UK-China Song of the Female Textile Workers, past, present and the future

UK-China Song of Female Textile Workers, past, present and the future is a one year practice-led research project aims to collect wider data on UK-China audiences and consumers culture in respond to AHRC's call on Understanding the Future of UK China R+I in the creative industries.

Textile heritage culture, both tangible (building site, machineries, fabric etc.) and intangible (music, songs, storytelling etc.) has been a core theme in post-industrial social and economic transformation. Both Eastern Delta China (Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu) and the North of England have countless textile mill turned arts and creative clusters for urban regeneration, gentrification, attracting tourists and consumers from diverse background. This cultural commonality was identified as the potential link in bridging UK-China audiences and consumers' taste on our AHRC awarded project Song of the Female Textile Workers, UK-China digital connectivity (2020-2021), which took Shanghai all-female yueju as a case study and developed into a mixed reality performance produced entirely online. Shanghai yueju originated from Zhejiang rural folk song and grew to become China's most popular opera, to date over 360 different forms are practiced, with patrons mainly being Shanghai/Zhejiang migrant female workers. The initial findings gained positive response from audiences across the UK and China. Meanwhile, what has also been identified is the limited research on UK textile intangible cultural heritage (ICH), and how it can better brand UK cultural identity, especially the North of England, to attract audiences and consumers nationally and globally for further socio-economic transformation and growth.

This one year project seeks to gain deeper understanding of possible compatible audience and consumer taste on music, theatre, digital performance and related creative products and the best practice in jointly creating cultural products to cater for a shared UK-China audience and consumer. China has taken ICH as a priority in its cultural and creative industries (CCIs as China's preferred terminology) content development and its international soft power insertion. Government policy closely monitors and ensures ICH is incorporated into all CCIs sectors. Tencent's launch of a series of mobile games since 2019 on the theme of yueju and other opera forms targeting national and international affluent consumers is only one example. This project takes China strategic ICH CCIs direction to engage with and research on audience and consumer culture is therefore timely and the knowledge generated will inform the future UK-China R+I creative industries development.