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Full-Text Articles in Chinese Studies
When Folk Dance Was Radical: Cold War Yangge, World Youth Festivals, And Overseas Chinese Leftist Culture In The 1950s And 1960s, Emily E. Wilcox
When Folk Dance Was Radical: Cold War Yangge, World Youth Festivals, And Overseas Chinese Leftist Culture In The 1950s And 1960s, Emily E. Wilcox
Arts & Sciences Articles
This article challenges three common assumptions about Chinese socialist-era dance culture: first, that Mao-era dance rarely circulated internationally and was disconnected from international dance trends; second, that the yangge movement lost momentum in the early years of the People’s Republic of China (PRC); and, third, that the political significance of socialist dance lies in content rather than form. This essay looks at the transformation of wartime yangge into PRC folk dance during the 1950s and 1960s and traces the international circulation of these new dance styles in two contexts: the World Festivals of Youth and Students in Eastern Europe, and …