April 4 at 3pm in Dodge 622
Sound, Erasure and Archive: Chinese Theater and the Transpacific Community in 19th Century California
Abstract:
Cantonese opera was woven into the cultural, financial, social, and family life of the Chinese community in 19th-century California. Yet excavating its history is nearly impossible, not only because of the limited archival sources but also due to various forms of erasure. This paper addresses the challenge, particularly the need to 'listen for the unsaid, translate misconstrued words, and refashion disfigured lives.' It begins with a discussion of how a laborer’s diary entries give color to the faded image of 19th-century Chinese theater in San Francisco and pull us into its everydayness. It then considers the theater institutionally as an expression of the transpacific community, and the significance of a 1903 recording of Cantonese opera.
Bio:
Nancy Yunhwa Rao is Distinguished Professor of Music at Rutgers University. A native of Taiwan, she holds a PhD in music theory from the University of Michigan. Her research seeks to bridge music theory, musicology and Sinophone studies. She is the author of Chinatown Opera Theater in North America, which won book awards from American Musicological Society, Society for American Music, and Association for Asian American Studies. Her recent work includes a chapter on East Asia for The Cambridge Companion to Serialism, an article on materiality of sonic imagery in Music Theory Spectrum, an essay on Tan Dun in Contemporary Opera In Flux and an article on Chou Wen-chung’s Eternal Pine in Musical Meaning and Interpretation. Her new book, Inside Chinese Theater: Community and Artistry in 19th-Century California and Beyond was published in March. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Member of the American Musicological Society, Rao is Editor-in-Chief of American Music.
