Chinatown Opera Theater in North America

We are excited to announce a three lecture series by Professor Nancy Rao of Rutgers University, a leading scholar on Chinese theater in North America. This three-lecture series is funded by the UBC Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster, and is sponsored by the UBC School of Music, UBC Library, and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden. These lectures take place from March 17th to 19th, and will be conducted in person. They are free and open to the public, but registration is required as the venues have limited capacity.

March 17th – Archives of the Invisible in American Music: Tracing Transpacific Crossing of Chinese Opera

March 18th – Reading Archive—Against the Grain

March 19th – 170 years of Chinese Opera Theatre in North America

Please click here for 【Bonus Mark】CHIN 443 & CHIN 450+ Students

Please see details and registration links below:

Archives of the Invisible in American Music: Tracing Transpacific Crossing of Chinese Opera

Date
Thursday, March 17, 2022

TIME
2:30 PM – 4 PM PST

COST
Free | Registration is required

LOCATION
Level 3, Room 302, Dodson Room, UBC Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

As the 2021-2022 Keynote Speaker of the Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster of the University of British Columbia, Professor Nancy Rao will give a Keynote Lecture on “Archives of the Invisible in American Music: Tracing Transpacific Crossing of Chinese Opera”. This talk offers readings against the grain and considers the ways that archives structure and frame not only our understanding of the past but how we enter into the present and future.

Reading Archive—Against the Grain

Date
Friday, March 18, 2022

TIME
1 PM – 2 PM PST

COST
Free | Registration is required

LOCATION
Seminar Room, UBC Rare Books and Special Collections, UBC Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

Professor Nancy Rao will conduct a workshop at the UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections on the archival sources documenting aspects of Chinese music and theater in Vancouver in the 1920s. This workshop is particularly useful for students who want to know the rich holdings of the UBC Chung Collection for further research in this area.

170 years of Chinese Opera Theatre in North America

Date
Saturday, March 19, 2022

TIME
2 PM – 3:30 PM PST

COST
Free | Registration is required

LOCATION
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden

Professor Nancy Rao will give a public talk at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden in Chinatown, Vancouver. The Chinese Music Ensemble of the UBC School of Music will perform live at this event. UBC music alumna Emily Liang will also share her research findings on a Canadian Chinese newspaper and the Vancouver Chinatown community in the 1920s. This talk is for the general public.

About the speaker:

Professor Rao is the leading scholar on Chinese theater in North America. Her 2017 award-winning book, Chinatown Theatre in North America, was translated into Chinese and was published in 2021 as “跨洋的粵劇” by Shanghai Music Conservatory and Guangxi Music Conservatory Presses. She is currently the leading scholar on Chinese theater and global history. Her books are warmly received in the Sinophone world, and her work explains the history of Chinese communities withstanding anti-Asian racism in the twentieth century.

Instructions for completing a response for bonus mark:

You can earn 0.25 bonus marks by participating in any ONE of the talks above and completing a reflection based on a prompt from the organizer. Please note that you will only get 0.25 even if you complete two or three responses. If you are only interested in the talks without any expectation for bonus marks, please ignore the steps below. 

Requirements: Students in CHIN 443 and CHIN 450+ courses who submit a qualified screenshot of their submissions (A screenshot of the email response marked with Pass from Dr. Law ) will receive bonus marks for their selected class. For event bonus mark policy, please refer to “2021W2 CHIN Program Co/Extra-Curricular Events and Event Bonus Marks”.

  • Step 1: Register for an event and please register using your name as listed on Canvas. 
  • Step 2: Email the organizer Dr. Hedy Law (hedy.law@ubc.ca) with the following information 
    • Email Title: CHIN student IHRC talk response – Your name (as listed on Canvas) 
    • Email body: Please list your name, the title for the talk(s) title that you have registered for, and the CHIN course title that you are registered for, e.g CHIN443. If you are registered for more than one CHIN course, the bonus mark will only be counted toward one CHIN course of your choice. Please list the CHIN course of your choice. 
    • Wait to hear back from Dr. Law for a prompt. 
  • Step 3: Write your response. See requirements below:
    • Length: one page (letter-size); double space; 12-font size 
    • Content: List the prompt at the top. Discuss what you have learnt from the talk by directly referring to specific details/aspects of the talk. 
    • Marking: You will be marked with Pass/Fail and will ONLY be able to get the bonus mark if your response is marked as Pass. 
  • Step 4: Email back Dr. Law using REPLY to email (do NOT create a new email thread) and attach your completed response within ONE WEEK after you have received the prompt, or before March 31st, 2022, 11:59 PST, whichever comes first. Note this deadline is before the Qualtrics deadline since a reply is required to proceed.