Ohio State nav bar

ICS Lecture: Wing Chung Ng, "Regional Theater in the Age of Nationalism: Cantonese Opera and the Mei-Ou Challenge in Republican China"

photo of Wing Chung Ng
March 11, 2016
4:00PM - 5:30PM
Hagerty Hall, Room 062 (1775 College Road)

Date Range
Add to Calendar 2016-03-11 16:00:00 2016-03-11 17:30:00 ICS Lecture: Wing Chung Ng, "Regional Theater in the Age of Nationalism: Cantonese Opera and the Mei-Ou Challenge in Republican China" Institute for Chinese Studies presents the "China and the International Mediasphere" Lecture Series "Regional Theater in the Age of Nationalism: Cantonese Opera and the Mei-Ou Challenge in Republican China"Professor Wing Chung NgDepartment of HistoryUniversity of Texas at San AntonioFlyer: Wing Chung Ng Flyer.pdfAbstract: Cantonese opera took shape as a distinct art form and a theatrical genre of considerable local appeal in Southern Guangdong in the early twentieth century. Such theatrical formation unfolded in the context of rising nationalism that questioned the legitimacy and viability of regional operas. Especially during Mei Lanfang’s performance tours to Hong Kong and Guangzhou in the 1920s and the ensuing tenure of Ouyang Yuqian as head of the Guangdong Theater Research Institute (1928-31), the pressure was unremitting for Cantonese opera to defend and redefine itself as more than an emblem of regional identity and a vehicle of dialect-based popular culture. How did Cantonese opera step up to the challenge and with what sort of outcomes by the eve of the Pacific War? The talk will conclude with some preliminary observations on the more recent cultural shifts and re-imagination of Cantonese opera in the different context of late colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong. Bio: Wing Chung Ng is a historian of modern China at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His two principal areas of research pertain to the Chinese Diaspora and the social history of regional operas in South China. He is the author of The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80: The Pursuit of Identity and Power (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999) and The Rise of Cantonese Opera (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press and Hong Kong: HKU Press, 2015). He was a Commonwealth Scholar, a NEH fellow, a resident fellow at the National Humanities Center, and, most recently, a Fulbright Scholar. Among his current projects is a longitudinal study of Chinese migration history over the last four hundred years; he is also interested in exploring the re-imagination of Cantonese opera as a cultural heritage and a subject of academic research in late colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong.Co-sponsor:Department of HistoryThis event is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center. Hagerty Hall, Room 062 (1775 College Road) East Asian Studies Center easc@osu.edu America/New_York public

Institute for Chinese Studies presents the "China and the International Mediasphere" Lecture Series

"Regional Theater in the Age of Nationalism: Cantonese Opera and the Mei-Ou Challenge in Republican China"

Professor Wing Chung Ng
Department of History
University of Texas at San Antonio

Flyer: PDF icon Wing Chung Ng Flyer.pdf

Abstract: Cantonese opera took shape as a distinct art form and a theatrical genre of considerable local appeal in Southern Guangdong in the early twentieth century. Such theatrical formation unfolded in the context of rising nationalism that questioned the legitimacy and viability of regional operas. Especially during Mei Lanfang’s performance tours to Hong Kong and Guangzhou in the 1920s and the ensuing tenure of Ouyang Yuqian as head of the Guangdong Theater Research Institute (1928-31), the pressure was unremitting for Cantonese opera to defend and redefine itself as more than an emblem of regional identity and a vehicle of dialect-based popular culture. How did Cantonese opera step up to the challenge and with what sort of outcomes by the eve of the Pacific War? The talk will conclude with some preliminary observations on the more recent cultural shifts and re-imagination of Cantonese opera in the different context of late colonial and post-colonial Hong Kong.

 

Bio: Wing Chung Ng is a historian of modern China at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His two principal areas of research pertain to the Chinese Diaspora and the social history of regional operas in South China. He is the author of The Chinese in Vancouver, 1945-80: The Pursuit of Identity and Power (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999) and The Rise of Cantonese Opera (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press and Hong Kong: HKU Press, 2015). He was a Commonwealth Scholar, a NEH fellow, a resident fellow at the National Humanities Center, and, most recently, a Fulbright Scholar. Among his current projects is a longitudinal study of Chinese migration history over the last four hundred years; he is also interested in exploring the re-imagination of Cantonese opera as a cultural heritage and a subject of academic research in late colonial and postcolonial Hong Kong.

Co-sponsor:
Department of History

This event is sponsored in part by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI grant for The Ohio State University East Asian Studies Center.