Pop Goes the Avant-Garde: Experimental Theatre in Contemporary China is the first comprehensive review of the history and development of avant-garde drama and theater in the People��
Republic of China since 1976. Drawing on a range of critical perspectives in the fields of comparative literature, theater, performance, and culture studies, the book explores key artistic
movements and phenomena that have emerged in China�� major cultural centers in the last several decades.
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It surveys the work of China�� most influential dramatists, directors and performance groups, with a special focus on Beijing-based playwright, director and filmmaker Meng Jinghui��he former
enfant terrible of Beijing theater, who is now one of Asia�� foremost theater personalities. Through an extensive critique of theories of modernism and the avant-garde, the author
reassesses the meanings, functions and socio-historical significance of this work in non-Western contexts by proposing a new theoretical construct��he pop avant-garde��nd exploring new ways
to understand and conceptualize aesthetic practices beyond Euro-American cultures and critical discourses.
