She is a theatre director, author, translator (Chinese, German, English) and creator of video films and installations. Cao studied German language in Shanghai and Theatre Studies in Bern. She got her practice of theatre directing in Theater Neumarkt and Schauspielhaus Zürich. Recognized as a border crosser in the life and the art, Cao transformed the plays/texts of the European writers like Thomas Bernhard, Caryl Churchill, Dea Loher on the stage in China as well as of the Chinese writers like Zhai Yongming, Duo Duo, Gao Xingjian in Europe´s theatres.
Cao created her first multimedia performance “On the Road” (1998) at the Central Academy of Performing Arts which is considered as a significant pioneer work in the Chinese theatre landscape. In cooperation with the visual artists Zhu Jinshi and Wang Guofeng, she created further the site-specific multimedia performance “Endstation-Beijing” (premiered in 2005 at the now-demolished Little Theatre of Beijing People´s Art Theatre), written by the author Cao Keyuan, which got a great response in the Beijing´s theatre scene. With the poet Duo Duo, she adapted and expanded Cao Keyuan´s play. The new work “In the Middle of the Sky” was performed as the opening program in the new space ”Central” of Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus in 2009. Cao´s most works break the boundaries between stage and audience constantly, they oscillate at the intersection of live performance and video film, of spoken words and physical presentation, documentary material and fictional stories.
Furthermore, Cao is dedicated to Chinese-German theatre exchange. She has co-curated “The Contemporary German Drama Week” (2004) with the renowned Chinese theatre director Lin Zhaohua in the Beijing People´s Art Theatre, the festival “New Drama: China /German” with the German dramaturg Christoph Lepschy in Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and in Beijing´s theatre (2009). She was honored with the German-China Friendship Prize by the German Embassy in Beijing.
In 2008, Cao co-founded the independent Performance Collective LadyBird with the poet Zhou Zan in Beijing. Since then, the collective has been working in the different public space, cooperating with the (female) writers and choreographers, with the artists from visual art and experimental music. It expands the inherited boundaries of professional and nonprofessional performers, of stage and audience, art and everyday lives.
In 2013, Cao was honored as visiting professor at the department of Applied Theatre Studies of the University Gießen. In addition to creating, she gives workshops and lectures open to the refugees, high school and university students, also to interested participates from different background.
In cooperation with the theatre critics Sabine Heymann and Christoph Lepschy, Cao published the book “Contemporary Theatre in China” (2017) by German Alexander Verlag which ranges from philosophy and politics to theatre history to the contemporary theatre practice and transcultural cooperation. The book is regarded as an important tool to get an overview of contemporary theatre in China.
Cao´s recent works are based more and more on research about the Chinese history and society structure, explore and film the individual life and diasporic experiences of herself and other people from background of Chinese culture. She also participates in the projects with other groups like Rimini Protokoll´s “Volkesrepublik Volkswagen” (2014) and “Top Secret International (State 1)” (2017), Chez Company´s “Avatar Tales” (2018).
Her works have been presented by Little Asia Theatre Festival, Taiwan, Hongkong and Tokyo; Miryang Performing Arts Festival, South Korea; CULTURESCAPES, Switzerland; Umweg über China, HAU Berlin; UCCA (Center for Contemporary Art), Beijing; KINDL (Centre for Contemporary Art), Berlin.
After the Corona pandemic, Cao has co-founded the Performance Collective Nomadic Minutes in Berlin, together with the philosophy scholar Zhang Deng, the choreographer/dancer Zhou Niannian, the writer Zhuang Jiayun, who all are travelers between China, Europe and America. The collective plans to create longer-term projects for performance and visual arts.