Theatre/Xiqu

Since the foundation of PRC, how has the development of the arts been affected by politics? And how is an artist’s personal history related to history’s grand narrative? Stage Sisters started with and features on the kun opera master Shi Xiaomei, who as a representative female theatre artist will engage in dialogue with five “sisters”, six actresses of different backgrounds. Wandering between subjects of female identity, sexuality, arts and politics, the sisters’ intimate conversations will shed light on the times and lives of women in theatre under the PRC regime. Together, the Sisters will delve into memories and weave their personal narratives of the New China with references to the political, the cultural and the economic, gently expanding, perplexing and critiquing history’s grand narrative.

Unconventional and non-linear, the performance will create a new kind of theatre experience by putting the audience and performers’ positions in reverse. From subverted perspectives, both the audience and the artists will be persuasively and vigorously questioning about the preconceptions about the theatre that has been holding them from understanding the true, tragic exigencies of theatre experience.