Biography
I am a current PhD student in the joint program of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC) and Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS). I work on classical Chinese theatre and drama across disciplines (history, philosophy, film/media, literature, gender, music, etc.) and media forms from late imperial China to the modern era, with special interests in cross-dressing, aesthetics, transmediation, and artistic experiments. Drawing on my long years of operatic training in performing the young male lead (xiaosheng) role type in the all-female Yue opera as well as in Kun opera, I hope to produce original insights in rethinking the existing understanding surrounding Chinese opera theatre. I also strive to excavate and bring attention to the voices and perspectives of opera actresses in my research. Besides Chinese opera, my other interests include Honglou meng studies (Redology), material culture, early Shanghai leftwing and Mao-era cinema, East Asian popular culture, ancient philosophy, revolutionary culture, ethnomusicological works, and others.
Publications
(Forthcoming) Book Review of Casey Schoenberger’s Music, Mind, and Language in Chinese Poetry and Performance: The Voice Extended, Critical Inquiry, Winter 2025-2026.
"Becoming Awakened: Four Yue Opera Segments in Xie Jin’s Two Stage Sisters." CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 42, no. 2 (2023): 130-164.
Translation of Judith Zeitlin’s Opera Quarterly article “Operatic Ghosts on Screen: The Case of A Test of Love (1958)” [戏曲电影中的女鬼: 以越剧电影《 情探》 为例] in Xiju Yishu《戏剧艺术》, no.4, 32-46, 2024.
Kaixuan Yao's report of “100 Years of Women’s Yue Opera” (a conference I organized in April 2024 which marked the first time that the all-female Chinese Yue opera was commemorated in a multimedia manner that connected academic and artist perspectives outside China) in CHINOPERL: Journal of Chinese Oral and Performing Literature 43, no. 2 (2024): 217-224.