The courtyard theater grew out of China’s performing-arts ecosystem, and it carries both the history of Chinese theater and the hopes now placed on it. Chinese scholars have studied it for years, and it has begun to draw curiosity in the West as well. Researchers in China have traced its origins and stages of development: its performance style comes from the tradition of Chinese opera and from a relaxed, leisurely way of watching a show, which sets it apart from the grand, spectacular theaters that Western audiences tend to favor (Fang).

At the same time, the courtyard theater must keep its traditional character while facing new pressures: emerging technologies, changing audience tastes, and the large-scale commercialization of online performance. As Masura observes, theater today is undergoing a broad shift in which “the existence of digital technology is structured as a key factor in the core of the performance.” Digital media and other new technologies are quietly changing how audiences perceive and understand theater. To survive, the courtyard theater has to adapt to these trends, respond to new aesthetic and market demands, and find a path to transformation.

The policy climate is favorable. The Chinese government has openly supported the revival of traditional culture and entertainment, most notably through the 2017 Opinions on Implementing the Project for the Inheritance and Development of Fine Traditional Chinese Culture and the State Council’s 2019 Opinions on Further Stimulating Cultural and Tourism Consumption. These policies lay a social foundation for innovation in the courtyard theater. This paper examines how typical courtyard theaters in China have developed and the problems they now face, and it offers suggestions for revitalizing them as digital media continue to grow.

The character 庭 (courtyard) can be traced back to Yupian, one of China’s earliest dictionaries, where it referred to an open area enclosed by buildings, including pavilions and terraces. “Courtyard theater” originally described a non-standard theater built around such a site. Over time it became a distinctly Chinese performance space, unlike the Western theater: it carries the DNA of traditional Chinese opera, and, shaped by a popular culture that prizes entertainment, it creates a new tension between performance space and theater culture (Zhang). The traditional courtyard theater stands out on three levels: how it looks, what the space does, and what it expresses culturally.

Small, beautiful and intimate

As a small performance venue, the courtyard theater is usually set outdoors, in gardens and other open spaces. It is far smaller than a conventional theater, and while that limits the size of the audience, it makes performances more intimate and interactive. Its beauty comes from two sources: harmony with the natural landscape, and the character of historic architecture. Majia Courtyard, in the old town of Kunming, is a good example. Built in the architectural style of the Bai people, it uses a 200-square-meter patio as its main stage and seats up to 170 people, while the surrounding staircases and corridors serve as secondary performance spaces. Kunming has many courtyard theaters like it, each uniquely suited to preserve the history and beauty of old buildings.

200 m²

patio stage at Majia Courtyard

170

seats at most

Bai

architectural style

3

defining traits

A courtyard becomes a theater

Moving from a courtyard valued as architecture and landscape to a theater devoted to cultural performance is a remarkable expansion of function: historic space and modern cultural use are layered over and woven into each other. That these courtyards became theaters, rather than shopping centers, creative parks or cinemas, shows a space that embraces modern popular culture while still looking back at its own past. It is a ritual of remembering an older way of watching theater, and an effort to reproduce space through that remembering. Lefebvre describes how society moved from “production in space” to the “production of space” (86). In the courtyard theater, what is produced is no longer just the actors’ performance; it extends to the interactions between actors and audience, among audience members, and to relationships that many kinds of media can take part in.

Rooted in tradition, branching out

Kunming’s courtyard theaters, for example, stage traditional local lantern plays, Kunqu opera and Dian opera alongside modern, experimental drama. As Wu Ge, chairman of the Yunnan Dramatists Association, puts it, the courtyard theater movement includes full plays and excerpts from Peking opera, lantern plays as well as Kunqu and Yunnan opera, and both mainstream drama and formal experiments in pursuit of aesthetic beauty. The courtyard theater, in other words, is well placed to cross the boundaries between genres, bring different cultures into play and meet market demand, and it has real room to develop more diverse forms of performance and a richer theatrical atmosphere.

As the analysis above shows, the traditional courtyard theater has real strengths as a performance space: it creates atmosphere, accommodates many functions, and expresses cultural diversity. But in today’s fast-changing digital and media environment, history and an attractive space are no longer enough to win a market and an audience. On one hand, audiences are more demanding. Chinese audiences in particular increasingly want “a combination of traditional freehand style and modern expression” (H. Wu), and small-scale courtyard theaters often lack modern expression, especially the modern spirit of innovation and disruption. On the other hand, the courtyard theater has long-standing limits of its own in how it produces content, how it reaches people, and how it engages them. Digital media offer more than an up-to-date tool for improving performance; they also signal a social environment that encourages change, one that pushes the courtyard theater out of its habit of doing things the traditional way.

No digital layer

It has achieved its effects only through the live setting and the actors’ performances. That has held back deeper exploration of the courtyard’s memory and culture, and it has cut the link between traditional culture and modern media. Digital media can enrich the set, the lighting and the sound, extending the narrative space and giving visual symbols a larger role. But many courtyard theaters that have not adopted digital media are stuck in a limited physical space and a fixed relationship with their audience. Audience members who want to learn the history behind the courtyard or the meaning behind a play can rely only on the live performance and what they can see around them; there is no third-party tool or entry point to help them dig deeper.

Tied to one place

Its strong regional identity has, to some extent, made performances depend on one fixed place. Strip away the courtyard, and the experience of watching a play there loses what makes it special, no different from seeing a show at any other live venue. That dependence is also a weakness. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, most live performance spaces could not operate, and the courtyard theater’s artistic life was choked off. Likewise, visitors from outside Kunming who are unfamiliar with local culture may find the courtyard theater hard to connect with. If they could learn about it in advance through social media and online platforms, that barrier might disappear.

Immersion with room to grow

Because of its small size, the courtyard theater is more immersive than a large live theater, but it is far from the immersion now offered by galleries and museums that use VR, AR and other digital technologies. With digital technology, deeper immersion in theater points toward a return of the body. Merleau-Ponty writes that the body is our medium for being in the world: to have a body is to be involved in a definite environment, to identify with certain projects, and to be continually committed to them (116). How to free the audience’s body in the courtyard theater, so that people take part more physically and become part of the environment, is the test the courtyard theater must pass to transform in the digital age.

To escape this dilemma, the courtyard theater should build on its existing strengths and seize the opportunities that digital media offer, opening up new possibilities in what it performs and how its art reaches people.

New forms of immersive performance

Digital media can create new connections between audience and actors, among audience members, and between audience and space, turning viewers into active participants, so that the story becomes an imagined community built through collective performance (Rancière 84). The courtyard theater can distill the distinctive style of its physical setting and re-express it digitally: rendering the atmosphere of pavilions and terraces, for example, to immerse the audience in a virtual re-creation of a classical scene, with equipment that provides “three-dimensional audio-visual images and degrees of freedom of interactive feelings” (Nan et al.). Digital media can also make immersion more equal, so that every audience member, wherever they sit, and even those outside the planned viewing area, can have the same deeply immersive experience. VR and the idea of a courtyard-theater metaverse could make this possible. VR can serve as an ideal technological medium for the courtyard theater, heightening visual spectacle, imaginative worlds and transformative spaces, and above all immersing the audience (Dixon). A metaverse could serve as a new online space that mirrors the courtyard theater, breaking the limits of time and space and letting more people take part in its performances, becoming part of an “emancipated spectatorship.”

New channels for distribution

Through digital filming, live streaming and online platforms, live courtyard performances can become secondary resources, shared as video, images and audio, which unlocks the courtyard theater’s potential to reach people. This would not only widen its influence, so that audiences around the world can experience the charm of the Chinese courtyard theater, but also make it possible to record, preserve and revisit its work over the long term. National Theatre Live is regarded as the world’s first digital live-broadcast project in theater (Ma), marking the rise of a new art form, the “theater image,” that brings together theater, photography and new media (Li). Following that model, the courtyard theater can move from purely live performance to a mix of live and online, through recorded screenings and live broadcasts.

New modes of networked interaction

A strong interactive relationship between theater and audience helps viewers go beyond watching and actively seek out more about the art, meeting deeper cultural needs. Building that relationship is essential if the courtyard theater is to break out of the local reach it has long been limited to. Interaction need not happen only in the physical courtyard; it can also happen in a corresponding digital space, such as the proposed metaverse, and in everyday online life. Since the birth of the internet, social relationships have become increasingly networked, which makes information and relationships “ubiquitous” (Chang). For the courtyard theater, this ubiquity points toward interactive platforms that welcome more people and more information and keep them engaged, such as an online theater community built for regular exchange. Only by connecting with online platforms and digital media can the courtyard theater truly break through, moving from local to global.

The courtyard theater distills much of what defines Chinese drama and performance. It carries the DNA of traditional opera and a deep architectural history, and it has unique strengths in how it looks, how its space is transformed, and what it expresses culturally. Yet in the new era of digital media, the traditional courtyard theater’s way of operating is out of step with the times: it depends on its physical setting, reaches only a narrow audience, and offers a relatively shallow sense of immersion. To develop sustainably, it must meet the challenges of the digital era, turn digital media into a new strength, and seek breakthroughs in its forms of performance, its channels of distribution, and its modes of interaction. In the long run, scholars should continue to ask, with a critical eye, how to make the most of digital media’s technical advantages while guarding against its risks, and how digital media can more deeply empower the courtyard theater.

The courtyard theater grew out of China’s performing-arts ecosystem, and it carries both the history of Chinese theater and the hopes now placed on it. Chinese scholars have studied it for years, and it has begun to draw curiosity in the West as well. Researchers in China have traced its origins and stages of development: its performance style comes from the tradition of Chinese opera and from a relaxed, leisurely way of watching a show, which sets it apart from the grand, spectacular theaters that Western audiences tend to favor (Fang).

At the same time, the courtyard theater must keep its traditional character while facing new pressures: emerging technologies, changing audience tastes, and the large-scale commercialization of online performance. As Masura observes, theater today is undergoing a broad shift in which “the existence of digital technology is structured as a key factor in the core of the performance.” Digital media and other new technologies are quietly changing how audiences perceive and understand theater. To survive, the courtyard theater has to adapt to these trends, respond to new aesthetic and market demands, and find a path to transformation.

The policy climate is favorable. The Chinese government has openly supported the revival of traditional culture and entertainment, most notably through the 2017 Opinions on Implementing the Project for the Inheritance and Development of Fine Traditional Chinese Culture and the State Council’s 2019 Opinions on Further Stimulating Cultural and Tourism Consumption. These policies lay a social foundation for innovation in the courtyard theater. This paper examines how typical courtyard theaters in China have developed and the problems they now face, and it offers suggestions for revitalizing them as digital media continue to grow.

The character 庭 (courtyard) can be traced back to Yupian, one of China’s earliest dictionaries, where it referred to an open area enclosed by buildings, including pavilions and terraces. “Courtyard theater” originally described a non-standard theater built around such a site. Over time it became a distinctly Chinese performance space, unlike the Western theater: it carries the DNA of traditional Chinese opera, and, shaped by a popular culture that prizes entertainment, it creates a new tension between performance space and theater culture (Zhang). The traditional courtyard theater stands out on three levels: how it looks, what the space does, and what it expresses culturally.

Small, beautiful and intimate

As a small performance venue, the courtyard theater is usually set outdoors, in gardens and other open spaces. It is far smaller than a conventional theater, and while that limits the size of the audience, it makes performances more intimate and interactive. Its beauty comes from two sources: harmony with the natural landscape, and the character of historic architecture. Majia Courtyard, in the old town of Kunming, is a good example. Built in the architectural style of the Bai people, it uses a 200-square-meter patio as its main stage and seats up to 170 people, while the surrounding staircases and corridors serve as secondary performance spaces. Kunming has many courtyard theaters like it, each uniquely suited to preserve the history and beauty of old buildings.

200 m²

patio stage at Majia Courtyard

170

seats at most

Bai

architectural style

3

defining traits

A courtyard becomes a theater

Moving from a courtyard valued as architecture and landscape to a theater devoted to cultural performance is a remarkable expansion of function: historic space and modern cultural use are layered over and woven into each other. That these courtyards became theaters, rather than shopping centers, creative parks or cinemas, shows a space that embraces modern popular culture while still looking back at its own past. It is a ritual of remembering an older way of watching theater, and an effort to reproduce space through that remembering. Lefebvre describes how society moved from “production in space” to the “production of space” (86). In the courtyard theater, what is produced is no longer just the actors’ performance; it extends to the interactions between actors and audience, among audience members, and to relationships that many kinds of media can take part in.

Rooted in tradition, branching out

Kunming’s courtyard theaters, for example, stage traditional local lantern plays, Kunqu opera and Dian opera alongside modern, experimental drama. As Wu Ge, chairman of the Yunnan Dramatists Association, puts it, the courtyard theater movement includes full plays and excerpts from Peking opera, lantern plays as well as Kunqu and Yunnan opera, and both mainstream drama and formal experiments in pursuit of aesthetic beauty. The courtyard theater, in other words, is well placed to cross the boundaries between genres, bring different cultures into play and meet market demand, and it has real room to develop more diverse forms of performance and a richer theatrical atmosphere.

As the analysis above shows, the traditional courtyard theater has real strengths as a performance space: it creates atmosphere, accommodates many functions, and expresses cultural diversity. But in today’s fast-changing digital and media environment, history and an attractive space are no longer enough to win a market and an audience. On one hand, audiences are more demanding. Chinese audiences in particular increasingly want “a combination of traditional freehand style and modern expression” (H. Wu), and small-scale courtyard theaters often lack modern expression, especially the modern spirit of innovation and disruption. On the other hand, the courtyard theater has long-standing limits of its own in how it produces content, how it reaches people, and how it engages them. Digital media offer more than an up-to-date tool for improving performance; they also signal a social environment that encourages change, one that pushes the courtyard theater out of its habit of doing things the traditional way.

No digital layer

It has achieved its effects only through the live setting and the actors’ performances. That has held back deeper exploration of the courtyard’s memory and culture, and it has cut the link between traditional culture and modern media. Digital media can enrich the set, the lighting and the sound, extending the narrative space and giving visual symbols a larger role. But many courtyard theaters that have not adopted digital media are stuck in a limited physical space and a fixed relationship with their audience. Audience members who want to learn the history behind the courtyard or the meaning behind a play can rely only on the live performance and what they can see around them; there is no third-party tool or entry point to help them dig deeper.

Tied to one place

Its strong regional identity has, to some extent, made performances depend on one fixed place. Strip away the courtyard, and the experience of watching a play there loses what makes it special, no different from seeing a show at any other live venue. That dependence is also a weakness. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, most live performance spaces could not operate, and the courtyard theater’s artistic life was choked off. Likewise, visitors from outside Kunming who are unfamiliar with local culture may find the courtyard theater hard to connect with. If they could learn about it in advance through social media and online platforms, that barrier might disappear.

Immersion with room to grow

Because of its small size, the courtyard theater is more immersive than a large live theater, but it is far from the immersion now offered by galleries and museums that use VR, AR and other digital technologies. With digital technology, deeper immersion in theater points toward a return of the body. Merleau-Ponty writes that the body is our medium for being in the world: to have a body is to be involved in a definite environment, to identify with certain projects, and to be continually committed to them (116). How to free the audience’s body in the courtyard theater, so that people take part more physically and become part of the environment, is the test the courtyard theater must pass to transform in the digital age.

To escape this dilemma, the courtyard theater should build on its existing strengths and seize the opportunities that digital media offer, opening up new possibilities in what it performs and how its art reaches people.

New forms of immersive performance

Digital media can create new connections between audience and actors, among audience members, and between audience and space, turning viewers into active participants, so that the story becomes an imagined community built through collective performance (Rancière 84). The courtyard theater can distill the distinctive style of its physical setting and re-express it digitally: rendering the atmosphere of pavilions and terraces, for example, to immerse the audience in a virtual re-creation of a classical scene, with equipment that provides “three-dimensional audio-visual images and degrees of freedom of interactive feelings” (Nan et al.). Digital media can also make immersion more equal, so that every audience member, wherever they sit, and even those outside the planned viewing area, can have the same deeply immersive experience. VR and the idea of a courtyard-theater metaverse could make this possible. VR can serve as an ideal technological medium for the courtyard theater, heightening visual spectacle, imaginative worlds and transformative spaces, and above all immersing the audience (Dixon). A metaverse could serve as a new online space that mirrors the courtyard theater, breaking the limits of time and space and letting more people take part in its performances, becoming part of an “emancipated spectatorship.”

New channels for distribution

Through digital filming, live streaming and online platforms, live courtyard performances can become secondary resources, shared as video, images and audio, which unlocks the courtyard theater’s potential to reach people. This would not only widen its influence, so that audiences around the world can experience the charm of the Chinese courtyard theater, but also make it possible to record, preserve and revisit its work over the long term. National Theatre Live is regarded as the world’s first digital live-broadcast project in theater (Ma), marking the rise of a new art form, the “theater image,” that brings together theater, photography and new media (Li). Following that model, the courtyard theater can move from purely live performance to a mix of live and online, through recorded screenings and live broadcasts.

New modes of networked interaction

A strong interactive relationship between theater and audience helps viewers go beyond watching and actively seek out more about the art, meeting deeper cultural needs. Building that relationship is essential if the courtyard theater is to break out of the local reach it has long been limited to. Interaction need not happen only in the physical courtyard; it can also happen in a corresponding digital space, such as the proposed metaverse, and in everyday online life. Since the birth of the internet, social relationships have become increasingly networked, which makes information and relationships “ubiquitous” (Chang). For the courtyard theater, this ubiquity points toward interactive platforms that welcome more people and more information and keep them engaged, such as an online theater community built for regular exchange. Only by connecting with online platforms and digital media can the courtyard theater truly break through, moving from local to global.

The courtyard theater distills much of what defines Chinese drama and performance. It carries the DNA of traditional opera and a deep architectural history, and it has unique strengths in how it looks, how its space is transformed, and what it expresses culturally. Yet in the new era of digital media, the traditional courtyard theater’s way of operating is out of step with the times: it depends on its physical setting, reaches only a narrow audience, and offers a relatively shallow sense of immersion. To develop sustainably, it must meet the challenges of the digital era, turn digital media into a new strength, and seek breakthroughs in its forms of performance, its channels of distribution, and its modes of interaction. In the long run, scholars should continue to ask, with a critical eye, how to make the most of digital media’s technical advantages while guarding against its risks, and how digital media can more deeply empower the courtyard theater.