Author Grant Hayter-Menzies will present on the life of Pauline Benton, a Kansan who in the 1920s broke into the male-dominated world of shadow theater (piyingxi) in Beijing. Though the traditional theater was a fore-runner of motion pictures and animation, it was dying in China, but Benton worked with Chinese performers to bring the art to the US and keep it alive. Hayter-Menzies recreates a world leading from ancient China to Mao's Cultural Revolution, and on to graphic arts and performance of the 21st century.