Content area
Full Text
Abstract: This article concerns the centrality of musical stereotypes in minority representation in modern China, with examples from the post-1950s concert tradition of the rawap, a Central Asian long-necked plucked lute used extensively today in traditional and modern music of the Uyghur, Turkic Muslims in northwest China. An icon of the official version of minority modernity, the rawap has been recreated to constitute a stereotypical portrayal of minorities as joyful merrymakers while also to embody the discourses of progress and enlightenment. Minority musicians have selectively co-opted certain stereotyped representations as aesthetic resources for subaltern performances.
Introduction
In November 2009, a group of about 20 musicians and dancers of the Uyghur ethnicity-Turkic Muslims from a minority "autonomous region" called Xinjiang (new frontier) in the far-flung Chinese northwest-appeared in Hong Kong as guest performers in a concert with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, a government-sponsored ensemble. The Uyghur group consisted mostly of faculty members and music majors from Xinjiang Shifan Daxue (Xinjiang Normal University) of the provincial capital Urumqi, where a few months earlier in July, deadly clashes between the indigenous Uyghur and the Chinese settlers claimed more than 150 lives. The Uyghur musicians considered themselves among the very fortunate few to be granted permission to travel abroad, despite the close scrutiny throughout the tour. The concert featured an assortment of Uyghur and Chinese music from traditional and modern repertoires, loosely connected by the theme "The Silk Road Journey," which, the program maintains, "begins in the 7th century from the Tang capital of Chang'an, going west until we arrive at Xinjiang of today." To many in the audience, the political undertones should not be unfamiliar: continuities between Uyghur music and ancient Chinese culture substantiate Chinese-rather than Middle Eastern and Central Asian- influences on Uyghur culture, affirming a unified Chinese nation to which the Uyghur have always belonged.
Despite the politico-historical frame, most compositions included in the program were performed in a rather ahistorical fashion: rearranged tunes from folk songs and the classical muqam, rendered with an indiscriminately uplifting spirit by a colorful ensemble of instrumentalists, vocalists, and dancers dressed in exotic costumes. Altogether it reminded the predominantly Chinese audience of the minority stereotype often showcased in official ceremonies and tourist shows, which portrays minorities as...