger context of globalization.