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Contemporary Yangge: The Moving History of a Chinese Folk Dance Form
- Asian Theatre Journal
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 25, Number 1, Spring 2008
- pp. 138-147
- 10.1353/atj.2008.0000
- Article
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Since the beginning of its rule, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has consistently claimed that the performing arts "should assist in the process of educating the masses" (Mackerras 1981: 9). The development of yangge dance is particularly linked to the CCP's policies during both the party's establishment and the Cultural Revolution. In this paper, I use personal experience and embodied research to complicate the existing conventional historical narrative that asserts the political exploitation of yangge in modern Chinese history.