UC Santa Barbara

Radio calisthenics, a public physical exercise accompanied by amplified music, has been a coercive cultural activity and an essential part of the collective memory for multiple generations in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1951. In this paper, with an emphasis on radio technology and music, I examine how radio calisthenics has shaped collective Chinese bodies, spirits and culture. I argue that radio calisthenics, as a propaganda tool of the Chinese government and a musical exercise, has shaped Chinese collectivity and collectivism, and constructed a standardized culture through quotidian embodied listening.

Focusing on the political significance of Chinese radio calisthenics, chapter one first introduces the origin of radio calisthenics in China in the early 1950s and its quick spread over the state by examining radio’s infrastructure. Analyzing the manuals of each set of radio calisthenics, it then charts the ebb and flow of radio calisthenics in the second half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century, examining radio calisthenics’ distinctive political goals in different historical periods.Chapter two delves into radio calisthenics’ musical accompaniments, exploring how music as a political tool to accompany the daily coercive communal ritual, radio calisthenics. The first section investigates how music coordinates and aligns with body movements, providing auditory cues to practitioners. I also analyze the stylistic characteristics of different sets of music and how they have reflected larger musical trends. While the composition has continually absorbed new musical elements due to the change of aesthetics, it always keeps the music in a more or less military style, which symbolizes the socialist present and past, as well as cultivating collective and national spirits. In the last section, drawing on memoirs and interviews, I investigate how individuals connect with radio calisthenics in a musical manner.

Centering on radio and loudspeakers, the last chapter explores the role radio calisthenics has played in shaping collective organized bodies and standardized culture through embodied listening. The first section examines the particular modes of listening that created orderly movements and the loudspeakers’ embodiment of authority that led the exercises. It also investigates the double synchronicity and multi-layered participation that made radio calisthenics contribute to nation-building. The second section delves into school radio exercises, examining the embodied sonic discipline imposed by radio calisthenics on school students to cultivate homogenized and collectivist behavior and culture.

Focusing on the radio and music of the exercise, my research aims to enrich the literature on collective radio listening under socialist regimes and beyond by demonstrating a larger theoretical relevance for the cultural history of the embodiment of sound. Furthermore, by opening an avenue for the study of broadcasting technology and music in public exercise, I aim to explore the history of bodily discipline in the PRC through sound, and contribute to the understanding of the role music and media have played in shaping and reshaping everyday life practices and political ideologies.