Performing Postsocialism

How do popular music and acts of listening and singing shape how we desire and move around the world? As part of the symposium Performing Postsocialism: Cultures of Performance-Making in Twenty-First-Century China, this evening presents a screening of Linger in Sounds: The (For)getaway by Qu Chang and Ye Hui, followed by a DJ set by Hotpotposse.

Since 2022, Linger in Sounds examines music videos from China’s popular music scene between the late 1980s and early 2000s. Qu and Ye consider these materials a “desiring-making machine” that shapes the modern Chinese subject, “ever-mobile, striving, cosmopolitan,” and forgetful of history.

Here, postsocialism is a tangible condition in which different times and social structures coexist. Performance-making describes the stage as much as cultural practices and social acts in postsocialist China.

After the screening, Vienna-based Asian DJ collective Hotpotposse extends that inquiry to a live audience through a themed selection of music.

The research project Performing Postsocialism in Twenty-First-Century China explores theatre, dance, and performance art in contemporary China, examining how artists navigate the shifting cultural, social, and political landscape of the postsocialist era. The project is funded by the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) and led by Prof. Dr. Rossella Ferrari at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna.

Freitag, 10. April 2026, 17:30–19:30
Ort: BEK Forum, Schleifmühlgasse 6, 1040 Wien
Freier Eintritt