Biographies of Participants (alphabetical)

Anderson, Davey

Anderson, Davey is a writer, director, dramaturg, composer, musical director and workshop facilitator. His plays include Snuff, Blackout and The Static. His work as associate director with the National Theatre of Scotland includes Black Watch and Enquirer. He was supported by the Arches Award for Stage Directors in 2005 and has gone on to work with the Tron, Traverse, Citizens, TAG, National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, The TEAM, Ankur Productions, Birds of Paradise, Visible Fictions, 7:84 Scotland, Oran Mor, Scottish Youth Theatre, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Playwrights’ Studio and others.

Ansell, Steve

Ansell, Steve is Theatre & Production Manager at stage@leeds (The University of Leeds’ public theatre), director, teacher, writer and artistic programmer with over twenty-five years of experience. Steve is Artistic Director of Screaming Media Productions, the founder of Gi60 (the world’s only international one-minute theatre festival) and is currently associate artist at The Viaduct Theatre, Halifax. Steve has directed work in the UK and US, including the premiere of Dennis Kelly’s DNA at the National Theatre in London. Steve is currently working on a new adaptation of The Wilderness by Cao Yu.

Chan, Shelby

Chan, Shelby is Assistant Professor at the School of Translation, Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong. Her doctoral thesis is on translated theatre in Hong Kong and its relationship with identity construction. Her research interests include interpreting, drama translation, Chinese theatre, Gao Xingjian, cinematic adaptation, postcolonial studies and popular culture. She has attended conferences and presented papers in Europe, Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. She has also translated four plays from English to Cantonese for stage performances in Hong Kong.

Chen Tian

Chen Tian is Lecturer in Chinese Traditional Theatre at Nanjing University. BEC (Nanjing Agricultural University), MA (Nanjing University), PhD (Nanjing University). Main research areas: Chinese traditional theatre, kunju and Beijing Opera.

Chen, Xiaomei

Chen, Xiaomei is Professor and Chair of the Department of East Asian Cultures and Languages, University of California at Davis.

Chou, Katherine Hui-ling

Chou, Katherine Hui-ling is Professor, Chair of English Department at National Central University, Taiwan. She is project director of Black Box Performance Centre at National Central University, and founder of Electronic Intermix of Theatre, ETI, a digital archive dedicated to Taiwan’s modern theatre. After her PhD from NYU, she co-founded Creative Society Theatre Troupes in 1997, and is their playwright/director. She is the author of Performing China: Actresses, Visual Politics and Performance Culture, 1910s-1945. She has written 7 plays, including one jingju script, and directed 8 works since 2000. Her current research focuses on performing arts, creative industry and cultural economy.

Chun, Tarryn

Chun, Tarryn is a third year PhD candidate, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. Research interests include adaptation and intertextuality, cultural boundary crossing, and the interface between liveness and mediated performance in both huaju and xiqu from Mainland China and Taiwan. Her thesis focuses on the influence of new staging and performance technologies on the development of a uniquely "modern" Chinese theatre during the 20th century.

Daniels, Susan

Daniels, Susan is Fellow in Arts and Cultural Education, International Director for the PVAC Faculty and Co-director of the Performing and Staging China projects. She has been in HEI for over twenty years, at Bretton Hall and then the University of Leeds. Collaborations with external institutions include the National Coal Mining Museum England and DARE (University of Leeds partnership with Opera North). Recent projects include a two-year, European funded cultural co-operation project between the University, Opera North, Bregnzer Festspiele, Sibelius Academy, and Shanghai Theatre Academy. She is a member of an international network researching film as ‘soft power’.

Doran, Gregory

Doran, Gregory is Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Since his first RSC production in 1992, he has directed over two thirds of the Shakespearean canon including the lost play Cardenio. Productions of Macbeth, Hamlet and Julius Caesar were made into television films. His production of the Chinese tragedy, The Orphan of Zhao, in a new adaptation by James Fenton, is part of the RSC’s current A World Elsewhere season. Awarded the 2012 Sam Wanamaker Award by the Globe Theatre for his work, successfully increasing the understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare, he is the 2012-13 Humanitas Visiting Professor in Drama at Oxford University.

Ferrari, Rossella

Ferrari, Rossella is Lecturer in Modern Chinese Culture and Language at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her research interests include contemporary Chinese-language theatre (particularly experimental and avant-garde practises), interculturalism, and intermediality in theatre and performance. Her articles have appeared in The Drama Review, Postcolonial Studies, positions: asia critique, and elsewhere. She is the author of Pop Goes the Avant-Garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China.

Fong, Gilbert C. F.

Fong, Gilbert C. F. is an acclaimed translator, Acting President and Provost of Hang Seng Management College in Hong Kong, Professor and Dean of the School of Translation, and Honorary Chair Professor of Shandong University. Fong translated into English many plays by Gao Xingjian (2000 Nobel Prize in Literature), including The Other Shore and Snow in August. He translated into Chinese Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Genet’s Haute Surveillance and many other plays, all for stage performances in Hong Kong. Recent works include On Drama (with Gao Xingjian) and Dubbing and Subtitling in a World Context. He also edited Hong Kong Drama Review and Journal of Translation Studies.

Gao, Alex

Gao, Alex is Research Assistant in the School of Liberal Arts at Nanjing University. Having acquired his BA, MA, PhD from Nanjing University, he has also studied at Columbia University in the USA for a year. His research interest lies in avant-garde theatre, theory of drama, and comparative literature.

Guan, Bo

Guan, Bo is a playwright and a producer in the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) China, and has been engaged in theatrical writing, producing and theatre administration. Guan has written over ten movies and TV series. Major theatrical works productions include the operas Turandot, Carmen, Tosca and The Chinese Orphan; and the spoken dramas Jane Eyre, Wang Fujing Street and Returned on a Snowy Night.

Gui Ying

Gui Ying is Professor, Head of Theatre Group in the Department of Arts at Zhejiang University, and Artistic director of the Heibai Drama Society, which has become a cultural symbol of Zhejiang University. In 1990, she started to writing, directing, researching campus drama, and also teaching general courses on Chinese drama, at Zhejiang University. She has produced and directed over 50 pieces of campus drama with more than 100 performances, which have earned her national, provincial and municipal awards. She has published monographs Gui Ying: The Campus Drama, Documentation and Campus Drama, as well as over 20 papers in authoritative journals.

He Huibin

He Huibin holds an MA in English Literature and a PhD in Chinese Literature. He is currently doing comparative research in Chinese and Western drama and cognitive literary criticism. He is currently Professor of English literature and Vice Dean of the School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang University. His most important works are: Chinese Critique of Western Tragedy (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2007) and Dramatic Drama and Lyrical Drama (Beijing: China Social Sciences Press, 2004).

Hu Zhiyi

Hu Zhiyi is Professor, PhD Candidate Tutor, Deputy Dean of the College of Media and International Culture in Zhejiang University. He is the Executive Member of Chinese Language Drama Festival Committee and Vice President of Chinese Society of Dramatic Theory & History. He has published many monographs including Myth and Rites: Archetypal Explanation of Drama.

Huang, Alexander C. Y.

Huang, Alexander C. Y. is Director of Dean’s Scholars in Shakespeare Program and Associate Professor of English, Theatre and Dance, East Asian Languages and Literatures, and International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and co-founder of the open access “Global Shakespeares digital performance archive” (www.globalshakespeares.org). His publications include Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange (Columbia University Press; winner of multiple awards including the MLA Scaglione Prize); Weltliteratur und Welttheater: Ästhetischer Humanismus in der kulturellen Globalisierung (Transcript Verlag); and Shakespeare in Hollywood, Asia and Cyberspace, co-edited with Charles Ross (Purdue University Press).

Li Ruru

Li Ruru worked on the farm, in the factory and the theatre company, and has taught in Leeds since 1988. Her extensive writings, on Shakespeare performances in China and on modern/traditional Chinese theatre, include six books and numerous refereed articles. She founded the ‘Performing China’ network to foster mutually beneficial collaboration between researchers and practitioners. A further aim is to help reinvigorate the practice-led/cross-disciplinary study of Chinese theatres across Greater China, including Sinophone, non-Han language, and foreign language modes. She runs regular Chinese theatre workshops, and curated a centenary exhibition on Cao Yu, that for two years has successfully toured the UK, North America and China.

Li Xiaolin

Li Xiaolin is Associate Professor at Zhejiang University in China. Her research interests lie in Western literature and comparative literature, gender studies, intercultural theatre and the performing art of Beijing Opera/ Chinese opera.

Lin Wei-Yu

Lin Wei-Yu is Assistant Professor in the Department of Drama Creation and Application at the National University of Tainan, Taiwan. Lin received her PhD from the Theatre and Dance department at the University of Hawaii. She taught at the Peking University Theatre Research Institute, and the National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing from 2006-2008. Her academic interests include Chinese modern theatre, modern application of traditional theatre elements in Asian modern theatre, and Cambodian classical dance-drama.

Lin Zhaohua

Lin Zhaohua has been at the vanguard of China’s dramatic arts for thirty years and is Chair of the Peking University Theatre Research Institute. He started directing in 1978, becoming renown with the experimental Absolute Signal by Nobel Laureate in Literature Gao Xingjian. In 1989, he established the Lin Zhaohua Theatre Studio which initiated the Little Theatre Movement in China. His works range from traditional and modern Chinese dramas to Beijing Opera, adaptations of European masterworks such as Hamlet, Faust, the hybrid Three Sisters Waiting for Godot, and acrobatic shows. A member of the International Brecht Society since 1987, he has directed in Europe, Japan and USA and engaged with artists such as Peter Brook, Pina Bausch, Heiner Muller, Suzuki Tadashi, Ota Shogo, Lee Bruce, Ming Cho Lee, Thomas Ostermeier, and David Henry Hwang.

Liu, Siyuan

Liu, Siyuan Steven is Assistant Professor of Theatre at the University of British Columbia and President of Association for Asian Performance. He is the author of Performing Hybridity in Colonial-Modern China (Palgrave Macmillan 2013). He has published widely on twentieth-century Chinese theatre and other topics in edited books and peer-reviewed journals such as Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, TDR, Asian Theatre Journal and Text & Presentation. He co-edited two “Founders of the Field” series for Asian Theatre Journal.

Ma Haili

Ma Haili holds a doctorate degree from the University of Leeds, and is currently a Lecturer in Chinese Studies at University of Leeds, UK. Haili was a yueju xiaosheng performer at the Shanghai Luwan All-Female Yueju Company before embarking in an academic career in the UK. Her current research examines how traditional opera is evolving artistically under contemporary Chinese political and economic settings.

Ma Lung

Ma Lung: is the grandson of the Beijing Opera master Ma Lianliang. He studied at the University of International Business and Economics and has been dedicated in compiling, sorting and researching Ma Lianliang’s artistic works. He is the author of My Grandfather: Ma Lianliang, Photographic Biography of Ma Lianliang and Beijing Opera Master Ma Lianliang. He is now a member of China’s Biographic Literature Learned Society and the director of Research Association of Ma Lianliang Performing Art.

Palmer, Scott

Palmer, Scott is Deputy Head of the School of Performance & Cultural Industries at University of Leeds, UK. His teaching and research focus on scenography, immersive theatrical environments and the interaction between technology and performance. He collaborated with Sita Popat and KMA Creative Technology on the AHRC-funded Projecting Performance project (2006-08), the interactive kinetic light installation, Dancing in the Streets (York, 2005) and the experimental production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2007), which influenced the scenography for DV8 Physical Theatre’s international production To Be Straight With You (2007-9). His current research Light – Readings in Theatre Practice will be published by Palgrave Macmillan next month.

Peng, Linda

Peng, Linda is a PhD student in the College of Communication and International Culture at Zhejing University, from Taiwan. Before coming to China, she studied drama with Professor Wang Shih-I in the Graduate Institute of Arts in the Chinese Culture University. Her article ‘Japanese Trendy Drama: An analytical approach to a new genre of performing arts’ was published recently. Her current supervisor is Professor Hu Zhiyi; Peng is hoping to improve her theoretical understanding of theatrical creativity.

Pithces, Jonathan

Pitches, Jonathan is Professor of Theatre and Performance in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at Leeds University where he is also Director of Research. He has research interests in digital reflection, documentation and the theory and practice of performer training, beginning with Russian approaches to actor training and expanding more recently to the UK, US and China. He has taught master classes in Russian actor training at the RSC, in Tokyo, Malta, Australia and Shanghai and is the founding editor of the Routledge journal, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.

Pu Bo

Pu Bo: A PhD candidate in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at East China Normal University. Research Areas: Drama, Visual Art, and Space. In 2011, his article ‘Interpretation and Transmutation in Contemporary Drama’ was awarded the Second Prize of the National Tian Han Theatre Award, China.

Pucci, Stephen

Pucci, Stephen is Modern Chinese alumnus, University of Leeds. Stephen gained an MA in Classical Acting, Central School of Speech and Drama. In 2011 he performed on Broadway in Chinglish – a new play by Tony Award-winning American-Chinese playwright, David Henry Hwang. Most recently, Stephen performed at the London Coliseum with the English National Opera in Vaughan Williams’ morality opera, The Pilgrim’s Progress. The production, directed by Japanese actor-director Yoshi Oida and choreographed by Hong Kong-born Carolyn Choa, featured strong elements of movement, puppetry, martial arts and dance, and gave Stephen the exciting opportunity to further explore his relationship with East Asian theatre practises.

Roberts, Rosemary

Roberts, Rosemary is Senior Lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. She is author of Maoist Model Theatre: The Semiotics of Gender and Sexuality in the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) (Brill 2010) and has published extensively in Chinese gender and culture studies. She is currently working on projects on contemporary Chinese theatre; aesthetic theory and performance of the Model Works; and Red Classics in the new millennium.

Tian Qinxin

Tian Qinxin is Theatre Director of the National Theatre Company of China, and Vice Director of Institute of Film, Television and Theatre of Peking University. She is the most established and influential, cutting-edge theatre director of contemporary China. Blending the Chinese and Western classical plays with contemporary social issue, her works seek to reconcile oriental arts and aesthetics. Establishing an intriguing space-time structure for contemporary Chinese theatre Tian Qinxin has developed a school of her own. In 2005, after attending the Asia Theatre Director Exchange Project she directed a Korean Version of The Field of Life and Death for Korean Michoo Theatre Company. In 2006, she directed a Korean Version of Orphan of Zhao for Korean Michoo Theatre Company and in 2012, Romeo and Juliet for the National Theatre of Korea.

Walling, Michael

Walling, Michael is Director of numerous productions in drama and opera genres across four continents, winning awards for example, for his Two Gentlemen of Verona (USA) and Paul & Virginie (Mauritius). Artistic Director of Border Crossings (www.bordercrossings.org.uk). Work has included co-productions with the National Theatre of Ghana and Shanghai Yue Opera Company. He has published extensively on theatre and related subjects, editing three Border Crossings’ books and most recently written a book chapter on the plays of Mahesh Dattani. He is director of Origins Festival of First Nations Theatre (www.originsfestival.com), in which Border Crossings is producer. He is Visiting Professor at Rose Bruford College.

Wang Yun

Wang Yun is Professor at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, Head of Research Office and Deputy Director of the Research Institute of Arts. He holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from Fudan University and his research interests lie in arts theories, aesthetics, comparative literature and Chinese classics.

Waterman, Zoë

Waterman, Zoë is currently Assistant Director on The Orphan of Zhao at the RSC. Her directing work includes Amy’s View and After Miss Julie (Nottingham Playhouse); Shining City and The Bogus Woman (Theatre by the Lake, Keswick); Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty (The Maltings, Berwock-Upon-Tweed); Philistines (RWCMD); The Europeans (East 15); 13 and Arcadia (Arts Educational School); The Promise (New Wimbledon Theatre Studio); and as Associate Director Much Ado About Nothing (Malmö Stadsteater); All Quiet on the Western Front and Joking Apart (Nottingham Playhouse and UK tour). Zoë was the recipient of the New Wimbledon Theatre’s Emerging Director Award 2007.

Way, Charles

Way, Charles is a playwright and member of the Welsh Academy of Authors, Charles specialises in work for young people. He has written over 50 plays which are performed worldwide. His awards include those from The Writer’s Guild, The Arts Council’s Children’s Award, the German Children’s prize and most recently The American Theatre and Education award for Pirates. In 2005 he wrote The Dutiful Daughter, a joint production between West Yorkshire Playhouse and Sichuan People’s Art Theatre. Current projects include Ragnorak (East Angles Theatre Company England), The Light Princess (Seattle Children’s Theatre, USA) and Nivelli’s War (Cahoots NI, Northern Ireland).

Wichmann-Walczak

Wichmann-Walczak, Elizabeth is Professor in the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa Department of Theatre and Dance. She was the first non-Chinese to perform jingju(Beijing Opera) in PR China while carrying out field research for her doctoral dissertation. Her publications concern performance system and aesthetics in the contemporary Chinese song-dance theatre, and she regularly produces jingju training residencies at UHM, taught by professional jingju artists and culminating in productions which she translates and directs; three have toured China by invitation. Awards include the National Xiqu Music Association Kong Sanchuan Award for excellence in research, creation, and performance, and the National Festival of Jingju Golden Chrysanthemum Award for outstanding achievements in promoting and developing jingju.

Wu Peiyi

Wu Peiyi is a National-grade Actor in China, an expert who receives special government allowance from the State Council. He is regarded as the Top Arts & Culture Professional by the Ministry of Culture. In 1997, he was appointed judge of the Cao Yu Theatre Award. He is the Secretary of the Party Committee and legal representative of the Hubei Experimental Huaguxi Theatre. Mastering both practice and theory, his theatre work encompasses both professional and administrative aspects.

Yan Haiping

Yan Haiping was formerly Professor of UCLA in Theatre, Film and Television and Cornell University in Theatre/Performance Studies, Comparative Literature and Asian Studies. Yan is presently University Professor of Cross-cultural Studies and the Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Media and Society at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Economy and Society at Cornell University. Yan’s specialties include modern and contemporary theatre, cinema and literary studies, critical theory and transnational performance studies, and cultural history.

Yan Xiaorong

Yan Xiaorong is a PhD candidate in the Media and International Culture College at Zhejiang University. She entered the Aesthetics Research Institute of Zhejiang University in 2010, and has been supervised by Professor Hu Zhiyi. Her major is Aesthetics in Drama and Film, and her thesis is on Chinese Independent Documentary. She also researches in the field of drama.

Yu Qingfeng

Yu Qingfeng is a National Grade-A playwright, now working in the Hangzhou Arts Innovation and Research Centre. His playwriting covers a range of local operas. In a number of experimental works he has combined the traditional song-dance theatres with the Western style of musical, and has introduced Western operatic style into Chinese traditional genres. He has started working on TV series in the yueju, a local song-dance theatrical style. Prizes include the Cao Yu Scriptwriting Prize of the China Theatre Award, the National Dramatic Literature Golden Prize, Best Playwright Prize for Chinese Human Culture, the Golden Prize for the National Yueju Festival, Excellent Play Award for China Theatre Festival, Wenhua Excellent Play Award, Excellent Play Award for China Huangmeixi Festival.

Zhang Ping

Zhang Ping is a National Grade-A director working in the Henan Provincial Research Institute of Arts, with an MA (Nanjing University). He was awarded the title ‘National Advanced Worker’ by the Ministry of Culture, and is involved in the ‘Talent Pool of Four Types Scheme’ launched by Publicity Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Henan Provincial Committee. Director of over sixty productions in a range of regional operatic styles, his work has five times been awarded the Five-One Project Prize by the Ministry of Publicity, CCCP, and the Wenhua Prize three times by the Ministry of Culture. His yuju production Cheng Ying Saves the Orphan was first in the list of winners of the Grand Culture Prize, earning him first position on the list of Wenhua Director Prize. This production also came first in the 2005 Top Ten Productions of National Classic Stage Arts Project.