Join the Play House Labs team for our second installment of performance films: a double feature screening of two of the eight "model dramas" (yangbanxi) allowed on stage during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976+): "revolutionary ballet" Red Detachment of Women and "modern jingju" (Beijing opera) Raid on the White Tiger Regiment. Presented live to Richard Nixon during his first visit to Modern China in 1972, Red Detachment tells the story of peasant Wu Qinghua's liberation as she joins Hainan's all-women 2nd Independent Regiment of the Red Army; the film's gun-wielding soldiers have been referenced in media across the globe. Raid on the White Tiger Regiment uses a combination of shocking acrobatics and Maoist Thought to recount the true story of the Chinese Volunteer Army's infiltration of a U.S./South Korean army headquarters in 1953. The screening will be preceded by a discussion on the Cultural Revolution and the history and impact of "model dramas" in Chinese performance; there will be one intermission between films.

Red Detachment of Women (1972)  - 1 hr 41 min
and Raid on the White Tiger Regiment (1972) - 2 hr 4 min
Mandarin with English subtitles

Free