A courtyard theater is a small, non-standard venue set inside a historic courtyard. In Kunming, it grew into a model of its own: the space comes first, and the work is made for it.

The word for courtyard combines two characters. One of China’s earliest dictionaries, Yupian, defines them as “the steps before the hall” and “the surrounding wall”: an open space enclosed by buildings. Kunming’s courtyard theaters are small and inexpensive to run, but their real draw is the atmosphere of old architecture. Audiences feel a sense of nostalgia and of stepping into another time, which makes each performance more immersive and more interactive, and makes it easier for each venue to develop a character of its own.

2011

the model emerges in Kunming

200 m²

courtyard stage at Majia Courtyard

170

seats at most

5

established venues by 2021

When I wrote this thesis, Kunming was the only Chinese city where courtyard theaters had formed a real cluster. I identified four reasons.

How it took root

The main venues

The model grew with strong support from policy at three levels: national calls to revive traditional culture, a push to build the evening economy and small themed performances, and more money for performance venues.

+49%

national budget for performance venues, 2020

916

cultural events in Kunming, 2019

12.77M

visits to those events

¥195.5M

cultural spending they generated

The State Council’s 2019 guidance on cultural and tourism spending explicitly encouraged “small and mid-sized, themed and distinctive” performances and districts that combine shops, bookstores and small theaters. Kunming, a national pilot city for cultural consumption, was well placed to benefit.

In a courtyard theater, the work has to match the character of the space. The venue is not just a container; it can become a brand.

39

productions I documented, 2015–2021

9

genres in that list, from Chinese opera to improv

No other city had a courtyard cluster like Kunming’s, so I looked at converted venues elsewhere for lessons.

Buildings that can be converted, the work on their stages and the people who make it: those are the three forces that move the courtyard theater forward.

The model still has limits. It is concentrated in a few cities, and new work has not kept pace with the first boom. But it recovered well even after the pandemic hit the performing arts, and it shows how a performance space can become a lever for reviving a city’s culture.

This was my first study of how a space shapes a performance. I came back to the same courtyards in The Courtyard Theater in the Digital Age, asking what digital media could add. The question of how a physical place can carry a story also runs through my MFA thesis, One Ride, Two Sides.