Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy by Emily Wilcox (review)

Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy. By Emily Wilcox. Oakland: University of California Press, 2018; 322 pp.; illustrations. $34.95 paper, e-book available.

Revolutionary Bodies: Chinese Dance and the Socialist Legacy is a groundbreaking study that chronicles the emergence and transformation of "Chinese dance" (zhongguo wu). While Chinese dance is diverse and encompasses multiple genealogies, the "Chinese dance" that is the focus of this book, zhongguo wu, is an institution bearing the Chinese socialist legacy in the context of mainland China and, as Emily Wilcox emphasizes, constitutes a contemporary and still evolving practice. While as a modern institutional construct zhongguo wu is deeply entwined with the ideology and power dynamics of the political regime, it is far from a simple top-down operative. Significantly, Wilcox's analysis reveals how historical agents (dancers and choreographers) exerted their personal ideals and expertise, as they grappled with, negotiated, participated in, and were swept up in the shifts of political power and ideology. At the same time, these dancers—in the relentless spirit of innovation—contributed to the aesthetic expressions and "forms" (xingshi) of zhongguo wu as they developed, were passed on, and continue to evolve dynamically today, as does the Chinese socialist legacy.

Wilcox's central argument is that zhongguo wu contains three "core commitments": kinesthetic nationalism, ethnic inclusiveness, and dynamic inheritance. The articulation of these "commitments" allows readers to consider Chinese institutional art-making beyond the simple designation of "art as propaganda," and sheds light on the internal logics and sensibilities that drive this significant art-as-nation-building project. These "three commitments" in turn become the criteria by which Wilcox defines the scope of her research: the zhongguo wu created by Yu Rongling in the late Qing court or the renowned Beijing Opera master Mei Lanfang in the Republican Era are only mentioned in the introduction and excluded from the chapters.

The scope of the study covers an approximately 80-year span, from the 1930s to the 2010s. The chapters are organized chronologically and are compatible with the historiographical stages of the People's Republic of China (PRC). As such, one can also see how dance and processes of nation-building shed light on one another. In addition to a careful and comprehensive examination of Chinese and English historical sources—both textual and visual—Wilcox also imbues her writing and analysis with the sensitivities of an ethnographer who studied the techniques and repertoires of zhongguo wu and interacted extensively with practitioners in the field. These embodied sensitivities can be felt in her extensive dance analyses, as well as her accounts of classroom encounters in the Beijing Dance Academy drawn from her fieldwork to illustrate the particular ways contemporary Chinese dancers inherit the disciplines along with their individual motivation for pursuing the art form.

Throughout the book, the three "core commitments" are intertwined with the chronicling of historical figures and happenings, as insights and arguments emerge in Wilcox's selection and juxtaposition of works for analysis. The study of Dai Ailian, a dominant figure in the formation of "Chinese dance" at the time of the founding of the PRC, is complemented by references to other significant and competing historical agents (Wu Xiaobang, Liang Lun, Qemberxanim) on the cusp of the establishment of this new regime. Besides revealing the contending visions of modernity embodied in the efforts and creations of individual dancers, Wilcox's research into Dai's experiences in Trinidad and England reveals how minority racial politics on the world stage and a strand of Chinese nationalism characterized by ethnic inclusiveness converge in the praxis of this legendary Chinese Trinidadian dancer.

That an appropriate "form" emerged as a significant consideration for the construction of zhongguo wu, even prioritized over a politically correct revolutionary narrative, is evidenced by the critique of Dai Ailian's Peace Dove (1950) and its use of the ballet form. Instead, elements from Chinese opera (xiqu) and existing folk dance practices from the ethnic Han majority as well as non-Han ethnic minorities within mainland China became the favored components for the appropriate "form." This point resonates...