Pride & joy
The Shining Jazzy Chorus is thriving, giving voice to Beijing's LGBT community and proving that Chinese society is becoming more accepting, writes Laura Fitch
Low murmurs rise from the auditorium of a small, packed independent theatre tucked away on a tiny side street behind Beijing's National Drama Academy, hidden from the bustle of tourists on Nanluoguxiang hutong. At the urging of a man on stage, mobile phones are pulled from pockets and turned off. The lights dim and a row of men file in under them, taking their places as people in the crowd hush one another with hisses and slight, dry coughs.
For the next two hours the audience is treated to a musical variety show featuring duets, solos, thumping modern dance numbers and heartfelt chorus singing.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Shining Jazzy Chorus has arrived.
Augmented by two guest groups, this October performance marked the choir's fourth anniversary, and the first time it has performed for the general public, rather than an audience drawn exclusively from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community.
The Shining Jazzy Chorus is the only choir in Greater China registered with the international Gay and Lesbian Association of Choruses and, according to its members, is the only gay choir in the country.
Begun in 2008 in the then newly opened Beijing LGBT Centre, with a handful of amateur singers and a professional musician as a volunteer coach, the choir, which now boasts roughly 20 members, a weekly rehearsal schedule and a CD - recorded at the fourth anniversary performance - has grown in tandem with Beijing's LGBT civil society.
When Beijing LGBT Centre adviser Stephen Leonelli landed in the capital, in 2009, he found a nascent LGBT community beginning to take shape. The centre had opened its doors the previous year, but groups devoted to promoting LGBT rights and providing community support were few. Now there are 12 to 13 groups in Beijing alone, he says, including a chapter of the Guangzhou-based PFLAG China (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and BGLAD (Beijing Gay, Lesbian and Allies Discussion). Lalas (slang for lesbian) gather at the Beijing Lesbian Centre while tongzhi ("comrade" and slang for "homosexual") of all persuasions join the Beijing LGBT Centre's various social programmes, watching movies together, conversing in English, debating literature in a book group or just hanging out.