Chinese Singing Contests as Sites of Negotiation Among Individuals and Traditions

Abstract

This article explores the function of Chinese singing competitions as "mechanisms of traditionalization" where singers, judges, and other individuals interact with and reconfigure performance traditions. Focusing on case studies of professional folksingers from northern China who became famous after appearing on national singing competitions, I argue that participating in contests not only raises the status of individual performers, but also repositions songs, singing styles, and regions within particular performance traditions and the national mediascape as a whole. In addition, narratives of participation and success in contests sometimes connect singer-contestants to other more established singers in mutually beneficial ways. I urge us to view competitions in a singer's career as a series of liminal spaces—rather than as simple contests between individual artists—where the singer and other individuals negotiate choices between continuity and change in representing performance traditions.