Li, Ruru acquired her BA and
MA at the Shanghai Theatre Academy and her doctoral degree in Drama
and Theatre at the University of Leeds, England. She is now Senior Lecturer
in the Department of East Asian Studies at Leeds University. Her research
interest lies in Chinese theatre (modern & traditional), comparative
and intercultural theatre studies.
Brought up in a Beijing Opera
actress family, and received some basic training when she was ten, she
regards regular contact with the theatre as essential to her academic
work. She also runs Chinese theatre workshops.
Her recent publications on
Shakespeare in China include:
- Shashibiya: Staging
Shakespeare in China (Hong Kong University Press, 2003).
- “Chinese Prince:
Three Chinese Operatic Adapations” in Shakespeare’s World/ World
Shakespeare, edited by Richard Fotheringham, Christa Jansohn and
R. S. White, (Delaware Press, 2008).
- “Who is it that
can tell me who I am? / Lear’s shadow. - A Taiwanese Actor’s Personal
Response to King Lear”, Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol.
57, No. 2, (summer 2006).
- “Negotiating Intercultural
Spaces: Much Ado About Nothing & Romeo and Juliet on the Chinese
Stage” in World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film
and Performance edited by Sonia Massai, (Routledge 2005).
- “A Drum! A Drum!
Macbeth doth come! — When Birnam wood moved to China”, Shakespeare
Survey, No. 57, (October 2004).
Her recent project on performer
and performance of Beijing Opera will be published by Hong Kong University
Press in 2009.