The Story of Bai Yan & Evolution of Gewutuan in Singapore and Malaya (1930s – 1960s)
This talk sheds light on the life and career of veteran Singapore actor Bai Yan, touching on his involvement in gewutuan (歌舞团, or traditional song and dance troupe), before joining the television industry in Singapore.
Through NUS Libraries' collection of Bai Yan's personal papers, we trace the evolution of gewutuan in Singapore, and show how this vernacular form of Chinese popular culture contributed to the growth of the local arts and entertainment scene in Singapore. Gewutuan was also one of 10 cultural practices shortlisted for Singapore's second nomination for inscription on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2022, a testament to its social and cultural significance in Singapore.
This talk also marks the opening of a commemorative exhibition on Bai Yan and his collection of private papers. Selected papers and artefacts from the collection will be on display at the Wan Boo Sow Chinese Library from 15 August 2023.
This event marks the joint 70th anniversary of NUS Department of Chinese Studies & Wan Boo Sow Chinese Library, and is jointly organised by the Department, the Wan Boo Sow Research Centre for Chinese Culture and the NUS Libraries.
Speaker
Dr Yap Soo Ei
Research Fellow
Department of Chinese Studies
National University of Singapore
Yap Soo Ei is currently research fellow at the National University of Singapore. She completed her PhD dissertation on Migration and Film Industry: Chua Boon Hean in Singapore with the Department of History at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2020. Her research offers a study of the different participants involved in the film industry in Singapore before 1945 and demonstrates how the industry gradually developed into an inter-locking “business of culture” during the early 20th century. She has published articles in Asian Culture and Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies and contributed chapters in Contesting Chineseness: Ethnicity, Identity, and Nation in China and Southeast Asia (Chan, Ying-kit and Hoon, Chang-Yau eds., Singapore: Springer, 2021) and A General History of the Chinese in Singapore (Kwa, Chong Guan and Kua, Bak Lim eds., Singapore: World Scientific, 2019).