Surface Classicism

Abstract

Abstract This article examines digital classicism in contemporary Chinese performance through the case study of an excerpt of the dance-drama Zhici qinglü 只此青綠 (Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting) performed at the 2022 CCTV Spring Festival Gala. It argues that the mobilization of digital performance technologies in Zhici qinglü and other contemporary large-scale performance in the PRC generates what might be termed “surface classicism”—an engagement with the past that sublimates elements of classical art and literature into the realm of digitally enhanced visuality. Surface classicism lends itself to critiques of superficiality and inauthenticity, but this article demonstrates that its ubiquity in contemporary culture also creates new networks of relationality among remediations of classical poetics and imagery. Ultimately, the mediation of both liveness and spectacular technologies in contemporary, digitally enhanced performance establishes classicist poetics and imagery as a core component of shared contemporary Chinese culture and may even engender new, more accessible modes of classical erudition.