Staging Tianxia explores the ancient Chinese vision of world order known as tianxia (all under heaven) by focusing on the historical, performative, and rhetorical processes of expressive arts and cultural heritages that inform a vision of China as a historically multiethnic and cosmopolitan nation. Author Lanlan Kuang unites multimedia ethnographic research and theoretical insights from ethnomusicology, philosophy, religious studies, performance studies, and cognitive science, with a focus on Dunhuang bihua yuewu, a modern interpretation inserted into the Chinese classical dance and theatrical arts tradition. Staging Tianxia thus aims to redefine Silk Road studies and Dunhuangology, a transdisciplinary field dedicated to studying the texts and art of Dunhuang, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that connected China via the Silk Road with Central Asia, South Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. Staging Tianxia is a careful ethnographic study that looks at the importance of performance tradition and poetics in the arts and aesthetic theory of China.
Lanlan Kuang is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Central Florida. She is Chair of the Florida Folklife Council and Distinguished Fellow of the Center for Ethnic and Folk Literature and Arts (CEFLA). Her fieldwork for this monograph received support from the Dunhuang Academy (DHRA) and the University of Central Florida. For more photos and videos from her fieldwork, you can visit her website, https://lanlankuangofficial.pub/
Acknowledgments Notes on Translations, Pronunciations, and Style Rules Cave Charts 1. Introduction 2. Tianxia, Chinascapes, and Dunhuang 3. Imagining Dunhuang: Literary Topography 4. Institutionalizing the Dunhuang bihua yuewu: Past and Present 5. Creating Dunhuang bihua yuewu: Key Concepts and Terms 6. Staging Dunhuang Arts in Context(s): Case Studies 7. Being-in-the-Field: Staged Dunhuang Arts and Intertextual Representations 8. Nation-Building: Dunhuang Meta-Elements in Peking Opera and Beyond 9. Coda: China's New Cosmopolitan Heritage Appendices Bibliography Index
"Ambitious in scope and meticulously researched, Staging Tianxia offers a compelling account of the ways a genre of performing arts inspired by the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes performatively enacts a vision of a Chinese nation shaped by both ancient and contemporary cosmopolitanisms. Along the way, the author brings new perspectives to broader interdisciplinary dialogues about nationalism, globalization, and cosmopolitanism."-Adam Kielman, author of Sonic Mobilities: Producing Worlds in Southern China "This book makes an important contribution to Chinese studies, Dunhuang studies, dance studies, ethnomusicology, ethnoarchaeology, and folklore studies. Kuang brings a wealth of knowledge stemming from long-term fieldwork conducted in relevant parts of China; close relationships established with performers, scholars, and film producers involved in this area; and a deep knowledge of relevant theories for contextualizing and interpreting this evolving tradition."-Levi S. Gibbs, author of Song King: Connecting People, Places, and Past in Contemporary China
