Communist Ballets

For a woman, as soon as the father's not calling the dance and language is being torn apart by rhythm, no mother can serve as an axis for the sacred or the farce. The girl tries herself: the result is so-called female homosexuality, identification with men, or a tight rein on the least pre-Oedipal pleasure. And if no paternal 'legitimation' comes along to dam up the inexhaustible non-symbolized impulse, she collapses into psychosis or suicide (Kristeva, About Chinese Women 41).

I'm working on Chinese socialist ballets performed during the Cultural Revolution and how it represents the perpetuation of what Judith Stacey calls "socialist-patriarchy." The ballets are very mob, especially the jumps in 'The White-Haired Girl." (Feminine) hysteria and the urge for private revenge, as manifested in the sudden change of the protagonist's hair from black to white (though more like faux-pas blond), must be tamed by socialist-communalism. As the girl returns to her village, now transformed into a collectivist , peasant commune, she will be shown the "right" way to avenge her father at the same time as she is benevolently given a red handkerchief to cover up her white hair. It's not just that I find the red handkerchief very ugly; I wanted the white-haired girl to continue hiding and haunting the abandoned temple up in the mountains.

To paraphrase Mao's famous words, "black-haired girl, white-haired girl, whoever catches the Father is a good girl"