For my final project, I would like to focus on jingju (Peking Opera/Chinese Opera), which is famous for its tradition of cross-dressing. Male Dan, skilled in impersonating female, play women in Peking opera. Several Chinese stories featuring cross-dressing were adapted to Peking opera and one of the most famous is Mulan. Male opera performers play Mulan who disguised herself as a man to take her father’s place in the army. I would like to explore the role of female impersonators in the cross-dressing story within Peking opera and how female subjectivity been publicized and transformed by Peking opera performance.

• Butler’s theory on gender and performative acts can explain the representation of queer identities in some popular Chinese cultural forms, cultural specificities cannot be ignored. It is crucial to give reference to the male/female impersonation tradition in China, which is charged with ambiguities gender-bending implications.

• While all Peking Opera performers traditionally have a low social status in China, the Dan performers, who are female impersonators, have the lowest status, especially since they are viewed as objects of desire by the spectators and are required to act as sexual service providers. I want to explore how these performers transformed their roles and even impacted female subjectivity after the end of the Qing dynasty.