CfP: The Musical Roots of Taiyupian: Music and Taiwanese-language Opera Cinema2026.8.30 {en}
Special Issue / Topical Section of East Asian Journal of Popular Culture
The Musical Roots of Taiyupian: Music and Taiwanese-language Opera Cinema
This special issue or topical section seeks to place the musical roots of Taiwanese-language cinema at the centre of scholarly discussion. It builds on the symposium ‘Starting from Music: 70 Years of Taiyupian’, held at SOAS, University of London, in June 2026, while inviting new contributions that broaden our understanding of Taiwanese-language opera cinema and its continuing significance.
The first commercially successful Taiwanese-language films emerged directly from gezaixi (Taiwanese opera). Indeed, the film widely regarded as launching the Taiwanese-language film boom, Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan (1956), was itself adapted from a gezaixi repertoire and performed by a famous opera troupe. Early taiyupian was therefore never simply cinema; it represented the adaptation of an established musical and theatrical tradition to a new commercial medium.
As the industry developed, however, Taiwanese-language cinema became far more than filmed opera. It evolved into a dynamic cultural space where gezaixi intersected with modern theatres, martial arts films, melodrama, comedy and popular entertainment. Opera and theatre performers became film stars; musical traditions were adapted for the screen; and Taiwanese-language cinema increasingly drew upon a wide range of musical influences, including popular songs and other local and transnational forms of performances as its genres diversified.
The rediscovery and restoration of Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan have opened further avenues of research. The surviving Hakka-dubbed version raises important questions concerning multilingualism, cultural circulation, soundtrack reconstruction, archival ethics and the preservation of Taiwan’s audiovisual heritage. These issues demonstrate that music is not simply a matter of selection and performance but also of restoration, memory and historiography.
We welcome proposals on topics including but not limited to:
- gezaixi as the foundation of early Taiwanese-language cinema;
- musical experimentation and hybridity in taiyupian;
- the rediscovery and restoration of Xue Pinggui and Wang Baochuan and other gezaixi films;
- soundtrack restoration and the ethics of preserving multilingual film heritage;
- Taiwanese opera performers as film stars;
- Transnational musical appropriation in taiyupian;
- opera troupes and the development of taiyupian;
- music, singing and performance in Taiwanese-language cinema;
- film songs and musical performance;
- pop singers and recording artists in Taiwanese-language films;
- the relationship between Taiwanese-language cinema and the recording industry;
- dubbing, voice and musical performance;
- cross-fertilisation between opera, folk performance, popular music and cinema;
- audiences, musical memory and reception;
- sound restoration, soundtrack reconstruction and audiovisual preservation;
- comparative perspectives on opera cinema in East Asia.
We welcome proposals from scholars working in film studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, performance studies, sound studies, media history, theatre studies and related disciplines. Please send abstracts (maximum length 400 words), with a one-paragraph bio, to Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley (mytrawnsley[at]gmail.com) and Chris Berry (chris.berry[at]kcl.ac.uk) before 15 October 2026. We hope to respond to everyone by mid-November, and the deadline for submission of manuscripts will be 15 June 2027. After peer review, we anticipate publication in the May 2028 issue.
Source: CFP: The Musical Roots of Taiyupian: Music and Taiwanese-language Opera Cinema, H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online „CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.“
