Studying contemporary art in China is not an exclusively aesthetic choice. In the context of an emerging market, art is as much a matter of cultural economy as of socio-politics. Thus art is not the product of an independent condition. In its imagination, as well as in its own diversity and its transformations, it encompasses and summarises the changes of a culture which is appropriating the schemes, images and notions inherited both from an age-old tradition and from the West (a West which i...

A performance of le qiang (乐腔, literally "joyful vocal tune"), formerly known as lao qiang (落腔), a rare genre of local Chinese opera (Chinese: difang xiqu, 地方戏曲) from Anyang (安阳市), northern Henan province (河南省), central China. The title of the play being performed here is "Jie Didi"《借髢髢》. The troupe is the Hua County Le Qiang Theater Troupe (Chinese: Hua Xian Le Qiang Jutuan, 滑县乐腔剧团), which is based in Hua County (滑县), Anyang (安阳市), northern Henan province (河南省), central China.