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The SAGE Handbook of

PERFORMANCE
STUDIES
TUDIES
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In deep gratitude to and in loving memory of Dwight Conquergood

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The SAGE Handbook of

PERFORMANCE
STUDIES

Edited by
D. Soyini Madison Judith Hamera
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Texas A&M University
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Copyright © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
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Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The SAGE handbook of performance studies / edited by D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7619-2931-2 (cloth)
1. Performing arts—Social aspects. I. Title: Handbook of performance studies. II. Madison, D.
Soyini. III. Hamera, Judith.
PN1590.S6S24 2006
306.4′84—dc22 2005014281

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

05 06 07 08 09 10 9 8 7 6 5 5 4 3 2 1

Acquisitions Editor: Todd R. Armstrong

Editorial Assistant: Deya Saoud
Production Editor: Kristen Gibson
Copy Editor: Cate Huisman
Typesetter: C&M Digitals (P) Ltd.
Cover Designer: Janet Foulger

Cover image created by Torkwase Dyson.

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Performance Studies at the Intersections xi
D. Soyini Madison and Judith Hamera
Performance and Theory

PART I INTRODUCTION: PERFORMANCE TROUBLE 1

Della Pollock

1. Stages: Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative 9

José Esteban Muñoz

2. Never, Again 21
Rebecca Schneider

3. Performance and Globalization 33

Jon McKenzie

4. Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis in Practices of Everyday Life 46

Judith Hamera
Performance and History

PART II INTRODUCTION: PERFORMING

HISTORY: A POLITICS OF LOCATION 65

Lisa Merrill

5. Genealogies of Performance Studies 73

Shannon Jackson

6. Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change: A Performance Praxis 87

Della Pollock
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7. Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis: Mid-Nineteenth

Century American Women’s Performance Criticism 106
Gay Gibson Cima

8. What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 124

Tracy C. Davis
Performance and Literature

PART III INTRODUCTION:

PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE 143

Paul Edwards

9. Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 151

Kristin M. Langellier and Eric E. Peterson

10. The Constructed Self: Strategic and Aesthetic

Choices in Autobiographical Performance 169
Lynn C. Miller and Jacqueline Taylor

11. The Strange Case of the Body in the Performance of

Literature Classroom: An Enduring Mystery 188
Bruce Henderson

12. On the Bias: From Performance of

Literature to Performance Composition 205
Ruth Laurion Bowman and Michael S. Bowman

13. Staging Paradox: The Local Art of Adaptation 227

Paul Edwards
Performance and Pedagogy

PART IV INTRODUCTION: PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY 253

Bryant Keith Alexander

14. Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom:

Learning Objectives and the Activist Curriculum 261
Nathan Stucky

15. Ambulant Pedagogy 278

Mady Schutzman

16. Pedagogy on the Move: New Intersections in

(Between) the Educative and the Performative 296
Greg Dimitriadis
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17. Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women Through

Performance and Creative Writing 309
Kristin Bervig Valentine

18. The Politics and Ethics of Performance Pedagogy:

Toward a Pedagogy of Hope 325
Norman K. Denzin
Performance and Ethnography

PART V INTRODUCTION: PERFORMANCE AND

ETHNOGRAPHY, PERFORMING ETHNOGRAPHY,
PERFORMANCE ETHNOGRAPHY 339

Olorisa Omi Osun Olomo (Joni L. Jones)

19. Dwight Conquergood’s “Rethinking Ethnography” 347

D. Soyini Madison

20. Rethinking Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural Politics 351

Dwight Conquergood

21. Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation: Leon Forrest’s Divine Days 366
Derek Goldman

22. “She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act”:
Dance Ethnography and the Movement Vocabulary of Sex and Labor 385
Barbara Browning

23. Staging Fieldwork/Performing Human Rights 397

D. Soyini Madison
Performance and Politics

PART VI INTRODUCTION:
PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS: THEMES AND ARGUMENTS 419

Judith Hamera and Dwight Conquergood

24. The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve:

The Politics of Community-Based Performance 427
Jan Cohen-Cruz

25. Black Performance Studies: Genealogies, Politics, Futures 446

E. Patrick Johnson

26. Lethal Theatre: Performance, Punishment, and the Death Penalty 464
Dwight Conquergood
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27. Who Is This Ancestor? Performing Memory in Ghana’s Slave

Castle-Dungeons (A Multimedia Performance Meditation) 489
Sandra L. Richards

28. The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 508
Jill Dolan

Index 527
About the Editors 547
About the Contributors 549
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Acknowledgments

S incere thanks to the section editors of,

and contributors to, the Handbook of
Performance Studies. Their diligence, vision,
Deep thanks to Alfred Bendixen, beloved
partner in all things.
Thank you to Mejai Kai Dyson and
and enthusiasm on behalf of performance Torkwase Madison Dyson for your support
studies inspired and sustained the editors and encouragement.
throughout this process. The editors express sincerest thanks to
Judith Hamera wishes to thank D. Soyini the staff at Sage Publications, and particularly
Madison for the invitation to collaborate on Todd Armstrong, senior acquisitions editor,
this rich and profoundly important project. and Deya Saoud, senior editorial assistant.
Working together has been a joy and a pleasure They have made this project a pleasure from
and I am left with an even greater regard for beginning to end. We truly appreciate their
her intellectual and rhetorical precision, her efforts and their complete professionalism.
fierce love of performance, and her rich good Dwight Conquergood, scholar, mentor,
humor. I am very grateful for this opportunity. teacher, and dear friend, passed away as this
D. Soyini Madison wishes to thank Judith handbook was being completed. His profound
Hamera whose gracious judgment and extra­ wisdom, generosity of spirit, and abiding love
ordinary eloquence enriched the process and of performance inspired editors and countless
development of this handbook beyond mea­ others inside and outside of the academy over
sure. As a colleague and friend for two decades, three decades. His contributions to the field,
her brilliance, still, never ceases to amaze me. and to us personally, are impossible to over­
Thanks, too, to Carl Selkin, dean of the state. We humbly offer this handbook as one
College of Arts and Letters at California State turn in a larger and life-changing conversation
University, for his unstinting support of about performance studies that began, for us,
performance and performance studies. with his voice, his words, his care.

ix
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Performance Studies at the Intersections

D. SOYINI MADISON AND JUDITH HAMERA

The ongoing challenge of performance studies is to refuse and supercede this deeply
entrenched division of labor, apartheid of knowledges, that plays out inside the
academy as the difference between thinking and doing, interpreting and making,
conceptualizing and creating. The division of labor between theory and practice,
abstraction and embodiment, is an arbitrary and rigged choice and, like all bina­
risms, it is booby-trapped.
—Dwight Conquergood, 2002, p. 153

P erformance is often referred to as a

“contested concept” because as a concept,
method, event, and practice it is variously envi­
Gallie explains, “Recognition of a given
concept as essentially contested implies
recognition of rival uses of it (such as one-
self repudiates) as not only logically possible
sioned and employed. Three founding scholars
and humanly ‘likely,’ but as of permanent
of contemporary performance studies, Mary potential critical value to one’s own use of
S. Strine, Beverly W. Long, and Mary Francis interpretation of the concept in question”
Hopkins, formally set forth the idea of perfor- (pp. 187–188). Scholars in interpretation
mance as a contested concept in their classic and performance in a valorized category,
they recognize and expect disagreement not
essay, “Research in Interpretation and Perfor­
only about the qualities that make a perfor­
mance Studies: Trends, Issues, Priorities.” They mance “good” or “bad” in certain contexts,
state, but also about what activities and behaviors
appropriately constitute performance and
Performance, like art and democracy, is not something else. (1990, p. 183)
what W.B. Gallie (1964) calls an essentially
contested concept, meaning that its very
existence is bound up in disagreement about On multiple levels performance “means”
what it is, and that the disagreement over and “does” different things for and with
its essence is itself part of that essence. As different people. On one level performance is

xi
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xii THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

understood as theatrical practice, that is, performance method provides concrete appli­
drama, as acting, or “putting on a show.” For cation; and performance event provides an
some, this limited view regards performance as aesthetic or noteworthy happening. Although
extracurricular, insubstantial, or what you do theory, method, and event are components of
in your leisure time. In certain areas of the the grand possibilities of performance, Dwight
academy these narrow notions of performance Conquergood provides a more precise set
have created an “anti-theatrical” prejudice of triads guiding us more comprehensively to
(Conquergood) that diminishes performance the substance and nuances of performance
to mimicry, catharsis, or mere entertainment through a series of alliterations: the i’s as in
rather than as a generative force and a critical imagination, inquiry, and intervention; the a’s
dynamic within human behavior and social as in artistry, analysis, and activism; and the
processes. However, in recent history, perfor­ c’s as in creativity, critique, and citizenship.
mance has undergone a small revolution. For Conquergood states,
many of us performance has evolved into ways
of comprehending how human beings funda­ Performance studies is uniquely suited for
mentally make culture, affect power, and rein­ the challenge of braiding together disparate
and stratified ways of knowing. We can
vent their ways of being in the world. The think through performance along three
insistence on performance as a way of creation crisscrossing lines of activity and analysis.
and being as opposed to the long held notion We can think of performance (1) as a work
of performance as entertainment has brought of imagination, as an object of study; (2) as
forth a movement to seek and articulate the a pragmatics of inquiry (both as model and
method), as an optic and operation of
phenomenon of performance in its multiple
research; (3) as a tactics of intervention, an
manifestations and imaginings. alterative space of struggle. Speaking from
Understanding performance in this broader my home department at Northwestern, we
and more complex way has opened up endless often refer to the three a’s of performance
questions, some of which both interrogate and studies: artistry, analysis, activism. Or to
enrich our basic understanding of history, change the alliteration, a commitment to
the three c’s of performance studies: creativ­
identity, community, nation, and politics. ity, critique, citizenship (civic struggles for
Performance is a contested concept because social justice). (Conquergood, 2002, p. 152)
when we understand performance beyond the­
atrics and recognize it as fundamental and Conquergood challenges us to understand
inherent to life and culture we are confronted the ubiquitous and generative force of perfor­
with the ambiguities of different spaces and mance that is beyond the theatrical. The ques­
places that are foreign, contentious, and often tion we shall now entertain is: How is this
under siege. We enter the everyday and the challenge most effectively debated and dis­
ordinary and interpret its symbolic universe to cussed in the academy?
discover the complexity of its extraordinary
meanings and practices.
THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPEAL OF
We can no longer define performance as
PERFORMANCE: PERFORMANCE AS
primarily mimetic or theatrical but through
“EVERYWHERE” IN THE ACADEMY?
the multiple elements that inhere within per­
formance and within the dynamic of shifting Across various academic boundaries, perfor­
domains of theory, method, and event. The mance is blurring disciplinary distinctions
triad of theory, method, and event has gener­ and invoking radically multidisciplinary
ally been understood as the following: perfor­ approaches. From the established disciplines
mance theory provides analytical frameworks; of history, literature, education, sociology,
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Introduction xiii

geography, anthropology, political science, and everyday symbolic acts, one modern tradition
so forth—the rubric of performance has found that can be understood as part of the history
its way into discussions and debate as a topic and origins of performance studies, primarily
of interest and inquiry. Teachers and students in the United States and Europe, is the elocu­
are seeking to better understand this notion tionary movement. Elocution or the “art of
of performance as a means to gain a deeper public speaking” was of major importance
understanding of their own fields of study, as in the nineteenth century United States and
well as a pedagogical method. The buzz over Europe. In an age where telephones, television,
performance is nearly everywhere in the acad­ movies, CD players, and the Internet were
emy and as a result multiple paradigms and nonexistent, it was the art of public speaking
levels of analysis are formed. As these various that became the powerful communicative
subject areas adapt performance as an analyti­ and entertainment medium of public life
cal framework and as a methodological tool, and thereby influencing central aspects of
something greater has happened to the very community and nation (Conquergood, 2000).
concept of performance itself: new and com­ The elocutionary speaker was a performer
plex questions arise relative to its definition, who could leave his audience on the edge of
applicability, and effectiveness. These extended their seats with the turn of an imaginative
queries into performance have a broad mem­ phrase or a compelling anecdote. The speaker
bership ranging from those of us who, before could build the story or the argument to a
now, never thought much about performance peak that held the audience captive to the spo­
as a scholarly or pedagogical enterprise to ken word that was filled with the varying reg­
those of us who have embraced the dynamic isters of a performing presence wrapped in
of performance for several decades. Both neo­ dramatic gesture and utterance. The public
phyte and veteran to performance are engaged speaker was a performer whose work was to
in the infinite possibilities of performance make the audience listen and learn through a
and therefore expanding, complexifying, and drama of communication.
enriching its meanings and practices. Elocution was a social event. The audience
In understanding performance as radically gathered to witness the speaker through a
interdisciplinary, how then do we begin to collective that brought friends and strangers
grasp what it is? How do we begin to describe together to meet and greet. This event was
and order the varied manifestations of perfor­ a moment of communal experience, listening
mance? Are there fundamental principles of and watching together, but also responding
performance? We will briefly turn now to spe­ together to what they heard—from reserved
cific movements and paradigms to lay forth claps of appreciation to uproarious laugher
the broad contours of performance studies and to the insulting taunts of hecklers—they
to provide a working definition of perfor­ listened and responded together. The event
mance ranging from the illocutionary move­ was also a ritual with its customary begin­
ment in the nineteenth century to postmodern nings and endings; it was a ritual of informa­
art and transnational narratives within this tion gathering, persuasion, affirmation, and
era of globalization and transnationalism. change.
Just as the art of effective public speaking
was a creative force, it was also a force of
THE ELOCUTIONARY MOVEMENT
hegemonic control. It both perpetrated and
Although performance began in antiquity solidified power relations, as well as the
constituting varied cultural phenomena that valorization of a bourgeois decorum based
ranged from mimesis, ritual, and ceremony, to on vocal qualities, gestures of gentility, social
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xiv THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

class, gender hierarchies, and the color of and celebrated these identities and affiliations.
one’s skin. Conquergood states, But, it was also a site of liberating expression
and a contested space—a site where trou­
Elocution expressed in another key the bled identities could claim their power and
body-discipline imposed on the bourgeoisie, strengthen their hope. The elocutionary move­
a way for them to mark “distinction” from
the masses. . . . Elocution was designed to
ment was less about public speaking and more
recuperate the vitality of the spoken word about a public performance where audience
from rural and rough working-class contexts and speaker were changing and changed by
by regulating and refining its “performative the urgent issues of the time and the com­
excess” through principles, science, system­ pelling need to speak and witness. Elocution
atic study, standards of taste and criticism
was empowered by a performance of persua­
. . . elocution sought to tap the power of
popular speech but curb its unruly embodi­ sion and in many instances it moved and
ments and refine its coarse and uncouth fea­ changed the nation.
tures. It was the verbal counterpart, on the
domain of speech, of the enclosure acts that
confiscated the open commons, so crucial to THE ART OF INTERPRETATION
the hardscrabble livelihood and recreation of
the poor, and privatized them for the privi­ The art of public speaking finds a close relation
leged classes. (2000, p. 327) in the “art of Interpretation” (Bacon, 1979).
Just as public speech—from the bourgeois
Conquergood goes on to describe how the classes, enslaved communities, and the lumpen
elocution of the privileged classes could not proletariat—could move the hearts and minds
withstand such hierarchical exclusivity due of its audience and persuade the nonbelievers,
to the ubiquitous nature of the spoken word. the art of oral interpretation could bring a
“The spoken word dimension of elocution pro­ work of literature to life, putting flesh, bone,
vided for the ‘spillage’ from the enclosed writ­ and breath to words and bringing them to life
ten word that the unlettered poor swept up and from the stagnant silence of the written page.
made their own” (p. 329). “This spillage of elo­ Wallace Bacon, considered by some to be
cution, now appropriated and also owned and one of the forefathers of performance studies,
enacted by the laboring classes and lumpen articulated the relationship and evolution of
proletariat” was revisioned and reformed by elocution’s “just and graceful management of
the less privileged classes for their own “subal­ the voice, countenance, and gesture” with that
tern needs” (p. 329), audiences, and purposes. of oral interpretation and the performance of
The elocutionary labor of enslaved Americans literature (as quoted in Conquergood, 2000,
is testament to this juncture in the elocutionary p. 326). Bacon celebrated and theorized in his
movements, e.g., Frederick Douglass and work the performance of literary texts. He
Sojourner Truth are among such individuals, augmented and extended the art of reading
as well as scores of others: labor organizers, and reciting a speech in public to the art of
women and children’s rights activists, aboli­ interpreting and enacting a literary text before
tionists, and so forth. an audience. Bacon states,
Nineteenth-century public life was pro­
foundly influenced and shaped by the public The literary text is a manmade form, or
dynamics of elocution as both hegemonic “skin,” that separates it from its environment
and makes it definable but also serves as its
power and liberating power. The force of pub­
point of contact with the environment. By
lic speaking was a site of hierarchical knowl­ first observing (reading) that outer form, the
edge, value, and bodies marked by whiteness, reader seeks to get inside the skin of the work
maleness, and homogeneity that consolidated to the inner form, and comes to know it in
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Introduction xv

much the same way as one comes to know a movement that extended textual Others
another human being—by observing and lis­ toward the politics of worldly Others.
tening, by relating what is learned to one’s
total experience, by talking about it with
others, by “talking” with it. (1979, p. 157) PERFORMANCE AS
SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Wallace Bacon further enlivened the art In performance as behavior, social life is
of interpretation through his articulation of described through an organizing metaphor
“Otherness of the Other” (p. 40). For Bacon, of dramatic action or what the social critic
this meeting of the art of interpretation with a Kenneth Burke describes as “situated modes
literary text is an engagement with another of action” (1945, pp. 3–93). Burke asks the
way of being; it is to enter beyond the self and important question: “What is involved when
reach respectfully into another’s world. “The we say what people are doing and why they are
reader giving rapt attention to the literary work doing it?” Burke introduces the idea “dramas
is engaged with the sense of otherness” (empha­ of living” by providing a dramatistic paradigm
sis mine). He goes on to further state, “For the composed of five key concepts in response to
interpreter, belief in the otherness of the text, his question. His pentad illuminates perfor­
full awareness of its state of being, is a major mance in the day-to-day motions of social life.
stage in mastering the art of performance.” His five key terms of dramatism are Act (names
Wallace Bacon was fond of the following quote what took place in thought or deed), Scene (the
in explicating what is meant by the Other: background of the act, the situation in which
it occurred), Agent (person or kind of person
A person’s sense of presence is likely to be
who performed the act), Agency (what means
most strongly marked and most incon­
testably evident in his relationship, at certain or instruments were used), and Purpose (the
heightened moments, with another human aim or objective). In explicating the implica­
person. This is as it should be, for an indi­ tions of this pentad Burke states,
vidual sinks into a deadening egoism (how­
ever much he may gild it with idealistic Men may violently disagree about the pur­
verbiage or mitigate it by outward acts) pose behind a given act, or about the char­
unless he occasionally exercises and stretches acter of the person who did it, or how he did
his ability to realize another person as an it, or in what kind of situation he acted; or
independent presence to whom homage is they may even insist upon totally different
due, rather than as merely an interruption words to name the act itself. But be that
of continuity in his environment. To know as it may, any complete statement about
someone as presence instead of as a lump of motives will offer some kind of answers to
matter or a set of processes, is to meet him these five questions: what was done (act),
with an open, listening, responsive attitude; when and where it was done (scene), who
it is to become a thou in the presence of his did it (agent), how (agency), and why he did
I-hood. (Wheelwright, 1962, p. 154) it (purpose). (Burke, 1945, p. xvii)

Wallace Bacon’s interventions on elocution Just as “situated modes of action” are

and the performance of literature led the field framed through Burke’s performance para­
of performance to a more layered and extended digm, we may also understand performance
conceptualization of the Other, and with it through modes of language and the action gen­
came an interest in integrating performance erated from the words spoken. In 1955 J. L.
with paradigms from the social sciences as well Austin presented his idea of speech act theory
as ways of conceptualizing social processes as in his lecture entitled: “How to Do Things
performance. Bacon’s Other had now inspired With Words” for the William James Lecture
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xvi THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Series at Harvard University. Briefly defined, unassailable foundation—an absolute or

“speech-act” is action that is performed when immutable truth claim. For Derrida, the term
a word is uttered. He stated that language does refers to the problematic or faulty belief in an
more than describe, it also does something that essential truth that guarantees meaning. “For
makes a material, physical, and situational dif­ Derrida, all that we know and say is based upon
ference: “I forgive you;” “You cannot enter;” what has gone before and what we have inher­
“Guilty!” all do something in the world. They ited from past actions. If something is done with
create a particular reality. Language can words, it is because it has happened before
bestow forgiveness, a blessing, freedom, citi­ and we know out of convention and custom to
zenship, marriage, a promise, etc. Language continue to do it” (Madison, 2005, p. 162).
performs a reality; therefore for Austin lan­ Through a performance studies lens these
guage was not merely constantive, but perfor­ varying claims relative to language, meaning,
mative. Austin’s student, John R. Searle, and human behavior are not in contradiction,
expanded Austin’s performative utterance to but form a dialectic and creative tension.
assert that language is not only performative Words are indeed performative, and they do
at certain heightened moments or ceremonial have material effects. Obviously, words do
events, thereby separating the performative something in the world, and they are reitera­
from the constantive—but that all language is tive (in terms of Derrida) in that speech, mean­
a form of doing. Searle believed that whenever ing, intent, and custom have been repeated
there is intention in speaking there is also the through time and are therefore communicative
performative. While Austin designated particu­ and comprehensible because they are recogniz­
lar moments when words produced a speech- able in their repetition.
act, that is, when words performed, Searle From the elocutionary movement, the inter­
(1969) argued that whenever words are spoken pretation of literature, and speech-act theory,
with intention (and they almost always are) we may extend the operation of performance
words are performative. as it functions in language, culture and social
Jacques Derrida, however, disagreed with life by turning to the anthropology of experi­
Austin and Searle’s suggestion that a performa­ ence and Victor Turner’s three-part compila­
tive utterance creates a “doing” or a particular tion of performance: cultural performance,
reality. According to Derrida, Austin ignores a social performance, and social drama. We will
reality and context that is beyond the present begin with experience.
moment of speaking. Language is not the causal
factor; the causal factors are repetition and
PERFORMANCE AS EXPERIENCE OR
familiarity. For Derrida, the idea that a speech-
EXPERIENCE AS PERFORMANCE
act makes something happen within a particu­
lar present moment is to deny the fact of a Turner wrote that expressions are “the crystal­
particular kind of history. Speech is citational; lized secretions of once living human experi­
that is, what is spoken has been spoken many, ence” (1982, p. 17). Once an experience
many times before, and its effects are a result of presses forward from the field of the day-to­
its repetition and citational force, not a result day it becomes the incentive for expression; it
of a unique or present moment when words is then no longer a personal reality but a shared
are “newly” uttered. Derrida’s critique of one. What we experience may blossom into
speech-act theory is captured in the idea of expression whether in the form of story, gossip,
a “metaphysics of presence.” Derrida employs or humor on the one end, or poetry, novels,
metaphysics of presence as a critical term to theatre, or film on the other. “The experience
describe a thought system that depends on an now made into expression is presented in the
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Introduction xvii

world; it occupies time, space, and public understood as more conventional forms of
reality. Experience made into expression brings performance because they are framed by
forth reader, observer, listener, village, com­ cultural conventions. Cultural performances
munity, and audience” (Madison, 2005, include plays, operas, circus acts, carnivals,
p. 151). In the evolution from experience to parades, religious services, poetry readings,
expression, we have simultaneously crossed weddings, funerals, graduations, concerts,
the threshold of performance. Experience now toasts, jokes, and storytelling. In all these
becomes the very source of performance. Can examples, self-conscious and symbolic acts
we now conclude that performance must first are “presented” and communicated within a
find its origins in experience? circumscribed space.
The movement from experience to expres­
sion is not so neat or complete. Some argue Social performance: In social performance,
that performance does not always begin with action, reflection, and intent are not marked as
experience; indeed, they argue that it is experi­ they are in cultural performances. Social per­
ence that begins with performance. Conquer- formances are the ordinary day-by-day inter­
good states that it is actually the reverse; it is actions of individuals and the consequences of
the “performance that realizes the experience” these interactions as they move through social
(1986, pp. 36–37). Bakhtin states, “After all, life (Turner, 1982, pp. 32–33). Social perfor­
there is no such thing as experience outside mances are not self-consciously aware that
of embodiment in signs. It is not experience their enactments are culturally scripted. Social
that organizes expression, but the other way performances become examples of a culture
around—expression organizes experience. and subculture’s particular symbolic practices.
Expression is what first gives experience its These performances are most striking when
form and specificity of direction” (quoted in they are contrasted against different cultural
Conquergood, 1986, p. 85). norms, e.g., greetings, dining, dressing, dating,
In the discussions concerning what comes walking, looking, and so forth.
first, experience or performance, we come
to recognize through the insights of Victor Social Drama. In social harmony the working
Turner that this is similar to the chicken or the arrangements within a particular social unit
egg question. In Turner’s work we understand are synchronized. When a social drama occurs
that both came first and second. Performance there is a schism or break in the synchroniza­
evokes experience, just as experience evokes tion. The social unit is disturbed and the parties
performance. The reciprocal relationship involved are in disagreement. Turner states,
between experience and performance is repre­
sented in Turner’s three-part classification of Social life, then, even in its apparently qui­
performance: cultural performance, social etest moments, is characteristically “preg­
nant” with social dramas. It is as though
performance, and social drama. each of us has a “peace” face and a “war”
face, that we are programmed for coopera­
Cultural performance: Anthropologist Milton tion, but prepared for conflict. (1982, p. 11)
Singer first introduced the term “cultural
performance” in 1959, stating that these kinds Turner defines social drama through a four-
of performances all possess a “limited time phase structure: breach, crises, redressive action,
span, a beginning and an end, an organized and resolution. In breach, “there is an overt non­
program of activity, a set of performers, an conformity and breaking away by an individual
audience, and a place and occasion” (1959, or group of individuals from a shared system of
p. xiii). Cultural performances are therefore social relations” (Turner, 1974, p. 38).
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xviii THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

It is in the second stage, of crises, where citation—“always a reiteration of a norm or

conflict becomes most apparent. The opposing set of norms” which means that the “act that
forces are openly at odds, the masks are one does, the act that one performs is, in a
stripped away or magnified, and the conflict sense, an act that has been going on before
escalates. In crises the breach has enlarged; one arrived on the scene” (Diamond, 1996,
it is made public. In the third stage, redressive pp. 4–6). Performativity becomes all at once a
action, a mechanism is brought forth to cultural convention, value, and signifier that is
squelch the crises from further disruption of inscribed on the body—performed through the
the social system. This may be in the form of a body—to mark identities. In this view of per­
mediator, of a judicial system, or of the oppos­ formativity, gestures, posture, clothes, habits,
ing forces coming together themselves in an and specific embodied acts are performed dif­
effort to resolve the crises. ferently depending on the gender, as well as
The final phase is resolution. It is here, race, class, sexuality, and so forth, of the indi­
according to Turner, where the “disturbed vidual. How the body moves about in the
parties are reconciled and re-integrated back world and its various mannerisms, styles, and
into their shared social system” (1974, 1982). gestures are inherited from one generation
The parties may reunite but with changes, or through space and time to another and demar­
the other result is the recognition of a “legiti­ cated within specific identity categories. These
mate and irreparable schism between the par­ performativities become the manifestations
ties” that will separate them from the social and enactments of identity and belonging.
system, or they may establish another social This emphasis on performativity as repetition
system (1982, pp. 8–19). In reintegration there or citationality is useful in understanding how
is usually some kind of ritual act to mark the identity categories are not inherent or biologi­
separation or a celebration of the union. cally determined, but how they are socially
For Turner, performance, whether it is cul­ determined by cultural norms of demarcation.
tural performance, social performance, or social This is an important insight because it opens
drama, all takes place under the rubric the possibility for alternative performativities
of structure or antistructure. Structure is all that and alternative ways of being. It causes us to
which constitutes order, system, preservation, reckon with the fact that these categories and
law, hierarchy, and authority. Antistructure is therefore the responses and practices based on
all that which constitutes human action beyond these categories are not a fact of life, but are
systems, hierarchies, and constraints. based upon repetitions and fabrications of
These three realms outlined by Turner human behavior. The description of performa­
intend to encompass and order the full range tivity as citationality is a critical move, but,
of performance and its functions in culture for many performance scholars, it is only one
and identity. However, Turner’s explication of dimension of articulating performativity. But,
performance in social and cultural life is fur­ then the question becomes: “What gets lost in
ther complicated and deepened by the recent the reworking of performativity as citational­
discussions and debates pertaining to the ity?” (Conquergood, 1998). We may under­
concept of “performativity.” stand performativity as citationality, but we
may also understand performativity as an
intervention upon citationality and of resisting
PERFORMATIVITY
citationality. Just as performativity is an inter­
For feminist critic Judith Butler (1988), nalized repetition of hegemonic “stylized acts”
performativity is understood as a “stylized inherited by the status quo, it can also be an
repetition of acts” that are—like Derridean internalized repetition of subversive “stylized
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Introduction xix

acts” inherited by contested identities. re-located and re-materialized for the possibility
“Subversive performativity can disrupt the of a substantial re-consideration and re-exami­
very citations that hegemonic performativity nation. Elin Diamond reminds us: “When
enacts” (Madison, 2005). Performance studies performativity materializes as performance in
scholar Jill Dolan describes performativity that risky and dangerous negotiation between
as “the non-essentialized constructions of a ‘doing’ (a reiteration of norms) and a thing
marginalized identities” (1993, p. 419). For done (discursive conventions that frame our
Dolan, performativity in this light is not interpretations), between someone’s body
simply citation, but a symbiosis of identifying and the conventions of embodiment, we have
experience that is determined by compilations access to cultural meanings and critique”
of differences: sex, class, race, ethnicity, sexu­ (1996, p. 5). These performances that “materi­
ality, geography, religion, etc. The postcolo­ alize” performativity and that open meanings
nial critic, Homi Bhaba, adds to the idea of and critique, encompass film, music, theatre—
subversive performativity by invoking the the conventions of embodiment—but they
“performative” as action that disturbs, dis­ also profoundly constitute and are constituted
rupts, and disavows hegemonic formations by the stories we tell one another and the
(1994, pp. 146–149). narratives we live by. Langellier explains the
From Homi Bhabha’s and Jill Dolan’s necessary interpenetration of performance,
descriptions of performativity, we may further performativity, and narration:
clarify the meanings and functions of perfor­
mativity through the contributions of Mary Why add performativity to performance?
Strine (1998) and Kristen Langellier (1999) By performativity, I highlight the way speech
acts have been extended and broadened to
where performativity is a dynamic that com­
understand the constitutiveness of perfor­
prises the interpenetrations of identity, experi­ mance. That is, personal narrative perfor­
ence, and social relations that constitute mance constitutes identities and experience,
subjects and order context. In other words, producing and reproducing that to which it
performativity is the interconnected triad of refers. Here, personal narrative is a site where
identity, experience, and social relations— the social is articulated, structured, and strug­
gled over (Butler, Twigg). To study perfor­
encompassing the admixture of class, race, mance as performativity is, according to Elin
sex, geography, religion, and so forth that is Diamond, ‘to become aware of performance
necessarily “contradictory, multiple, and com­ itself as a contested space, where meanings
plexly interconnected” (Langellier, 1999). In and desires are generated, occluded, and of
sum, performativities are the many markings course multiply interpreted’ (4). In performa­
tivity, narrator and listener(s) are themselves
substantiating that all of us are subjects in a
constituted (‘I will tell you a story’), as is
world of power relations. experience (‘a story about what happened to
The question then becomes, when we me’). Identity and experience are symbiosis
rework performativity beyond a “stylized rep­ of performed story and the social relations
etition of acts” into the more deeply relevant in which they are materially embedded: sex,
evocation of performativity as “nonessential­ class, race, ethnicity, sexuality, geography,
religion, and so on. This is why personal nar­
ized constructions of identity,” what does is it rative performance is especially crucial to
then actually look like? Performativities are sig­ those communities left out of the privileges of
nificantly and powerfully layered in the day-to­ dominant culture, those bodies without voice
day, yet they are heightened and embossed in in the political sense. (1999, p. 129)
cultural performances. It is in cultural perfor­
mances where performativities are doubled In these more consciously subversive ren­
with a difference: they are re-presented, derings of performativity we may now extend
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xx THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

our discussion of performativity and take are who we are in our nations because of
up connections between performance and our placement—for better and worse—among
transnational narratives. other nations of the world and that literarily
spills into the microstructures of our neighbor­
hood, families, and lives. Third, as we travel to
PERFORMANCE AND GLOBALITY
lands far and foreign, performance directs us to
The world has grown smaller. Air travel, the the symbolic universe of indigenous life. Signs
Internet, digital technologies, and telecommu­ and symbols hold meanings and histories, but
nication have brought far away places into our more, they are the expressive formations of
homes and lives, just as representations of who local knowledge and desire. Performance leads
we are and what we do are brought into the us to the social dramas, cultural performances,
lives and cultures of those sometimes so for­ and embodied stories that make culture live.
eign to us that we can not locate or name their Performance travels transnationally between
homelands on the map. The irony is that dis­ the local and global so we may be witnesses
tance is no longer solely measured by kilome­ and co-performers of a politics of culture
ters or miles, but by time and access for those beyond our own borders. The idea of “terri­
of us who reap the benefits of “first world” tech­ tory” in this time of globalization has greater
nologies and economies: how many hours fly­ implications than ever before. The way the
ing time to Mozambique or how many cable “local” is affected by transnational communi­
stations on your TV, or the speed of your com­ cation and affiliations has extended our under­
puter. Zygmunt Bauman reflects the fact that standing of “community,” “nation,” and
distance is compressed by time by a global elite “identity.” Conquergood states,
class:
According to Michel de Certeau, “what
Indeed, little in the elite’s life experience the map cuts up, the story cuts across”
now implies a difference between ‘here’ and (1984:12). This pithy phrase evokes a post­
‘there,’ ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, ‘close by’ and colonial world crisscrossed by transnational
‘far away’. With time of communication narratives, Diaspora affiliations, and espe­
imploding and shrinking to the no-size of cially, the movement and multiple migra­
the instant, space and spatial markers cease tions of people, sometimes voluntary, but
to matter, at least to those whose actions often economically propelled and politically
can move with the speed of the electronic coerced. In order to keep pace with such
message. (1983, p. 13) a world, we think of “place” as a heavily
trafficked intersection, a port of call and
exchange, instead of circumscribed terri­
What are the implications for transnational tory. A boundary is more like a membrane
narratives in this era of globalization or of “the than a wall . . . our understanding of local
no-size of the instant” for those of us who are context expands to encompass the histori­
particularly concerned about the transnational cal, dynamic, often traumatic, movements
implications of performance? First, perfor­ of people, ideas, images, commodities, and
capital. It is not easy to sort out the local
mance becomes the enactment and evidence
from the global: transnational circulations
of stories that literally and figuratively bleed of images get reworked on the ground and
across the borders that national boundaries redeployed for local tactical struggles.
“cut up” (de Certeau, 1974/1984, p. 12). For (2002, p. 145)
example, performing the local is enmeshed in
what it means to be a U.S. citizen and that is The crossings between the local and the
enmeshed in the facts of U.S. foreign policy, global form complex terrains of progress,
world trade, civil society, and war. Second, we struggle, and contestation. In this collection,
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Introduction xxi

we illuminate performance in its various In Unmarked (1993) and The Ends of

constellations in ways that consider these Performance (1998), Peggy Phelan offers
crossings and evoke deeper questions about a politicized reconception of relationships
them. The possibilities and political implica­ between these three terms. She writes,
tions from such a constellation of discussions
represented in this volume is far reaching, The pleasure of resemblance and repetition
because the authors implicate operations of produces both psychic assurance and politi­
cal fetishization. Representation reproduces
power at multiple locations and within varied the Other as the Same. Performance, insofar
subjectivities. What does this mean? It means as it can be defined as representation with­
the writers in this volume have chosen to out reproduction, can be seen as a model for
examine ethnographically, historically, theo­ another representational economy, one in
retically, pedagogically, and imaginatively a which the reproduction of the Other as the
Same is not assured. (1993, p. 3)
range of spaces both hidden and apparent that
are represented by the silences of the subaltern
For Phelan, this translates into a particular
at one end and by the exegesis of the empow­
ethical stance toward performance and/as
ered on the other. This polyvocal range of
representation.
locations raises questions relative to imbal­
ances of power, forms of resistance, and the
symbolic universe of expressive forms of dis­ What lies before the field of performance
studies is precisely a discipline: a refusal to
content, desire, and alternative possibilities. indulge the killing possessiveness too often
The politics and praxis of performance open bred in admiration and love. The lessons we
up the multivocality of expressions that are most need to learn are lessons in mourning
formed under necessity and duress, as well as without killing, loving without taking. This
pleasure and inspiration toward envisioning is the end toward which performance aims.
(1998, p. 11)
new and other realities in the everyday acts of
both foreign and familiar locations. In perfor­
Philip Auslander is also concerned with
mance as praxis, the form of knowledge itself
presence and absence in discussions of perfor­
is questioned. Performance asks us to identify
mance in/as representation. His focus is the
and affirm knowledges that are contested,
issue of “liveness,” and particularly the notion
obscure, and often demeaned in the embodied
that the live performance seems to have a
acts and oral traditions of such locations.
self-evident realness and value that the pur­
portedly secondary “mediatized” ones do not:
“However one may assess the relative symbolic
PERFORMANCE AND/AS
values of live events, it is important to observe
REPRESENTATION
that even within our hyper-mediatized culture,
Richard Schechner, another founder of perfor­ far more symbolic capital is attached to live
mance studies, famously defined performance events than to mediatized ones, at least for the
as “restored behavior” (1985, p. 33). Schech­ moment” (1999, p. 59). Auslander argues that
ner brought his considerable experience and performance studies scholars must critically
reputation as an experimental theatre director examine this hierarchy of values, and he
to performance studies, and his perspective has actively interrogates the presumptions under­
inspired scholars to examine the intricate con­ girding both the notion of “liveness” itself, and
ceptual and pragmatic connections between the symbolic capital that accrues to it.
performance, repetition, and representation Conceptual reworking of, and interventions
(see also Schechner, 2002). in, performance and/as representation appear
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xxii THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

in works by a wide range of artists. Indeed the Americans enter representation—as “vanished,”
interdisciplinary nature of performance studies as archeological “specimens,” “noble savages,”
itself is also reflected in this work, and in the or the loci of nostalgia, Spiderwoman exposes
backgrounds of the artists who produce it. and critiques these constructions through
This interdisciplinarity, along with irony, pas­ burlesquing and parodying them. As Rebecca
tiche, and a suspicion of master narratives, Schneider (1997) observes,
has led some performance scholars to describe
aesthetics in these pieces as “postmodern” Laughing, Spiderwoman is sending up
(Carlson, 1996, pp. 123–143). Many of these something extremely serious. Who are
same practices can also be found in the work the “primitives” that have been created by
of early twentieth century avant-garde theatre white nostalgia? Much of Spiderwoman’s
work is related to the issue of “Indianness,”
and performance practitioners (see Goldberg, adroitly played in the painful space between
1979). the need to claim an “authentic” native
Two examples of performances that identity and their awareness of the appro­
actively engage and trouble conventional priation and the historical commodifica­
norms of representation are illustrative. The tion of the signs of that authenticity. Their
material falls in the interstices where
first is “Food for the Spirit,” completed in
their autobiographies meet popular and
1971 by artist and philosopher Adrian Piper aesthetic constructions of the “primitive,”
(Jones, 1998, pp. 162–164). Piper is a light- specifically the primitivized American
skinned African American woman. In one Indian. (p. 161)
photo-document from this “private loft per­
formance,” she stands nude before a mirror, Performance studies scholars also create
a camera held beneath her breasts (p. 162). performances that rework and interrogate rela­
Piper’s performance exists betwixt and tionships between, and conventions of, perfor­
between the moment of “live” performance mance and/as representation. This work is
and the moment in which an audience another example of performance at the inter­
removed from the event itself confronts the sections of method, of research, object of
photo. In that liminal space, Piper simultane­ research, and method of representing research
ously “exposes the assumption of whiteness (Alexander, 2002; Jackson, 1998; Johnson,
implicit in the ‘rhetoric of the pose’” and chal­ 2003; Jones, 1997).
lenges the stability and self-evidence of racial Performance studies scholars tease out and
identity. She writes, refashion relationships between performance
and representation on the page as well as on
I am the racist’s nightmare, the obscenity of the stage. In her influential essay “Performing
miscegenation. I am a reminder that segre­ Writing” (1998), Della Pollock discusses “Six
gation is impotent; a living embodiment of Excursions into Performative Writing.” Such
sexual desire that penetrates racial barriers
writing, she explains, is evocative, metonymic,
and reproduces itself. . . . I represent the
loathsome possibility that everyone is subjective, citational, and consequential. It is
“tainted” by black ancestry: If someone can particularly well suited to the complexities
look and sound like me and still be black, of setting bodies—and theories—in motion
who is unimpeachably white? (quoted in into language. A number of contributors to
Jones, 1998, p. 162) this handbook use performative writing in
their essays, demonstrating that critique
Consider, too, the work of Spiderwoman, in performance studies, like performance itself,
a performance company of three Native is inventive, generative, and “on the move”
American sisters. Mindful of the ways Native (Conquergood, 1995).
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Introduction xxiii

WHY A HANDBOOK OF performance as, itself, a form of textual

PERFORMANCE STUDIES? representation and artistic production.
Many of the contributors in this volume cross
subject areas; that is, they write from several Performance and Pedagogy
categories at once. For example scholars and
This section explores the productive inter­
teachers of performance may integrate and
sections between critical pedagogy and per­
overlap several areas, such as ethnography,
formance. Each essay demonstrates that the
theory, history, literature, and politics in vari­
production, consumption, and dissemination
ous other combinations. However, for this
of knowledge are critical performances inti­
collection, we have organized each of these
mately linked to activism as well as to the for­
domains as separate topical areas. The editors
mation of institutional practices and identities.
and contributors for each section all use mul­
This section examines performance as consti­
tidisciplinary approaches; yet, they are experts
tutive of pedagogical theory and praxis from
within their specific domains with an accom­
varying sites that both trouble and honor
plished record of research and teaching. They
the meanings and consequences of knowledge
employ theories and paradigms from various
in action. Pedagogy is explored as embodied
other subject areas of performance to enhance
processes and as a politics of hope.
and extend the core concepts within their
specific domain of interest. As a result of the
multidisciplinary nature of performance, and Performance and Politics
because, as editors, it is our intent to honor the
Performance implicates power in the situ­
rich tapestry that constitutes performance, in
ated nature of human interaction as well as in
crossing a range of subjects this collection also
the symbols that simultaneously motivate, sus­
crosses a range of readers. This book is meant
tain, and contest its legitimacy. Performance
for students, teachers, practitioners and all
requires locating the complexly layered micro
those interested in how to understand and
and macro enactments of politics to identify
employ performance, pedagogically, theoreti­
human conditions and yearnings relative to
cally, and artistically. The thematic organiza­
power, authority, strength, and force. The
tion is as follows:
essays included in this section explore the prin­
ciples of politics as it encompasses freedom
and human desire, particularly within the
Performance and Literature
realms of race, sexuality, gender, globality,
Performance and literature are intimately caste, and class.
linked. Performance is a path by which we enter
literary worlds. Performance is polyrhythmic as
Performance and Ethnography
it conjoins the words, experiences, behaviors,
imaginings, and bodies of the reader with Performance is variously and simultane­
those of the literary text. Chapters in this sec­ ously employed as a theory, method, and event
tion discuss the use of performance as a criti­ in research and travel to ethically enter the
cal, analytical tool for examining literature; domains of Others. Performance and ethnogra­
the institutional formation of performance phy combine in this section to explore the value
studies through its links with literature in and ubiquity of performance within the ethno­
the oral tradition, in oratory, and in the graphic enterprise: in illuminating relations
theatre; the relationship between performance, and theories of space, place, and Other; in the
testimony and the personal narrative; and embodied, dialogical dynamics of fieldwork
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xxiv THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

methods; and, in the scholarly representation through the strategies of performance theory,
and advocacy praxis of public performance. the methods of performance ethnography, the
Therefore, the essays in this section examine politics of performance pedagogy, the illumina­
the uses of performance in the analysis, engage­ tions of literature and performance, the revi­
ment, and presentation of ethnography and its sionings of performance history, the claims in
processes. the politics of performance, or the overarching
ways performance is performed as a staged
event. All these dimensions of performance are
Performance and History
deeply invoked while elements of each richly
The relationship between performance and overlap with elements of the others. The poli­
history goes far beyond studies of specific per­ tics, theory, pedagogy, literature, and ethnog­
formers and specific periods, though these, raphy of performance are distinct sites of
of course, are vitally important. Included in inquiry; however the ways they naturally and
this section are discussion of the theatrical inherently intersect with each other becomes
construction of the nation, of the relationships a rich montage of meanings, questions, and
between performance and forms of civic and claims. This volume opens a range of para­
social life, and performance as a heuristic digms and meditations on performance to the
guiding both archival methodology and histo­ reader in order to illuminate and clarify the
riography. Chapters in this section will various ways performance can be employed
explore varying aspects of the multifaceted across subjects of interest and disciplinary divi­
relationship between performance and history. sions. Moreover, we have placed various argu­
ments about and ideas of performance together
in this collection to create a dialectic of com­
Performance and Theory
parisons and contrasts between and within
Performance and theory conjoin to expli­ performance studies conversations.
cate the meanings and implications that inhere
in human experience and social processes.
Performance theory is employed across disci­ REFERENCES
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Langellier, K. (1999). Personal narrative, perfor­ human seriousness of play. New York:
mance, performativity: Two or three things Performing Arts.
I know for sure. Text and Performance Wheelwright, P. (1962). Metaphor and reality.
Quarterly, 19(2), 123–144. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Madison, S. (2005). Critical ethnography: Method,
ethics, and performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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PART I
Performance Trouble
DELLA POLLOCK

E very essay in this volume is saturated

with theory. Each of the studies of per­
formance history is informed by a particular
power and pleasures of its rough currents,
thinking about performance must move as
well. In these essays, we see and feel theory
understanding of the nature of facts, narrative, as something like a collaborator with perfor­
and time. Each ethnographic moment evoked mance, a cosubject however uncomfortably
comes to us with the weight of 20, 30 years removed from the stability of a subject/object
of thinking about what it means to “write cul­ relation. In embodied relation to performance,
ture” behind it. At the same time, no number theory moves. It is less the primary figure in a
of essays concerned with “performance and new construction of performance than it is a
theory” (much less the select four included in reflexive participant in the poiesis of knowing,
this section) could ever be fully representative being, and acting that performance initiates.
or exhaustive of developments in performance I would thus have to call performance-and­
theory. So why a section exclusively on perfor­ theory a project of interanimation: of discern­
mance and theory? What difference does it ing how many more vital possibilities (for
make to make theory a particular site of engage­ performance, for theory, for the world) are
ment in the pages that follow? wrought by the transactivity of performance
First, these essays are particularly con­ and various ways of imagining it.
cerned with dramatizing possible relation­ Second, then, each of these essays makes a
ships between theory and performance— significant “detour through theory,” taking up
between thinking about and doing perfor­ Stuart Hall’s early charge for cultural studies.
mance, between doing theory and thinking For Hall, the question of theory is a question
performance. An empirical or even narrowly of method. Theory is not or should not be an
interpretive approach to the world may rest autonomous practice running at best parallel
relatively comfortably with theory as a meta­ with history. To the contrary, Hall takes from
narrative, as an explanatory thread wound Marx the imperative that thought must “‘rise
around the object-world. Performance won’t from the abstract to the concrete’ not vice
stand still long enough for theory to wrap it up versa” (Hall, 2003, p. 131). As J. Macgregor
nicely. It moves in time and space through Wise observes, the “concrete” to which theory
restless bodies. To track its contingencies, to rises is not “what is empirically given, but
plumb its affective depths, and to discover the a necessary complexity. It is the result of

1
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2 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

theoretical work, not its origin” (Wise, 2003, empiricism is abstract: it entails an abstraction
p. 107). Theory would thus produce the “con­ of theory from the world of material determi­
crete” in the form of a “necessary complex­ nations of which it is a necessary part.
ity.” Wise summarizes the principle method The “detour through theory” throws off
Hall recommends: the “givenness” of both the mapped course
and destination. Each of the essays in this
Take a concept and track its multiple mater­ section moves through and with theory as
ial determinations and then you have the an alternate, even previously unknown or
concrete. The process is not that of insert­
unmarked route that takes us off the beaten
ing philosophical abstractions into the ‘here
and now,’ because that neglects these many path. The landscape is suddenly less familiar.
determinations (1986c: 58). It is not about Gripping the wheel, my car compass proves
theory, but ‘going on theorizing’ (1986c: useless: Where am I now? What is this place?
60). However, the process of theorizing itself Who am I now at this particular intersection
is always grounded in its historical conjunc­ of theorizing and historicizing? And who
ture; thought presupposes society . . . and
therefore is shaped by its own multiple deter­
might I be at another?
minations. (Wise, 2003, p. 107) The detour implicates the subjectivity of the
driver (author) as much as it does the passen­
The “detour through theory” emphasizes gers (readers). It positions each in the precari­
the “process of theorizing itself” (as the unfin­ ous spatial and temporal position of becoming
ished work of “‘going on theorizing’”) and the different. The detour is thrilling and terrifying
mutual complexity of theory and history. For in its unpredictability: the child’s “When will
Hall, we get there?” becomes “Will we get there?,”
“What will ‘there’ be when we arrive?,” and
Both the specificities and the connections— “Who will we be in relation to this place made
the complex unities of structures—have to scarcely or newly recognizable by a course of
be demonstrated by the concrete analysis indirection?”
of concrete relations and conjunctions . . . . Third then, for me, making an explicit
This method thus retains the concrete
“detour through theory” is always a strangely
empirical reference as a privileged and
undissolved ‘moment’ within a theoretical utopian gesture. It holds out the (not always or
analysis without thereby making it ‘empiri­ generously consoling) promise of change.
cist’: the concrete analysis of concrete situa­ As each of the authors in this section rounds
tions. (Hall, 2003, p. 128) back around the detour, each arrives differ­
ently at “performance.” The designated desti­
Writing in the mid-seventies, Hall’s reading nation is the same and different. In each of
of “Marx’s Notes on Method” reflects his these cases, the instability of theory redounds
encounter with Althusser and his emerging, to the nominal designation of a “performance”
concomitant interest in “the complex unities as such, destabilizing it in turn—as if the pas­
of structures.” At the same time, it makes a sengers, disoriented from the alternate path,
larger claim on the materiality of theory as a were to ask: this looks like “it” . . . but is this
means of engaging in “the concrete analysis of really where we meant to go? What was once
concrete situations.” Hall preserves the “priv­ familiar as a ready object of study is now
ileged and undissolved” empirical moment in strange, inviting such questions as: What does
theoretical analysis while carefully distinguish­ it mean to call something a performance? What
ing theoretical analysis from empiricism. values does doing so attribute or hail? What
Indeed, by comparison to Hall’s version of does siting a “performance” do for the way we
theoretical analysis as “concrete analysis,” think not only about performance(s) but the
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Performance Trouble 3

world “performance” names? And so how including cars and laundry detergent, and
does or might binding an interaction or event of management styles aimed at eliciting “peak
to the name “performance” affect the way we performance” from employees. In each case,
live in that world? performance has come to mean something
Each of these essays more or less arrives at more than the demonstration of competency
a place of what I would have to call perfor­ that Richard Bauman found essential to the
mance trouble (echoing Butler, 1990). Through authority of the storyteller in his seminal essay
each theoretical excursion, “performance” on “Verbal Art as Performance” (Bauman,
becomes what it is: a name, a frame, a signi­ 1977). Indeed, the stakes have not only been
fier, a construct. To call even what has become transferred to commodities and corporations
most familiar to us (most naturalized) as per­ but have risen considerably, making “perfor­
formance a “show” is as loaded as presuming mance” practically synonymous with the
gender is a stable, natural identity. Not unlike highest levels of human-qua-technological
gender, and historically for many of the same accomplishment and productivity. More than
reasons, performance as “show” has been dis­ gold-star achievement however, performance
ciplined into an object of spectatorship, formal promises more: the car that really performs
appreciation, and/or enjoyment. When the promises more speed, more power, more con­
nature and status of “performance” is itself trol of the road; the company that really per­
disturbed, (1) whatever it is we are calling forms outperforms others in an ongoing race
a “performance” is less immediately know­ for the competitive edge in a global market.
able: it is less easily assimilated to given bod­ Entangled with the military-industrial promise
ies of knowledge and convention; (2) the of strength and dominion, when “performance”
“performance” event or practice becomes less is deployed in comparative global analyses
stable and more vulnerable to contest over its showing that U.S. students do not, apparently,
nature, meanings, and values; and (3) the des­ “perform” as well in math and science as
ignated “performance” may be re-named, re­ their Asian counterparts, it becomes a figure of
marked, and/or made to re-signify—to mean lack, shame, and discipline. Here, performance
differently. becomes accountability becomes “high-stakes
Accordingly, these essays and others like testing” education on which the performance
them, may lead us less toward knowing about potential of a nation hangs.
performance and more toward feeling, imagin­ Performance studies, as McKenzie notes,
ing, and/or making with performance. Con­ has by and large ignored these performatives:
comitantly we might say that in the end we know these acts of naming that constrain whole bod­
less about and make more of the performances ies of human behavior to mechanistic stan­
theory calls out. dards for best/better/more accomplishment, or
Jon McKenzie is particularly concerned what Marcuse, in an early critique of the rise
with what it means to call an event or a prac­ of consumer culture in the U.S., called the
tice a “performance.” He begins with the trou­ “performance principle.” We have disregarded
bled space of economic globalization in which and dismissed the consolidation of multi­
“performance” more often than not designates national interests around “performance,”
the “fulfillment in form” of technological sys­ McKenzie argues, in favor of discerning resis­
tems often affiliated with the rise of the U.S. tance in local, cultural performances. Working
military complex after World War II, including his way prismatically through Butler, Foucault,
high-performance fighter planes and missile Deleuze and Guattari, and Derrida, McKenzie
guidance systems. Performance has become the argues that we have not only systematically
watchword in sales of lower-tech commodities ignored prevailing formations of “performance”
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4 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

but their usefulness in seeing and reimagining Repetition intrigues and goads Schneider.
performance as “an onto-historical formation In “Never, Again,” as in related work
of power and knowledge.” In this light, perfor­ (Schneider, 2001), Schneider recovers the per­
mance strata above and below that of the formance in performativity—not impossibly
nation-state, including inter- and transnational wresting it from the networks of repetition
organizations such as the United Nations and in which it is embedded but enabling it to
the Global Reporting Initiative on the one reappear as such in the concrete analysis of
hand, and small businesses and nongovern­ reiteration.
mental organizations on the other, become “Yesterday,” Schneider begins. Underscored,
critical sites of alternative performance produc­ yesterday is the day that haunts today. Today
tion. McKenzie’s detour through performance (unmarked except by reference to what it is and
theory expands the terrain of potential perfor­ is not: yesterday) is at once the day on which
mance resistance to include global networks, we are reading the essay and the day on which
ultimately appropriating the threatening, orga­ the September 11, 2001, attack on the World
nizational imperative “perform—or else” to Trade Center twin towers occurs and is simul­
the micro and macro levels of production it taneously represented. “First one, then the
would otherwise eclipse. other,” Schneider writes. The fall of the first
McKenzie draws on the work of Judith tower is repeated in the second. The collapse of
Butler in his final reflections on how we might both is then repeated in “replay upon replay”
connect the study of global economic perfor­ on TV. Whatever was original in the first tele­
mativities with that of local, discrete, cultural vised glimpses of the attack becomes a ghost
performances. Butler haunts much of the work of simulation:
represented here, although perhaps none so
pointedly as Rebecca Schneider’s “Never, Sometimes the second tower was played
Again.” Schneider’s essay is a performance in its first, then the first tower was played second.
own right. Naming it as such, I am calling atten­ Oddly, as replay led to replay, as forward
led to back, the image became only more
tion not only to its temporalization of social
incredible. The more it reappeared, the
and linguistic grammars, its evocation of the more it seemed as if we had missed it and
banality of horror, and its episodic structure, needed to see it again, and each ‘again’ lent
but also to its complex articulation of theory itself less to familiarity than to disbelief. The
and scene in vexed moments of repetition. sense of “how to read” the image became
Repetition has been repeatedly declared increasingly unsettled with each repetition
as the “already seen” began to partake of
a definitive characteristic of performance. the uncanny union of overly familiar and
Performance is, for Richard Schechner, “restored impossibly strange. Perhaps the towers had
behavior,” a repetition in heightened form of never been there? Or, perhaps they had
a “strip” of human behavior (Schechner, 2002, always been coming down and we had just
pp. 28–29). For Butler, it is that “stylized repeti­ refused to see it before now?
tion of acts” that repeats itself into invisibility,
making the performance seem natural, that is, Time shifts. The apparent orderliness of
not a performance at all (Butler, 1990, p. 140). an appalling history—“first one, then the
In the end, for Butler, the ultimate trick of per- other”—becomes more terrifying yet in its rep­
formance-as-repetition is to make itself disappear etition. With each replay—again and again, for­
into the appearance of history as “given.” It is the ward to back—time itself seems to collapse into
performance of this trick, under pressure of dis­ never and always: “Perhaps the towers had
ciplinary threat (perform—or else) that Butler never been there? Or, perhaps they had
calls “performativity.” always been coming down . . . ?” and yesterday
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Performance Trouble 5

becomes the “now” in which in which we seem She performs the performativity of repetition
to be seeing (as if) for the first time. in writing and, in so doing, finds the tenuous,
Immersed in the performance of repetition, tremulous grounds of change.
Schneider parses the torment of time as it con­ José Muñoz also practices what I would
spires with media replay to produce “a kind of call the motility of performance thinking. In
violence of ambivalence.” Notably, Schneider his essay for this volume, “Stages: Queers,
does not “tour” the violence from a camera- Punks, and the Utopian Performative,” he
safe distance but writes in and through the moves among and between autobiographi­
material, structural repetitions that compose cal moments, theoretical inquiry, and Kevin
our spectatorial “experience” of the terrorist McCarty’s glittering images of empty stages.
attack. She performs in writing a “detour” The performers here are off-stage: the audi­
that courses through the material forma­ ence members, lingerers, and subcultures
tions of extra-canny events: watching Peter made up of the not-yet-queer and “not-so­
Jennings’s televised news report at a local cof­ kids” that formed around punk groups and
fee shop; teaching class in the wake of the first Los Angeles gay clubs in the eighties and
media blast, surrounded by the gossipy buzz nineties. In their interactions and refashionings
of “have you heard?” (about what has already of self-and-other, Muñoz finds what he calls
been and will be seen); the repetition of “utopian performatives”: the performance of
the father (Bush I) in the son (Bush II) in their a kind of minoritarian hope that does not so
respective declarations against repetition— much rest over-the-rainbow as it rebounds
“Never again”—that, in the repetition, back from the far horizon of possibility to
invokes what was to have been “never” again; create “temporal disorganization.” Utopia, for
Gertrude Stein’s own literary performances of Muñoz, is not a static ideal but a “not yet
repetition, here performed as a variation on here” that implodes on the here, now, in the
the kind of catharsis interruptus Schneider form of “potentialities.” Potentialities are
attributes to the media representation; a tacti­ affectively charged moments of becoming and
cal diversion through the pages of Michel de belonging that occur at and beyond the edges
Certeau’s renowned essay, “Walking in the of anything like a bound event—while the
City,” now perhaps most infamous for its rep­ crowd empties out of the club into the parking
resentation of the twin towers as “the tallest lot, for instance, or when the activity in the
letters in the world,” as a rhetorical figuration mosh pit upstages the stage. The empty stage,
of the excess of consumer culture seen grandil­ moreover, is never empty: it is as likely to be
oquently from “above,” raided, tricked, de­ suddenly overtaken by a flagrant display of
toured from below. sexual excess as it is to be filled with the after­
The essay moves in precisely the way image of boys and young men rehearsing
Schneider’s reading of de Certeau suggests our queer subjectivities into being and becoming.
writing-performance of the world might: “in For Muñoz, the not here–not now of poten­
reading the detail as a practice, in play,” she tiality propels us into futurity.
argues, “we shift our focus to movement, to Troubling the time/space of performance,
moving through, and in shifting to movement, Muñoz troubles the signification of queerness
change becomes not only possible but the con­ as “just a stage.” By articulating this familiar/
dition of any myth of stasis (the monument’s familial gesture at containment with images of
secret).” Moving through, Schneider goes on actual stages on which Muñoz glimpses queer
theorizing. She challenges the monumentalism potentiality, Muñoz resignifies “stage” and
of ocular memory and its twin image in spec­ “queer.” Thinking with performance in this
tators moved to the point of being unmoved. way—scouting for potentialities, crossing
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6 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

theory and performance with the same desire describe and report. They refer to persons
and reserve with which Muñoz claims he and events and so may be true or false.
crossed “a metaphorical threshold between “Performative” utterances do what they say—
punk worlds and gay life”—becomes then a they make a bet or a promise, clinch a vow.
performative act in its own right, producing They are consequential. For Phelan, Austin’s
the kind of hope Muñoz finds so urgently constative utterances become performative in
lacking in many queer and minoritarian the absence of the performance to which they
discourses. refer. Representing performance does not
Muñoz thus qualifies Butler’s conception of reproduce the lost object or, in this case,
performativity with immanent hope. He also performance. It nonetheless stages the effort
challenges the kind of performativity that fol­ to remember what is lost. In performances of
lows on what has become something of a tenet reflexive remembering, we learn again how loss
in performance thinking today: Peggy Phelan’s acquires meaning—not only of and for the
1993 claim that “performance’s being . . . object, but of and for the one who remembers.
becomes itself through disappearance” (p. 146). The remembering subject disappears into the
Performances disappear. They are here one object of performative remembering, becoming
moment and not the next. For Phelan, they herself the subject who longs always to be
become themselves as they disappear into remembered (Phelan, 1993, p. 147)—and the
time, each moment hailing the one into which generative figure of ongoing rehearsals and
it will irretrievably dissolve. The ephemerality repetitions.
of performance made it particularly attractive For Phelan, performance disappears into
to artists of the early modernist avant-garde the performativity of reckoning with “what is
for whom its elusive immediacies were at once lost.” While, for Phelan, “performance impli­
a sanctuary from and a means of assault on cates the real through the presence of living
the commodification of spatially fixed art­ bodies,” “performance marks the body itself
work (e.g., see Goldberg, 2001). Performance as loss” (1993, pp. 148 and 152). Performance
temporalities could not be boxed and sold (or at once hails live bodies into representation
so the story goes) and so could trick the of the real and dissolves those bodies into
swelling commodity market. Disappearance is metonyms—associative invocations of some­
the ultimate trick: the master magician makes thing we might call real. The body disappears
the sequined assistant disappear before our under its metonymic weight. In turn, it seems,
very eyes. He spins the power of performance the promise of performativity is limited to a
to make bodies disappear into pure theatrical­ melancholic rehearsal of displacements. The
ity. The magical wonders of now-you-see-it, longing to be remembered and the longing to
now-you-don’t snub the very fragility of life— remember may meet only in the irresolution of
the much less flashy, much more banal disap­ always longing.
pearance of life into death that defines the This is not the productive nostalgia Muñoz
performance of mortality. has elsewhere claimed for performance by
For Phelan, to the extent that the ontology people of color (e.g., see Muñoz, 2000). Nor is
of performance is realized in disappearance, it it the vision he holds for the stages he recites
is intimately tied into loss. It consequently gen­ here. Indeed, here the never-empty stage is pro­
erates yet another kind of “performativity,” ductive of gay belonging. It is an affective space
the kind J. L. Austin identified in his 1955 that is not reproductive of lost subjects but
efforts to delineate descriptive and effective, or generative of new ones. As Muñoz takes up
“constative” and “performative,” speech utter­ the image of one of the oldest Latino gay clubs
ances (Austin, 1962). “Constative” utterances in Los Angeles, La Plaza, for instance, he
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Performance Trouble 7

triangulates memory, theory, and image in an contingency, corporeality, and coproductivity.

exemplification of what might be called perfor­ As a result, “performance” becomes a loose
mative seeing, a kind of seeing that opens up knot binding aesthetics and social life. And the
“another vista” whose particular magic lies in frayed remnants of performance traditions all
conjuring “stories of migratory crossing, legal but wiped out under genocide are joined, if
and illegal” and positioning “these bodies, not exactly recovered, to the “answerability”
whose life world is always in flux about to of present to past, past to present in the echo
belong, on the cusp of materialization.” Or: chambers of living memory. A dance tech­
tricking disappearance with the prospect of nique identified with the most elite and
appearance, of making the material body of gendered Western performance traditions
queer subjectivity always about to appear. On becomes capable of crafting “vernacular land­
these stages, then, in this endless “stage,” the scapes.” And the folk art object, so often lost
live body does not so much implicate as it under the press of reading, seeing, and theo­
becomes the real. rizing that reiterates the tourist gaze it
Judith Hamera takes a different kind of deplores, becomes the figure of a thriving
detour. She travels through performance in performance economy. For Hamera,
order to arrive at a concrete analysis of aes­
thetics. For Hamera, “the social work of aes­ The object, like the performed story, is the
thetics is especially central to performance, membrane across which the performer/
artists and audiences encounter and imagine
where the labors of creation and the dynamics
one another, whether from opposite sides of
of consumption are explicitly communal and the proscenium or opposite sides of a trad­
corporeal, and where corporeality and sociality ing post or gallery counter. Neither is simply
are remade as surely as a formal event may be a text waiting to be animated but a display
produced.” In (re)turn, “performance exposes that binds communicative competence,
aesthetics’ social work as embodied, proces­ history, affect, action and thought together
within the commodity situation. Thus, the
sual, rhetorical and political and, especially, as object in the situation speaks; it is, simulta­
daily, as routine, a practice of everyday life.” neously, a story and an event. It animates
Hamera’s aim is to discern the “essential com­ relations of exchange even as it is, itself,
plexities” of art’s social lives. Towards this animated in the process.
end, she pivots on three instances of perfor­
mance as divergent as the spectral remains of In her discussion of the residual diaspora of
Khmer dance and music traditions, classical classical Cambodian music and dance, Hamera
ballet technique, and the exchange of Navajo cites two important turns on “performativity”:
folk art. With each instance, Hamera expands Elin Diamond’s sense of the conjunctural rela­
and contracts the broad field of aesthetics. tion between performance and performativity,
Hamera’s essay is above all a radical act of and Vivian Patraka’s adaptation of Diamond
naming and renaming “performance.” In each in her formulation of “performative goneness.”
instance, Hamera locates an apparently closed For Diamond, “performativity” describes “the
performance event (playing traditional music) thing done”: the what-is-to-be-done that has-
in concrete relation to intersecting events already-been-done so many times under disci­
(remembering playing), thinking their relation plinary threat that it is deceptively simply
into a tight and wide network of social inter­ “the thing done” (Diamond, 1996, p. 4). (“It is
action that is, in the end, astoundingly beauti­ the thing done,” we might overhear a father
ful. Hamera pries conventionally delimited gently exhort a child.) Performance is the
performances free of anything like an object- doing. The doing-of-the-thing-done, of course,
status, siting them in an open context of but nonetheless not a “thing” at all but an act
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8 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

unfolding in time and across space. As much as REFERENCES

the-thing-done may structure the doing of it, Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words.
the doing materializes the structural complexi­ Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
ties shaping, pressing, pulling at it. In so doing, Bauman, R. (1977). Verbal art as performance.
performance is, for Diamond, a kind of theo­ Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. New York:
rizing: it problematizes conditions of historical
Routledge.
determination. Diamond, E. (1996). Introduction. In E. Diamond
For Patraka, the thing-done is the thing-gone. (Ed.), Performance and cultural politics
It is “the pressure of palpable loss” that not (pp. 1–14). New York: Routledge.
only structures but compels the “doing” of Goldberg, R. (2001). Performance art: From futur­
ism to the present (Rev. ed.). New York:
Holocaust memories (Patraka, 1999, p. 7).
Thames and Hudson.
Accordingly performance is, as Phelan suggests, Hall, S. (1986). On postmodernism and artic­
defined by loss but, for Patraka, primarily in the ulation: An interview with Stuart Hall
sense that it is “a constant iteration against” (L. Grossberg, Ed.). Journal of Communication
loss. Performance does its work of repetition, Inquiry, 10(2), 45–60.
driven on by what it cannot stand—or will stand Hall, S. (2003). Marx’s notes on method: A “read­
ing” of the “1857” (revision). Cultural Studies,
for, will materialize, only insofar as it stands
17(2), 113–149. (Originally published in
against “the pressure of palpable” atrocity and Cultural Studies, 6)
genocidal disappearance (see also Taylor, 1997). Muñoz, J. (2000). Memory performance: Luis
In this light, Hamera’s work is an insistent Alfaro’s “Cuerpo Politizado.” In C. Fusco
performance of “going on theorizing.” It (Ed.), Corpus delecti: Performance art of
the Americas (pp. 97–114). New York:
repeats and restores classical and folk perfor­
Routledge.
mances in and among living bodies of thought. Patraka, V. (1999). Spectacular suffering: Theatre,
Like Schneider, Hamera thinks with the intima­ fascism, and the Holocaust. Bloomington,
cies and intricacies of restored behaviors. Like Indiana University Press.
Muñoz, she finds performance where it’s not Phelan, P. (1993). Unmarked: The politics of per­
“done”: off-stage, unfinished, going on. Like formance. New York: Routledge.
Schneider, R. (2001). Hello Dolly well hello
McKenzie, she challenges the broad economies
Dolly: The double and its theatre. In
in which “performance” is too often isolated as P. Campbell & A. Kear (Eds.), Psychoanalysis
a specialized form of practice, whether in the and performance (pp. 94–114). New York:
name of “art” or “resistance.” And together Routledge.
with Schneider, Muñoz, and McKenzie, she Taylor, D. (1997). Disappearing acts: Spectacles
of gender and nationalism in Argentina’s
shows the necessary complexity of performing
“Dirty War.” Durham, NC: Duke University
theory in a world in which the performativities Press.
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not require, thoughtful reiteration. Cultural Studies, 17(2), 105–112.
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1
Stages
Queers, Punks, and the Utopian Performative

JOSÉ ESTEBAN MUÑOZ

You can’t tell who was and who wasn’t in a band. We did not like poseurs but we
liked to pose for pictures. Because we knew there was something about the night that
would be remembered even if we couldn’t remember it. We were young and naive in
a way that seems to be a lost art. We were snotty and compassionate and deliberate
and reckless but we knew exactly what we were doing. We were ghosts then and we
are ghosts now. We will haunt your malls and catwalks forever. Ha Ha.

—Exene Cervenka
(in Jocoy, Moore, & Cervenka, 2002, p. 270)

UTOPIAN PERFORMATIVES learned from this question is that utopia is an

ideal, something that should mobilize us, push
How does one stage utopia? Which is to say, us forward. Utopia is not prescriptive, it renders
how do we enact utopia? As I present work potential blueprints of a world not quite here, a
at various universities and conferences from a horizon of possibility, not a fixed schema. It is
book I am writing, to be titled Cruising Utopia: productive to think about utopia as flux, a tem-
the Performance and Politics of Queer Futurity, poral disorganization, as a moment when the
some form of that question is almost always here and the now is transcended by a then and
articulated. It is one of those good questions that a there that could be and indeed should be.
help writers clarify their arguments, to propel But on some level, utopia is about a politics of
their thinking forward. One thing I have emotion; it is central to what Ernst Bloch called

9
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a “principle of hope” (Bloch, 1959/1986).1 It is punk/queer utopian scene that I read for its
my belief that minoritarian subjects are cast as utopian potentiality and also, furthermore,
hopeless in a world without utopia. This is not that the work itself is a photographic instance
to say that hope is the only modality of emo­ of the utopian performative.2
tional recognition that structures belonging; This argument is not aligned with many of
sometimes shame, disgust, hate, and other the dominant performance theories that held
“negative” emotions bind people together— sway during the early nineties, like Peggy
certainly punk rock’s rejection of normative Phelan’s axiom that the ontology of perfor­
feelings stands as the most significant example mance was disappearance and that perfor­
of the emotional work of negative affect. But in mance itself represented a unique mode of
this instance, I dwell on hope because I wish to representation without reproduction. Instead,
think about futurity; and hope, I argue, is the a materialist current influences this analysis.
emotional modality that permits us to access For example I see this project working in tan­
futurity, par excellence. dem with a book like Miranda Joseph’s
Queers, for example, especially those who Against the Romance of Community. In that
do not choose to be biologically reproductive, book, Joseph offers an important critique of
a people without children, are, within domi­ Phelan’s version of the performance’s power:
nant culture, people without a future. They are
cast as people who are developmentally stalled, In order to claim that performance resists
forsaken, who do not have the complete exchange value, or equivalence, and thereby
approaches the unrepresentable Real itself,
life promised by heterosexual temporality
Phelan discounts the work of the audience;
(Edelman, 2004). This reminds one of the way their productive consumption of the work,
in which worried parents deal with wild queer their act of witness is for her the memory
children, how they sometimes protect them­ of something presented by somebody else.
selves from the fact of queerness by making it a (2002, p. 64)
“stage,” a developmental hiccup, a moment of
misalignment that will, hopefully, correct itself, This then suggests that performance’s tem­
or be corrected by savage pseudoscience and porality is not one of simple presence but
coercive religion, sometimes masquerading as instead of futurity. In Joseph’s lucid critique we
psychology. In this essay, I want to consider the see that performance is the kernel of a poten­
idea of queerness as “a stage” that rescues that tiality that is transmitted to audiences and wit­
phrase from delusional parents and others who nesses and that the real force of performance is
attempt to manage and contain the potentiality its ability to generate a modality of knowing
which is queer youth. In this essay I want to and recognition among audiences and groups
enact a utopian performative change in the sig­ that facilitates modes of belonging, especially
nification of the phrase “it is only a ‘stage’” minoritarian belonging. If we consider per­
deployed in the name of the queer child. More formance under such a lens, we can see the tem­
specifically, in this case, the queer wild child porality of what I will describe as a utopian
of punk subculture. I will enact this change performativity, which is to say a manifestation
through a reading of visual artist Kevin of a “doing” that is in the horizon, a mode of
McCarty’s representations of illuminated possibility. Performance, seen as utopian per­
stages at gay bars and independent rock clubs, formativity, is imbued with a sense of poten­
and through a more general reading of punk tiality. Georgio Agamben has outlined the
rock’s ethos as conjured and connoted by temporality of the philosophical concept of
McCarty’s images and my readings of them. potentiality by following a line of thought that
I will argue that the artist’s work indexes a begins with Aristotle. Agamben underscores a
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distinction made by Aristotle between poten­ being that is in process, unfinished. It is to be

tiality and possibility (1999). Possibilities exist, deciphered by noting what Bloch has called
or more nearly, they exist within a logical real, the anticipatory illumination that radiates
the possible, which is within the present and is from certain works of art (Bloch, 1974/1996).
linked to presence. Potentialities are different Also pivotal to my formulation is the work
insofar as while they are present they do not of the previously discussed Italian philosopher
exist in present things. Thus potentialities have Agamben. I have outlined his emphasis on
a temporality that is not in the present but, potentiality and his privileging of this concept
more nearly, in the horizon, which we can over that of possibility. Furthermore, the
understand as futurity. Potentiality is and is not notion of the utopian performative that I am
presence and its ontology cannot be reduced attempting to outline in this essay is a notion
to presentness. Agamben reads this notion of that is inspired by Agamben’s notion of a
potentiality alongside Jacques Derrida’s notion “means without an end.” For Agamben, poli­
of the trace. It is something like a trace or tics is disabled by a certain emphasis on
potential that exists or lingers after a perfor­ “ends,” which is to say politics depends on a
mance. At performance’s end, if it is situated performative doing, a perpetual becoming.
historically and materially, it is never just the Performances that display and illuminate their
duration of the event. Reading for potentiality “means” are, like punk, a modality of perfor­
is scouting for a “not here” or “not now” in mance that is aesthetically and politically
the performance that suggests a futurity. linked to populism and amateurism. The per-
I begin this writing then by readjusting my formative work of “means,” in the sense I am
opening question “How do we stage utopia?” using it, is to interrupt aesthetics and politics
by suggesting that utopia is a stage. Not that aspire toward totality. This too is one of
merely a temporal stage, like a phase, by also the ways in which I want to resist the Hegelian
a spatial one. Sir Thomas More initially posi­ shell game of absence and presence, appear­
tioned Utopia as a place, an island, and later ance and disappearance, that dominates previ­
that formulation was amended to become a ous performance theories. An emphasis on
temporal coordinate. Utopia became a time means as opposed to ends is innately utopian
that is not here yet, a certain futurity, a could insofar as utopia can never be prescriptive of
be, a should be. Utopia, according to Bloch, a futurity. Utopia is an idealist mode of critique
philosopher associated, to some degree, with that reminds us that there is something miss­
the Frankfurt School, is a time and a place that ing, that the present and presence (and its
is “not-yet-here.” Bloch, along with other opposite number, absence) is not enough.
Frankfurt School thinkers like Thedor Adorno Two years ago, I spent a sabbatical in Los
and Herbert Marcuse, contended that that Angeles. I grew up listening to X, the Germs,
utopia is primarily a critique of the here and Gun Club, and other bands that made up the
now, it is an insistence that there is, as they put LA punk scene of the eighties. I lived in the LA
it, “something missing in the here and the punk scene via my semisubcultural existence
now.” Capitalism, for instance, would have us in suburban Miami; this was possible through
think that it is a natural order, an inevitability, a grungy alternative record store located in a
the way things would be. The “should be” of strip mall, called Yesterday and Today Records;
utopia, its indeterminacy and its deployment a few punk and new wave clubs like Flynn’s on
of hope, stand against capitalism’s ever the Beach and Club Fire and Ice; and issues of
expanding and exhausting force field of how Creem, a magazine that covered the edgier rock
things “are and will be.” Utopian performa­ scene but could still be purchased in a Miami
tivity suggests another modality of doing and supermarket. Through my deep friendships
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12 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

with other disaffected Cuban queer teens who I will discuss a series of photographs that
rejected both Cuban exile culture and local McCarty has titled The Chameleon Club. The
mainstream gringo popular culture, and series is named after a space from the artist’s
through what I’ll call the utopian critique func­ biography that I will soon get to. The series
tion of punk rock, I was able to imagine a time lines up portraits of stages from different club
and a place that was not yet there, a place where spaces in Los Angeles like Spaceland or Catch
I tried to live. LA and its scene helped my pro­ One. Spaceland is a bar and music venue in
toqueer self, the queer child in me, imagine a the now hipster section of Los Angeles called
stage, both temporal and physical, where I Silverlake. Spaceland is where the indie music
could be myself or, more nearly imagine a self kids and “not-so-kids” (I position myself
that was in process, a self that has always been within this bracket) go to hear the cutting edge
in the process of becoming. music of the day. Catch One is a predomi­
While in Los Angeles, I started hanging out nantly black gay space where lesbian and
with an artist, Kevin McCarty, with whom transgendered people also go. It is a space that
I shared an interest in punk and post-punk is not on the West Hollywood–centered gay
music, subculture, and utopia. Our friendship map of Los Angeles. McCarty’s extraordinary
has endured various mutations, moments of pictures exercise a great deal of formalist mas­
volatility and great fun, and our mutual neu­ tery that render the stage as monumental.
roses have fueled our queer intimacy. Our While the space is empty of people, the dark
friendship is ultimately based on convergent and dramatic lighting is set to make the per­
worldviews in relation to politics and aesthet­ formance sites look as though they were shot
ics. On a recent studio visit I saw a series of while the club was open and running. After
works that helped me organize and substanti­ I left LA, Kevin gave me a large print of the
ate my thinking about the time, space, and Catch One picture. The stage is small but
utopian function of punk in relation to queer appears large and luminous. The stage itself
subcultural becomings. Writing about living is black and it rises from a black-and-white
artists helps one further debunk the false prin­ checkerboard stage. The black curtains that
ciple of the critic’s objectivity. Queer intima­ flank the stage are layered with gleaming silver
cies underwrite much of the critical work I do. hubcaps. The hubcaps sparkle through the
Yet I reject the phrase “advocacy criticism” photographer’s gaze and its photographic rep­
and instead embrace the idea of the performa­ resentation. The back of the stage is illumi­
tive collaboration between artist and writer. nated by rows of simple white light strings.
With that stated, I must add that from my They are separated by a world of difference
side this connection between theory and art but they nonetheless remind me of the light
feels incredibly one-sided, and not only in the strings utilized by Felix Gonzalez-Torres.
case of McCarty, but also in my work on Gonzalez-Torres’s light strings symbolized the
Carmelita Tropicana, Vaginal Davis, Isaac flickering status of queer lives in an epidemic,
Julien, and others, because their work and but they did not hang in the uniform fashion
the queer friendships and the intimacies I of the lights in McCarty’s imaging of Catch
share with them enable my critical project. One. I nonetheless look at these images, light­
Attempting to imagine a convergence between ing up the photograph from its deepest point
artistic production and critical praxis is, in and of the picture and offering a warm secondary
of itself, a utopian act in relation to the alien­ illumination from their reflection on the actual
ation that often separates theory from prac­ stage’s shiny black floor and I think of that
tice, a sort of cultural division of labor. city, Los Angeles, a city, a place I grew to love
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and this one queer predominantly black space who fucked, connected, and had actual lives
that I had access to. (Delaney, 1988).
The only negative critique I have heard of The theatricality of the images has much to
this picture that rests on my wall is from do with the lighting, which seems to be gener­
people who have seen it in my apartment and ated from the stage itself, bottom-up instead of
think that it is perhaps too beautiful. The sug­ top-down light, giving the effect that the space
gestion is that it is too pretty in the face of the is glowing with possibility. This recalls Bloch’s
adversity that queers of color face on a daily formulation in regard to certain aesthetic
basis. I have presented on this series at differ­ modes, like, for example, what he called the
ent professional conferences and on more than ornamental. Bloch privileges the ornamental
one occasion a gay black man in the audience over the functional. The functional does not
has recognized the space and approached me let us see anything in it except the use that cap­
afterwards. What I have learned from those italism has mapped out for it in advance. The
encounters is that seeing this space of queer ornamental, on the other hand, has an inde­
belonging framed by McCarty’s meticulous terminate use value that challenges the proto­
attention makes this space of black queer cols of capitalism and in it one can view
belonging one that helps us see our connected­ Bloch’s anticipatory illumination of art. The
ness outside of the actual temporality of club glow that these photos generate is that antici­
life. The utopian performative charge of this patory illumination, that moment of possibi­
image allows one to see the past, the moment lity right before an amazing band or performance
before an actual performance, the moment of manifests itself on stage and transforms the
potentiality; and the viewer gains access to the world for the performance’s duration and, for
affective particularity of that moment of hope many of those in attendance, beyond. The best
and potential transformation that is also the performances don’t disappear, but instead
temporality of performance. linger in our memory, haunt our present, and
The stage at Catch One juts out at the audi­ illuminate our future.
ence; it looks like a catwalk and its edges are When McCarty displays these images he
lit up with small shimmering light bulbs. The wants them to be one piece, the two images
catwalk feature makes one think about a queer side by side, adjacent, giving a sense that there
appropriation of high fashion that my open­ is a door between them, joining the space of
ing quotation from Exene Cervenka refers to. punk and queer subcultures. Popular culture
Cervenka’s commentary, like McCarty’s image is the stage where we rehearse our identities.
of the stage from queer Catch One, calls atten­ McCarty’s work stands as a powerful amend­
tion to the way queer and punk subcultures ment to this formulation by displaying the
have been informing and haunting the world actual and metaphorical stages where queers
of mainstream fashion for quite a while. The and punks rehearse self. The artist explains his
bluish lighting of Catch One reminds one of rationale for his objects of study in an autobi­
a moment in Samuel Delaney’s memoir The ographical artist statement:
Motion of Light in Water, especially the
moment where he describes seeing a mass of Located somewhere in the middle of
gay men having sex under a blue light at the nowhere, surrounded by cow fields, and
suburban home developments, situated in
now closed St. Mark’s Bath in the East Village.
between the ruins of downtown Dayton,
It was during this moment of utopian rapture Ohio, a post industrial wasteland, and
where he first realized he was not a solitary Wright Pat Air Force base, sat the Hills and
pervert but part of a vast world of gay men, Dales shopping center. In a retail space, in
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the rear of a strip mall the Chameleon Club is aligned with a temporality that is on
opened. One entered what would be the the threshold between identifications, life
sales floor and made their way back, though
worlds, and potentialities. The work and the
a single doorway to the storeroom, which
had been converted, into a punk rock club. artist’s statement resonate beyond my own
The only furnishings were a plywood stage biography.3
at the far end flanked by a PA. The dry In an early gay and lesbian studies anthol­
walling was incomplete exposing cinder ogy edited by Karla Jay and Allen Young,
blocks. To the right of the stage was a door­ Lavender Culture, there is another report
way that led to 1470’s, the largest gay bar in
about queer bars in Ohio. In a short piece by
Dayton. When you paid admission to the
Chameleon Club you could buy drinks at John Kelsey titled “The Cleveland Bar Scene in
1470’s. The punks would pass back and the Forties,” the author reports the fundamen­
forth, but no one from 1470’s came to the tal importance of these spaces:
Chameleon Club. With their costumes and
their lyrics the kids on the music scene per­
There was, of course, nothing spectacular
formed their identities at the temporary
about Cleveland’s gay male bars in the for­
venue. For the punks geographic location
ties, but the point is simply this: they
was not relevant as long as there was a
existed. Gay men had places to meet, not
stage, a soundman and an audience. Behind
only in San Francisco or New York, but in a
the bare cinder blocks of the Chameleon
city easily scoffed at or ignored by sophisti­
Club one could hear the beats of dance
cates on either coast. (1994, p. 146)
music. The sweating bodies of intoxicated
gay men crowded the dance floor only to be
revealed through the artificial fog by streaks Kelsey’s narration of the forties resonates
of red, blue, and green lights circling above powerfully next to McCarty’s artist statement.
their heads. Here men forgot about the blue- McCarty’s impressions from the nineties, fifty
collar oppressive city they called home and
years after Kelsey’s moment, would probably
imagined a world where they could be free
from shame and embarrassment. Neither still agree with a point Kelsey makes: “The
place was mine. I observed both from the curious combination of exploitation and liber­
outside. My utopia existed at the doorway ation helped define the mood in gay bars then
on the threshold—neither space at one time as it is now, though perhaps both elements
and in both simultaneously. (McCarty,
were more extreme in those days” (p. 146).
2005, pp. 427–428)
The calculus of exploitation and liberation
dogs queer culture. Kelsey talks about seeing a
This statement resonates alongside my own few good female impersonators and also states
autobiography. I was certainly crossing what that “If the professional entertainment was
was for me a metaphorical threshold between bad, the amateurs were unbelievably awful”
the punk world and gay life. Punk made my (pp. 148–149). He characterizes a typical after­
own suburban quotidian existence radical and noon at the Hide-Out Club Sunday afternoon
experimental. So experimental that I could of amateur performances as a scene where
imagine and eventually act on queer desires.
Punk rock style may look apocalyptic, yet its male typists in Grandma’s cast-off finery
temporality is nonetheless futuristic, letting would take the stage, forget lyrics, and flee
young punks imagine a time and a place where in tears. And stockroom boys would take
their desires are not toxic. McCarty talks absolutely dreadful spills during their ballet-
tap routines. One I much enjoyed was a
about a space between these two zones—
short, middle-aged man who would sing
between the queer of 1470 club and the punk part of it in the voice of Nelson Eddy, and
Chameleon Club. In part, he is narrating part in the voice of Jeanette MacDonald.
a stage of in-between–ness, a spatiality that (Kelsey, 1994, p. 149)
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The celebration of an aesthetics of ama­ place with the rest of the locale. As soon as
teurism are reminiscent of punk rock’s aes­ showtime starts, the heavy theatrical lights
thetics. The performances of amateurism, in burst on and illuminate the seemingly beaded
both punk and this example of queer perfor­ curtains. Once the show begins, old-school
mance, signal a refusal of mastery and an insis­ glamorous transvestites take the stage. The
tence on process and becoming. Again, such entire spectacle is in Spanish. The hostess glim­
performances do not disappear but instead mers with the same intensity as the curtains.
remain and, like performatives in J. L. Austin, All the performances are standard exercises in
do things in the future. In the above example, lip-syncing. About two-thirds of the songs are
the short squat singer of “Indian Summer” is Spanish anthems and the rest are English pop
loved decades after his performance, and that songs. When contestants come on stage, they
one audience member’s testimonial stands as are introduced in relation to the province or
one of the things that remains after the perfor­ village they are from in Mexico. The codes
mance. The performance, in its incomplete­ that organize time and space are disrupted in
ness, lingers and persists, drawing together the this performance space. The first time I visited
community of interlocutors. Utopian perfor­ the club I felt as though I was in Guadalajara
mativity is often fueled by the past. The past, in the 1950s. This spatial and temporal dis­
or at least narratives of the past, enable placement mimetically resonates with the
utopian imaginings of another time and place lush photograph of the stage. Again we see
that is not yet here but nonetheless functions potentiality, another vista is offered, and in
as a doing for futurity, a conjuring of both Los Angeles the site, La Plaza, conjures sto­
future and past to critique presentness. ries of migratory crossing, legal and illegal,
McCarty’s work is fueled by a past recollec­ and one sees these bodies, whose life world is
tion from his biography that he takes to always in flux about to belong, on the cusp of
another time and place and uses to capture this materialization.
ideality that is the potentiality of utopian per­ A white neon sign that reads “Salvation”
formativity. His stages are lit as though a per­ hangs over the stage at the Silver Lake Lounge,
formance is about to emerge from the realm another predominantly Latino gay club where
of potential to actuality. The lure of the work I have seen rough strippers and messy drag
is its performative dimension, which I would queens perform their crafts. Queer culture, in
describe as a doing as dwelling, which is to say its music and iconography, often references
that I am particularly interested in the way in salvation. One hears the refrain of a famous
which the images dwell in potentiality, aes­ club anthem, “A DJ Saved My Life Last
theticizing that moment, transmitting the Night.” There is indeed something about the
power of its ideality. Thus the aesthetic fuels transformative powers of nightlife that queers
the political imagination. and people of color have always clung to. The
I am especially partial to the image of La contrast in Silver Lake Lounge composition is
Plaza. The club itself is one of the oldest a strong one, a contrast between the idea of
Latino gay clubs in LA. The place has a sort of salvation and the clear seediness of the actual
ranchera or country-western feel to it. Often space. The bright shining ideality of salvation
many of the patrons dress to go with the decor. hangs over a space that is dark and not very
It is not a very glamorous country-western promising except that the concept literally
feel. Instead it is, more nearly, a sort of grungy is writ large on top of the picture—in this
Mexican cowhands feel. But that is not true of visual study the embedded nature of a utopian
the stage at this humble little bar. The curtains performativity within subaltern spaces. Some­
shine with an extravagance that seems out of times the utopian spectator needs to squint to
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Copyright © Kevin McCarty

see the anticipatory illumination promised by the transformation of time and space offered
utopia, yet at other times, its visuality and by the performance, as forgiving and still per­
(non)presence cannot be denied. mitting me access to this network of queer
The stage from Spaceland is lit a certain belongings.
deep pink that makes it feel like a band of I feel the sense of belonging with even
screaming angry teens will hop on stage and greater intensity when I look at the opulent
tear it up with their savage guitars. The pho­ image of the Parlor Club on Santa Monica
tograph returns me to my early punk shows. Avenue. The tiny stage is clearly overdecorated
I remember the potentiality that those scenes with its elaborate chandelier and its rich red
of spectatorship promised even before per­ drapes with golden tassels. I am at the club dur­
formers showed up on stage. The hum of other ing my regular visits to Los Angeles since my
men’s bodies, bodies that for whatever reason, dear friend and frequent object of study
for that moment, rejected a trajectory that was Vaginal Davis hosts her Friday night party
attuned to the normal. Being at Spaceland Bricktop there. Bricktop’s tiny stage often
makes me feel old. I remember the Cat’s looks like it is about to buckle under Davis’s
Cradle in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and massive frame as she inhabits the stage, per­
seeing my favorite bands there during the haps performing some surprisingly delicate
relentless social tedium of graduate school. flapper dance.3 Of all the spaces McCarty
That’s where I started to feel too old to go to has chosen to depict, this one is mostly clearly
shows yet nevertheless felt the show and stage, and concretely the space where punk and
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Copyright © Kevin McCarty

queerness meet. Indeed, in the pagan church of the tradition of Dada and Surrealism. I then get
punk queerness, Davis is both high priestess and to see her work that inspires me to no end. Her
black pope. Davis is one of my favorite people Friday night emporium of queer punk vintage
in Los Angeles and something of a heroine retro sleaze is like no other venue I know of.
from my queer coming of age. In her ’zines McCarty’s picture of the Parlor Room and its
such as Fertile LaToya Jackson and Shrimp stage, with its dense Victorian luster, beauti­
(a journal dedicated to the sucking of toes), fully captures the ethos of the party. I would
I found an incredible resource for imaging a summarize that ethos as a use of past deca­
futurity where my—for lack of a better word— dence to critique the banality of our present­
“anti-normativity” could flourish. Through ness for the purpose of imaging and enacting
our friendship and queer intimacy we have an enabling of queer futurity.
performed, through a certain sick reappropria­ Installed at a gallery, the images of punk
tion, a reimagined modality of the patronage clubs are hung next to images of a gay bar’s
system. She does her work and I testify to the stage. The placement of these images next to
New York Times and the Los Angeles Times— each other speaks to subjectivities that travel
with my academic credentials and letterhead through the swinging door between both tem­
well in place—that she is a certified art star in poral and spatial coordinates. For those of us
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Copyright © Kevin McCarty

whose relationship to popular culture is images are snapshots of the disappointment

always marked by aesthetic and sexual antag­ that is part of utopia—the hangover that fol­
onism, these stages are our actual utopian lows hope. At this moment it seems that queer
rehearsal rooms where we work on a self that visual culture needs to nourish our sense of
does not conform to the mandates of cultural potentiality and not reinforce our feeling of
logics like late capitalism, heteronormativity disappointment. If we are to go on, we need
and, in some cases, white supremacy. a critical modality of hope and not simply
The empty stage is used in pieces by the dramatization of loss and despair.
generation of queer artists before McCarty. The source material for McCarty’s images
Felix Gonzalez-Torres brought a blue plat­ is the past—not a nostalgic past, but a past
form into the gallery that was also outlined that helps us feel a certain structure of feelings,
with light bulbs. Paid go-go dancers, who a circuit of queer belonging. When I look at
would appear at odd moments, often wearing his images, I remember the sexually ambiguous
Walkmen™, would dance suggestively on the punk clubs of my youth where horny drunk
stage. That stage was always one of potential­ punk boys rehearsed their identities, aggres­
ity, empty one moment and overflowing with sively dancing with each other and later lurch­
sex and movement the next. While that work ing out, intoxicated, to the parking lot together.
shares a utopian impulse with McCarty’s, the For many, the mosh pit wasn’t simply a closet;
empty stages of Jack Pierson look melancholic it was a utopian subcultural rehearsal space.
and emptied out of possibility. Pierson’s In an earlier image of McCarty’s, a makeshift
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subculture is shown in a collection of concert The Punk Rock Photography of Jim Jocoy
tickets pinned to a white wall with pins that (Jocoy, Moore, & Cervenka, 2002). There is
resemble those used to mark places on maps. a performance shot in that book of Darby
This reminds us of one of Oscar Wilde’s best Crash, one of punk history’s most fucked-up
lines from The Soul of Man Under Socialism: and damaged queer teens. In the recent punk
“Any map of the world that does not include biography Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and
utopia is not worth glancing at” (p. 141). This Short Life of Darby Crash and the Germs, the
piece helps us understand the temporality of late Tomata Du Plenty, lead singer for rival
utopia, the way in which the past is used in the band the Weirdos, describes Darby offstage in
service of mapping a future, a place of possi­ relation to his staged self:
bility and transformation. Heteronormative
culture makes queers think both the past and Darby was fascinating in a parking lot. I
think that’s where he was really a star.
the future do not belong to them. All we are Watching his behavior in a parking lot,
allowed to imagine is barely surviving the pre­ that’s what made Darby Crash, that’s
sent. This mapping of hope and affect on a what made him a legend, certainly not
white wall brings me back to the various shows his onstage performances! Oh, They were
were I rehearsed and planned a future self, one so boring! I couldn’t sit through a Germs
set, please. Torture! But I could certainly sit
that is not quite here but always in process,
on the curb with a 40-ounce and listen to
always becoming, emerging in difference. him for hours. He was an interesting, inter­
I opened with Exene Cervenka’s recent writ­ esting boy. (Mullen, Bolles, & Parfrey,
ing from the catalog called We’re Desperate: 2002, p. 47)
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20 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

The stage and the parking lot are adjacent project race and ethnicity are examined with the
in much the same way that there is phantom same attentiveness and care as sexuality in the
Chameleon Club series.
door between Catch One and Spaceland in
3. In his dissertation, “When the Little Dawn
McCarty’s work. On one asphalt stage in Los Was Grey,” Shane Vogel discusses Bricktop’s life
Angeles, one queer punk watches another and performance practice and Davis.
hold forth, and across this country, under a
different shape of palm tree, but still in a
parking lot, my best friend Tony and I sit REFERENCES
in his beige Nissan Sentra and we speculate
about this band the Germs and the provoca­ Agamben, G. (1999). Potentialities. Palo Alto, CA:
Stanford University Press.
tive lyrics to songs like “Sex Boy” and “Richie
Bloch, E. (1986). The principle of hope (N. Plaice
Dagger’s Crimes”—what can they possibly & S. Plaice, Trans.). Cambridge: MIT Press.
mean, we asked ourselves, almost already (Original work published 1959)
knowing. While we sat in that car, my parents Bloch, E. (1996). The artistic illusion and the
worried about where I was and what I was visible anticipatory illumination. In J. Zipes
doing with whom, and I know they must have & F. Mecklenburg (Trans.), The utopian func­
tion of art: Selected essays (pp. 141–155).
been trying to comfort themselves by letting
Cambridge: MIT Press. (Original work pub­
themselves think that I was merely at a stage. lished 1974)
What we were learning in that parking lot as Delaney, S. R. (1988). The motion of light in water:
the Germs song “Forming” played was that Sex and science fiction writing in the East
there was another stage out there for us, both Village, 1957–1965. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press.
temporal and spatial, one in which potential­
Edelman, L. (2004). No future. Durham, NC: Duke
ity, hope, and the future could be, should be, University Press.
and would be enacted. Today I write back Jocoy, J., Moore, T., & Cervenka, E. (2002). We’re
from that stage that my mother and father desperate: The punk rock photography of Jim
hoped I would quickly vacate. Instead, I dwell Jocoy, SF/LA 1978–1980. New York: Power-
on and in this stage because I understand it as House Books.
Joseph, M. (2002). Against the romance of commu­
one brimming with a utopian performativity
nity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
that is linked to the ideality that is potential­ Kelsey, J. (1994). The Cleveland bar scene in the
ity. This potentiality is always in the horizon forties. In K. Jay & A. Young (Eds.), Lavender
and, like performance, never completely dis­ culture. New York: NYU Press.
appears but, instead, lingers and serves as a McCarty, K. (2005). Autobiographical artist state­
ment. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay
conduit for knowing and feeling each other.
Studies, 11, 427–428.
Mullen, B., Bolles, D., & Parfrey, A. (2002). Lexicon
NOTES devil: The fast times and short life of Darby
Crash and the Germs. Los Angeles: Feral House.
1. I am grateful to Kevin McCarty for his Vogel, S. (2004). When the little dawn was grey.
friendship and pictures. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York
2. This project is beautifully continued in the University.
artist’s current Web site: imnotlikeyou.la. That site Wilde, O. (2001). The soul of man under socialism
documents a youth culture scene in LA inhabited and other critical prose. London and New York:
by Latino punks. In this aspect of the artist’s Penguin. (Original work published 1891)
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2
Never, Again
REBECCA SCHNEIDER

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.
—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not to hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
—Elizabeth Bishop

Y esterday the twin towers came down.

First one, then the other. We watched
TV—replay upon replay.
Oddly, as replay led to replay, as forward
led to back, the image became only more
incredible. The more it reappeared, the more
One tower imploding on itself. Then another. it seemed as if we had missed it and needed
Screen scramble. If we’d found a screen in to see it again, and each “again” lent itself
time, many of us had watched the first tower less to familiarity than to disbelief. The sense
come down the first time, “live.” Missing the of “how to read” the image became increas­
first, others might have seen the second tower ingly unsettled with each repetition as
the first time it came down. Then: replay upon the “already seen” began to partake of the
replay frenzy. uncanny union of overly familiar and impos-
Sometimes the second tower was played sibly strange. Perhaps the towers had never
first, then the first tower was played second. been there? Or, perhaps they had always

Excerpt from “One Art” from The Complete Poems 1927–1979 by Elizabeth Bishop. Copyright © 1979,
1983 by Alice Helen Methfessel. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, LLC.
21
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22 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

been coming down and we had just refused to have happened except to have both already
see it before now? happened and to have not yet occurred.2
To write about disaster as it reverberates,
with less attention to the event than to its
DOUBLE ARTICULATION
articulation, feels, at first, disrespectful of the
dead. But as war is so obviously composed How many times did I hear fellow Americans
of the rhetoric that whips it into being, and say, “It’s too much like Hollywood—it cannot
as terror so obviously occurs as much in the be real”?
telling (the passing of the news, mouth to On that morning, I left my office in search
mouth, screen to screen), the project of telling of a screen. I stood in a crowd in a coffee shop
the telling seems imperative.1 in Ithaca, New York, where a TV hung from
the back wall. I had missed the first tower’s
fall. (Or, in truth, I’d heard it on the radio—
THE TELLING, THEN
and that hearing compelled me to find a tele­
First the telling occurred in images, reflected vision, as the obvious specularity of the attack
in trillions of pixels across millions of eyeballs beckoned me to participation.) I stood, now,
around the globe, punctuated by the voices of with others. The replay of the first tower’s fall
“news” in a towering Babel of airwaves. The caught me up, but mostly the cameras were
fall of each tower was accompanied by the trained on the second tower—the “about to be
repeating image of a body against the gridded seen” was a question mark in the air over the
face of the building. The body, falling between dust of the “already seen.” Then the second
the grid lines, never hit bottom. The repeated tower fell. I watched. We watched. It was an
sound of a woman screaming, the same again, for the first time.
scream. These replays hardly made the scene Peter Jennings, ABC anchorman, was the
more legible, even as it became incredibly human face of the camera as we zoomed in,
familiar. The body fell not only down the replayed, zoomed out, replayed, body fall,
tower but across our collective eyes—again replay, body fall, replay. Accident replayed
and again it fell without resolution. The planes like a long run of Oedipus, over and over
had sliced the retinal screen of the vision again almost to the point of realization:
machine, hailing the nervous system laced catharsis interruptus, again and again. The
through living rooms and barrooms and wait­ question of whether the “incident” could have
ing rooms across the globe. The twin nature of been an “accident” had dissolved, absolutely,
the attack, a kind of violence of ambivalence, the minute the messenger brought the news
made the terror manifest at the level of that a second plane was seen approaching
“replay”—but replay as real. Thus the event the second tower. Accidents, it seems, don’t
was choreographed brilliantly for trauma— happen twice, are not subject to repetition.
terror’s talk. The space of time between one Strange, in fact, how a second time renders a
tower and the next was itself the space of a first time purposeful, as if it were the second
replay in the realm of the “real,” making the that came first, or as if the second orchestrated
inevitable televisual replays that followed also the first from a past that has not yet occurred.
(impossibly) “real.” The repetition at the level After the fall of the second tower—that is,
of the image seemed to evidence the primal lie after the tower fell again—the coffee shop was
of trauma: something has been missed, we quiet. So was Jennings. It was clear that at
were not there, it must be seen again, it must moments the messenger wasn’t sure he
be replayed as it cannot have happened believed what he was seeing, or wasn’t sure
“once”—in time or in singularity. It cannot that he believed that he was seeing it again.
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Never, Again 23

This is what he said: “If it were a novel, only available to writing? Or only conceivable
no one would believe it.” He paused. Then: as/by punctuation? Could there be believabil­
“Well believe it, exclamation mark! It’s true, ity in the mark that was somehow greater than
period.” This is exactly what Jennings said. the words to which they added emphasis, the
Or, this is exactly as I remember it—telling words to which they gave pause? Somehow
myself in that horrible moment: “Remember this stood out to me as important, as if a clue
this. Remember that as Jennings spoke, his to the terror, as if a clue to the nightmare that
words appeared in teletype.” It was because would be (and had already been) dead bodies
the words were teletyped that I even noticed in Afghanistan, Israel, the Americas, Palestine,
the oddness of his remark. To see “exclama­ Pakistan, Iraq—bodies that hung, suspended,
tion mark” written out and followed by (!). falling like question marks—ghosts from the
“Period” followed by (.) . . . I was struck by future haunting the “already seen.”
the doubleness of the articulation and by its “Well believe it, exclamation mark! It’s
inadequacy—to double articulate, to render true, period.”
twice what was only once said, was both not In the same moment that I read the spoken
enough and a strangely appropriate indication grammatical marks as making text apparent,
of the problem both of representation and it seemed that the spoken grammatical marks
of terror itself. That the punctuation should also underscored the “liveness” of Jennings’s
interrupt the rhetoric, overcome it, display the claim. The double articulation of speech and
sentencing as both absurd and inadequate (but teletype, with the double articulation of
in that absurdity and inadequacy, startlingly “exclamation mark” and (!), and with, as well,
appropriate) was only one level of the issue. Jennings’s spoken emphasis, his exclamatory
More important, it seemed to me, the punctu­ tone—made the entire sentence overburdened
ation beside the articulation of the punctua­ with multiple marks of affect. It also made
tion displayed the sentence as sentence, and that affect appear as constructed (as opposed
situated the pronouncement as the very site of to a seamless “natural”) even as it was a con­
contest, the very vehicle for the terror it both struction that fortified the sense of “liveness”
could not contain and yet that was contained and worked to impel “belief.”
by it. All of us were scrambling after words, “If this were a novel, no one would believe
for words, and words were images—lines that it.” (Pause.) “Well believe it, exclamation mark!
never hit the ground except as dots: !! It was It’s true, period.”
as if the Tower of Babel, citadel of modernity, It is strange how these words repeat in my
itself were under siege. memory almost more clearly than the image
I looked around the shop. It seemed impos­ of one tower followed by another. I can hear
sible. People were still ordering coffee and Jennings’s voice and see the teletype in my
bagels—maybe. So it seemed. (“It was too mind even as I struggle to see the towers I saw
much like Hollywood—it could not be real.”) again and again and again. Even as I speak
I wanted to ask a stranger standing next to me with friends who survived, of friends who did
why he thought Jennings had uttered the not. For me, the voice pronounced an impasse
exclamation mark and period—why he had and a passage at once. The first sentence
rendered them spoken? Did the articulated declared that the event would be unbelievable
grammatical framework somehow make his in the modern medium of realism and narra­
spoken words more real? By uttering his spo­ tive, the novel—as if to say that writing could
ken words as (if) written, was this famous not contain the event. But the second sentence,
news bearer, this most modern messenger, as if to double back or pass through the first,
attempting to underscore a certain “truth” rendered writing (on the level of the affective
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24 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

mark) the very medium of event and belief. In us who already knew could say to ourselves:
Jennings’s second utterance, writing appears I can’t hear them but I know what they are
not as narrative, but as punctuation, the bearer discussing. Look, she seems shocked. Look,
of affect, inflection, temporality, the material he is gesticulating strenuously. Look, they
index of voice underscoring performativity. are silent. Now moving quickly.
The two exclamation marks fell against each I had already heard. I had been called at
other: the messenger’s spoken phrase and, a my office on the telephone. “Have you
few seconds afterward, the teletype translation. heard?” No, I hadn’t heard. I turned on the
Both struck me as surrogate for a disaster that radio. And at first I did not believe it: “A
was at once the “limit of writing” and (write it) plane has hit one of the twin towers.” An
the very force of catastrophe. accident? It was only an accident in anyone’s
The disaster, unexperienced. Disaster is mind in the space of minutes between the first
what escapes the very possibility of compre­ plane crashing into the tower and the second
hensive experience—it is the limit of writing, plane slicing through the twin like cake.
the limit of telling. And yet we recognize Twice renders purpose. Twice, by virtue of
and hail “Disaster!”—writing, gesticulating, repetition, founds the first as first. Double
speaking, telling—even as disaster undoes articulation—to prophesy after the event, and
articulation. This must be repeated: disaster also to found backwards.
de-scribes. This does not mean, however, that I write this on September 12, 2001, though
the disaster, as a force that compels telling, I will pass over it again several times, make
writing, gesticulating, is excluded from alterations, remark, and no doubt the text will
writing, or is beyond the pale of writing or not be the text it is as I write, but a text re­
entirely extratextual (Blanchot, 1986, p. 7). vised. Seen again. Perhaps at the threshold of
Text, like gesture, like word of mouth, like war. Perhaps in the midst of it. But “today,”
muscle tone, carries the aftershock that survivors are still uncovered from the rubble.
founds—backwards—the implosive force of It is a difficult day to be writing—and stranger
something only retroactively rendered initial: still to write for a collection on déjà vu.3 Of
Shock! course, déjà vu is an idiomatic French phrase
The moment when I might have asked the meaning, literally, “already seen.” The phrase
stranger next to me what he thought of the tele­ suggests repetition, and often the uncanny
type had passed—and in any case it had seemed sense that it is a “first time” that one is “see­
like (and it would have been) a radically inap­ ing again”—the sense that the present has
propriate question. Jennings was already already occurred.
replaying the scene: the plane slice, the implo­ According to the Oxford Dictionary of
sion of the first tower. Everyone watched, Current English Usage, déjà vu is used to sug­
again. No voice this time. No text underneath. gest the feeling of having already experienced
We could almost hear Jennings breathing the present or the feeling that something is
(comma, breath, comma). Almost . . . “tediously familiar.” Today, the media piles
(Pause.) on more and more replay and news “cover­
I was struck by the scene beyond the screen, age” like bandages that are themselves the har­
on the street, outside the coffee shop. I saw bingers of wounds. We tell ourselves what
the following happen several times (again and happened like a question: What happened to
again): people who didn’t know yet were the double towers, the repeating world trade,
stopped and asked: “Did you hear?” “Have the monument beside itself, twice seen, twice
you heard yet?” Through the coffee shop disappeared? The horror of this telling, today,
window I saw the scene several times. Those of is that it is both clear and extremely unclear
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Never, Again 25

what will happen next. What retaliation will terrorism an “already seen”—or was it an
this retaliation bring (will again follow again attempt to sacralize, to render extraordinary
again)? The eye of any storm implies less a pre­ in order to fit the bill put forward by President
sent clarity of vision than the uncanny clarity George W. Bush: “Never again”?
of the sense that one has already seen what “Never again” was the famous post–World
one will see again—impending déjà vu, or per­ War II phrase that George W. Bush’s father,
haps the dizzy jamais vu that is its twin4—the George Bush, had used emphatically in his
space between one tower and the next, after March 6, 1991, principal policy speech about
one tower has collapsed—the horror of return, the post–Gulf War order (his “New World
of coming again, of retaliation, of waiting for Order”) in the Middle East. Bush the First had
the already seen. said: “Our uncommon coalition must now
Today, underneath boldface headlines work in common purpose to forge a future
urgently reiterating “War on America,” “Not that should never again be held hostage to the
Since Pearl Harbor,” “America Under Attack,” darker side of human nature.”6 Bush’s “never
we are bombarded by individual details, punc­ again,” however, was subject to the comma
tuating the replay, to build upon each other it left out: “Never, again” would have been
like brick on brick to (re)construct the tower­ more appropriate. Or, simply, “Again.” The
ing edifices of the event: “Alice Hoglan, the Second Bush, attempting to render purpose
mother of a passenger on one of the crashed to the First, used the language of “never
planes, received a call from her son Matthew again” again when defending his responses to
Bingham in the air after his flight had been September 11 (or, supposedly to September 11).
hijacked. He told her that if he didn’t see her The Second Bush echoed the First Bush’s
again, he wanted her to know that he loved “never again” in his November 2001 autho­
her.”5 Seeing again would render knowing rization of military courts to try noncitizen
unnecessary—as “seeing again” would be, in suspects, to interview hundreds of people of
itself, to know? Middle Eastern descent, and to have secret
detentions and the monitoring of jailhouse
conversations between lawyers and clients. In
NEVER, AGAIN
defense against criticisms that his policy
At noon on September 11, 2001, in one of my threatened civil liberties and violated due
classes on theatre and modernity, an Israeli process rights, Bush said: “We must not let
graduate student who had only been in the foreign enemies use those forms of liberty to
United States for one month articulated his destroy liberty itself. Foreign terrorists and
surprise that Americans were shocked by the agents must never again be allowed to use our
fall of the twin towers (some students in class freedoms against us.”7
were crying and the president of Cornell had Seemingly singular events, such as the
suspended required class attendance). During double collapse of the World Trade Towers,
the next class, several days later, the same appear to defy understanding. It is, apparently,
student asked whether the inundation of video the “singular” status that renders shock. Seeing
images was an attempt on the part of the again offers to make a first time comprehensi­
United States to catch up with the rest of the ble. Indeed, comprehensibility appears to be
world—to acclimate to the terrorism experi­ a matter of repetition—that is, comprehension
enced elsewhere as “tediously familiar.” A appears to come after an event, in its narration,
debate ensued. Was the obsessive repetition of as a kind of second to the event itself. And yet,
the falling towers on our screens an attempt much current critical theory struggles to
to render the strange familiar—to make of unpack the ways in which symbolic conditions
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26 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

of possibility precede occurrence. David again” (which has not been realized in any
Blakesley describes this prearticulation as case), we might look again (and again and
Kenneth Burke’s notion of “prophesying after again). In this vein of thinking, theatre artist
the event” and reads prearticulation as a kind Vsevelod Meyerhold called for “vigilant specta­
of fundamental déjà vu: torship” on the eve of the Russian Revolution—
vigilance directed toward art and life (1969,
Déjà vu (the “already seen”) may be more p. 50). In this vein, Bertolt Brecht borrowed
common than we might have thought, from Meyerhold to call for a critical spectator
occurring at the very moment of perception with a habit of looking and thinking twice—of
itself and in the gestational moment when
attitude, an incipient act or precognition,
expecting the “never” that is disaster, again.
comes into being as symbolic action. . . . On Brecht advocated the second look, with
the perceptual level, we’ve already seen what emphasis on again rather than never, as an
we’re about to see, having preordained alienation technique that might help us gain
it conceptually or imaginatively. (Blakesley, distance from the knee-jerk habits of precon­
2001)
dition (1964). Looking again we acknowledge
that our socialities are composed in reitera­
Recognition as a precondition of vision tion. We must critically see again and acknowl­
means that we see only what we can recognize edge the tremendous foundational power of
by virtue of having seen it or imagined it, or the double. Disaster takes place as recurrence:
something like it, before. Precondition is “Never”—again. What do we do to respond
arguably at the Kantian base of many contem­ differently?
porary theories of sociality. Judith Butler’s
influential work, for example, turns repeatedly
on the ritual and performative aspects of QUESTION MARK?
power, subject formation, and the social. By Gertrude Stein, whose mantra was “begin
virtue of habit in “sedimented sets of acts,” we again,” begins A Novel of Thank You: “How
deploy (and are deployed by) symbolic codes many more than two are there”
that performatively institute and reinstitute the Question mark? She doesn’t provide it.
very object relations and identity formations How many replays make “once”?10 If I don’t
such codes appear to simply describe.8 Thus an see you again, I want you to know that
event, recognized as event, is never a “singu­
lar” event. Whether catastrophic or banal, an
NEVER, AGAIN
event relies on reiteration and is composed in
repetition in that it is hailed as “unique” or One and a half years ago, the Twin Towers
“event” or “singular” only in relation to pre­ came down. First one, then the other. We
condition and repetition. That an event be rec­ watched TV—replay upon replay.
ognized as event, as having taken place, means One tower imploding on itself. Then another.
that the event exists in relationship to its (failed Oddly, as replay led to replay, as forward
or successful) articulation—its Double, if you led to back, the image became only more
will. Of course, it is an ancient Western truism incredible. The more it reappeared, the more it
that “disaster,” generating a messenger, is then seemed as if we had missed it and needed to
written across the bodies of hearers and tellers, see it again, and each “again” lent itself less
undoing any possibility of singularity, even in to familiarity than to disbelief. The sense of
the name or in the guise of the singular.9 “how to read” the image became increasingly
“Never again,” then, is oxymoronic. unsettled with each repetition as the “already
Rather than the forgetful thrust of “never seen” began to partake of the uncanny union
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Never, Again 27

of overly familiar and impossibly strange. walking through rubble. Just as often one sees
Perhaps the towers had never been there? Or, soldiers, in line, kicking down a front door.
perhaps they had always been coming down Inside are women, scripted by news narrators
and we had just refused to see it before now? as “happy”—happy to “greet the American
In the United States in spring 2003, we liberators.” Their faces register confusion and
watch our civil liberties coming down and hope, but also shame and fear. My face regis­
with them, like some twin tower, the end of ters the same—at the other portal end of the
even the pretense of reasonable or respectful televisual network. Is it my eyeball that bangs
international relations on the part of the U.S. down the door? The box threads its network
government. When violence—of any sort—is way across America, displaying Iraqi insides,
done in one’s name, violence is done by and to while every second car and truck in the U.S.
oneself. In my opinion, the horror of war cast­ displays the American flag. The new fad of
ing itself into the future, masquerading sporting televisions inside one’s car (to occupy
as “preventive,” is close to unspeakable. The one’s kids) means that the “war on terrorism”
lack of other means to conflict resolution is can be mobile, carted about from soccer game
deeply suspect. If historically the U.S. has to church supper to academic lecture to golf­
attempted to keep its violences, global and ing match.
national, covert, in the case of “Operation
Iraqi Freedom,” covert has given way to cov­
THE BANALITY OF DETAIL
erage throughout this spring, until the war is
falsely declared “over” on May 1, 2003. And In a diner in Manhattan in mid-March 2003, I
yet, the extent of the so-called coverage of the hear my waitress, two booths away, call back
so-called war on terrorism strangely renders to the kitchen: “Hamburger and French fries.”
agendas as covert as they have ever been—as if In a moment, a manager or a cook shouts quite
Jennings’s abundance of punctuation has con­ loudly back: “Freedom fries! We only serve
tinued ad infinitum, having forgotten the con­ Freedom fries!” Over such a scene—the entire
text of its articulation. This spring, journalists conflict at the level of a sliver of potato—
are “embedded” with soldiers, and govern­ columns of potatoes served in bowls or some­
ment approved (i.e., censored) images of war times in paper cartons, or on plates, dashed in
are so constant and continual that there seems salt, smothered in ketchup—over such a banal
to be as little news in news as there is reality object of ingestion: the most current war. Then
in the current thrall of “reality TV.” All day this manager, or this cook, comes out of the
every day, in the months before Bush’s spe­ kitchen. This is the cast: the manager, a large,
cious claim aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, middle-aged, African American man in a suit—
one can see sanitized death in operation— yes, a manager, not a cook—and this waitress,
“live”—piped into one’s living room, one’s a tall, middle-aged, platinum blond, white with
bedroom, one’s kitchen, wherever one has a deep Queens accent—I cannot see the
hooked up the televisual box, the digi-video patrons two booths away who ordered the
porthole to corporate America, running AV offending fries—but then there is me, midlife
like an IV—the TV—pulse of outside on the white academic from Rhode Island, the small­
inside, inside become outside, giving away the est state in the Union—up on my feet now—
ruse of any distinction between such binaries struggling to take a stand, to articulate the
as distance inverts instantaneously into breath, international situation on the level of national­
rubble, dust—sand. ized food. Am I going to leave the restaurant
What does one see? Mostly, one sees build­ over this? I wonder at this manager’s vehe­
ings blowing up, then soldiers in desert khaki mence. Has he lost someone in the towers?
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28 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Is his son, his daughter, in Iraq? He shouted sinks down at Greenwich, then rises again
“Freedom fries” so angrily I have jumped out to the crests of Midtown, quietly passes over
Central Park and finally undulates off into
of my seat. The waitress hardly misses a beat:
the distance beyond Harlem. (de Certeau,
“French fries/Freedom fries—whatever.” Then 1974/1984, p. 91)
she says to me, out of range of his hearing, “Sit
down, honey.” She practically coos: “I’ll bring
We are rescued by this second sentence into
you coffee.” I sit down. I drink my coffee.
sense and delivered to the promise (the promise
Every day we witness the constant negotia­
of a perspectival gaze) that there is space
tion between the monumental and the banal—
“beyond Harlem.” But the flow of the second
the larger-than-life image or event and the
sentence, and its lyrical beyond, is haunted
stream of life that passes by, that courses
by the fragment that set its stage: “Seeing
through, that navigates the ordinary through
Manhattan from the 110th floor of the World
the wider edifices of our collective symbols
Trade Center, period.” By the end of the page
(monuments) and collective actions (war).
that stretches beneath these two sentences (one
Writers like Michel de Certeau and Naomi
truncated, the other languid), de Certeau has
Schor argued in the 1970s and ’80s11 that to
called the towers “the tallest letters in the
focus on the banal (the stray detail), to shift our
world” and told us that they “compose a
sites of discourse away from the grand per­
gigantic rhetoric of excess in both expendi­
spective—from the skyscraper to that which
ture and production.” Turn the page and de
passes by or is easily overlooked or discarded—
Certeau is orchestrating his famous “Icarian
is a shift in attention that can be, in some ways,
fall” (p. 92) in order to bring his readers down
resistant to master narratives, master plans,
among the footsteps of the passersby:
and events of mastery (such as war).
I would like to discuss the opening of de
The ordinary practitioners of the city live
Certeau’s well-known essay, “Walking in the “down below,” below the thresholds at
City,” in some detail. De Certeau begins the which visibility begins. They walk—an ele­
essay with, strangely, a sentence fragment— mentary form of experience of the city; they
or, at least, the sentence is incomplete when are walkers, Wandersmänner, whose bodies
follow the thicks and thins of an urban
translated into English: “Seeing Manhattan
“text” they write without being able to read
from the 110th floor of the World Trade it. . . . The paths that correspond in this
Center” (1974/1984, p. 91). It fascinates me intertwining, unrecognized poem in which
that this opening in translation from French each body is an element signed by many
should be a fragment, truncated of itself, inter­ others, elude legibility. . . . The networks of
rupted by a void. The sentence itself is thus a these moving intersecting writings compose
a manifold story that has neither author nor
column of words reaching only so far, but no
spectator, shaped out of fragments of trajec­
farther—interrupted by a period, falling off, cut tories and alterations of spaces: in relation
to a quick end. “Seeing Manhattan from the to representations, it remains daily and
110th floor of the World Trade Center, period.” indefinitely other. (1974/1984, p. 93)
But we read on—we look beyond this first
pedestal-like sentence to get the view, and we are The hope, as de Certeau’s famous essay
given a lyric description of expanse—complete, unfolds, is that in and through the “daily” and
punctuated to aid flow, and beautiful: the “indefinitely other” of the banal detail (the
footstep, say), we can somehow interrupt the
Beneath the haze stirred up by the winds, agendas of the monumental, or better, under­
the urban island, a sea in the middle of the stand the frenzied ways in which they work
sea, lifts up the skyscrapers over Wall Street, in tandem. What are the ways they work in
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Never, Again 29

tandem? The banal detail of the everyday banal. This tangle asks us to continue to
props the whole, bit by bit composing the render the relations between monument and
whole, and yet (in Proustian and Barthesian banal detail (the period, the comma, the
logic) the detail simultaneously serves as the exclamation point) deeply complex. The
hole that might serve as puncture point, or grandiose terms of this war—“Operation Iraqi
punctum, through which the edificial could Freedom”—already bespeak the master narra­
be completely reorganized. As Naomi Schor tive upon which monumentality has histori­
reminded us in her important feminist study cally been erected. But this operation and this
Reading in Detail, the whole depends upon the monumental narrative were also thick with
relegation of the detail to insignificance, to the detail: an oceanic buildup of minutiae of daily
“soon to be forgotten” or to “the feminized,” life on a constantly running televisual “reality
the “overlooked.” And yet this very banality— TV-scape” in which “embedded” journalists
articulated as banal—creates what de Certeau sent back details of soldier life on the front
calls an “oceanic rumble”—it both composes until government censorship increased and
the ocean, and is, like any “single” drop, in until viewers got bored. We were given to read
extreme distinction to the monumentality it this latest war through a screen of anecdote—
composes (de Certeau, 1984, p. 5). like a sandstorm of stories that found a pre­
De Certeau wanted to read the way in dictable dénouement in the dragging down of
which the ordinary, as a spatial practice, might the monument of Saddam Hussein, replayed
interrupt the myth of the monumental, or at across our screens again and again, in the
least let us see the monumental as it works name of “Never (,) again.”
through and around the passage, or the move­ At a recent Brown University conference in
ment, of details it scripts as disappearing. memory of Naomi Schor, Christie McDonald
There is also the suggestion, in both De argued that the soldier anecdotes perform a
Certeau and Schor, of resistance—through kind of flip-side response to the “Portraits of
refocusing our analytic energies onto the Grief” that ran in the New York Times for
banal, the detail, we unsettle the prerogatives the year following September 11, 2001
of the dominant order that that detail has been (McDonald, 2003). The Times “Portraits”
given to prop.12 But there is more to this shift had attempted in every case to find something
to the ordinary (which is, for de Certeau, a extremely ordinary about each 9/11 victim.
spatial shift), and that is that in reading the The portraits excavated stories about the way
detail as a practice, in play—we shift our focus X would put the toothpaste on his wife’s
to movement, to moving through, and in shift­ toothbrush every morning and leave it for her
ing to movement, change becomes not only by the sink, or about the way Y would stroke
possible, but also the condition of any myth of his niece’s hair while he told her fairy tales.
stasis (the monument’s secret). Twenty years That is, these deaths were memorialized
after these two books, the project of thinking though an accumulation of daily anecdotes in
about the space between the grandly monu­ which each victim was remembered not by
mental, or the “whole” of a master text, and grand acts or professional accomplishments,
the deployment of the detail in either its but by incidental particulars usually over­
service or in resistance is still resonant. looked. Similarly, the war that followed was
If the French fry anecdote I told earlier illus­ initially waged on U.S. sentiment through a
trates the banal as a site of negotiation and barrage of visual and anecdotal detail, like a
exchange, the strategy of “coverage” in this sandstorm of punctuation, rendering the scene
recent war also makes apparent the tangle of almost illegible. So massive was the televisual
complicity between the monumental and stockpile of images in the spring of 2003 that
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30 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

the larger, more monumental project (world NOTES

domination for the pancapital interests of
multinational corporations and the global 1. On talking terror, see Michael Taussig
(1992). See also Diana Taylor, “Disappearing
elite) may be “overlooked” by U.S. citizens in Bodies: Writing Torture and Torture as Writing”
sentimental thrall to X and to Y as particular (1997). Taylor is excellent in examining the ways
suffering soldiers. Here, arguably, the monu­ in which terror claims an ambivalent space in
mentalizing agendas of the war are both which an event both occurs and does not occur.
propped and obscured by the constant feed of She labels this “percepticide” and discusses the
ambivalence of terror as composed in the often
affective, sentimentalized details leveled at the
blatant theatricality she finds again and again in
televisual screen on the home front under the her examination of the use of spectacle in the
rubric “LIVE.” Argentine Dirty War.
The ban on showing the images of the lit­ 2. Here I refer the reader to the considerable
eral dead Americans and Iraqis, of course, production of “trauma theory” in recent years in
begs enormous questions. Images that leaked literary studies, performance studies, historiogra­
phy, and art history. The discourse provocatively
out, like the victim/soldier portraits from takes up Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle
Abu Ghraib taken in winter of 2003 that and his “novel” Moses and Monotheism and,
“surfaced” between March and June of 2004, deploying a powerful mix of Blanchot, DeMan,
reminded us that we had not, in sitting before Lacan, and others, applies the repetition compul­
our visual screens, been seeing. The prisoners sion (to repeat what one has repressed) to the
sociological spheres of collective memory, com­
of Abu Ghraib are tortured by our eyes, as the
memoration, spectatorship and witnessing, and
site of their torture is cast into a future that museological exhibition. See the work of
will never have fully occurred. This is because Shoshana Felman, Cathy Caruth, Avital Ronell,
their torture is at least in part about theatri­ and Dominick LaCapra. In general, trauma theo­
cality and display in a medium of dissemina­ rists call for a working through (Durcharbeiten) of
tion; their torture is meant to take place in textual or secondary materials that carry the trace
of an event as a means of getting to the political,
dissemination and circulation of their images, historical, or ideological complexities of the event
again and again. The Abu Ghraib images are itself. Some, such as Foster (l996), read the com­
stagey strike-the-pose snapshots of abuse that pulsion to repeat as aimed at puncturing the
underscore the theatricality of torture and ter­ facade put into place by the “mythic reproduc­
ror as well as terror’s dependence on reitera­ tion” of the event.
3. This text was first written for the collec­
tion and telling. Ironically, such images were
tion Déjà vu: In literatur und bildender kunst,
telling in that they interrupted the sentimental edited by Gunther Oesterle (Paderborn, Germany:
feed of daily soldier life and made apparent Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2003). The invitation to
the ways in which sanitized patriotic sentiment write on déjà vu preceded, by many months, the
is, like terror, similarly theatrical, staged for occasion of this writing, and I had almost
affect and dissemination across bodies not completed another text when, on September 12, I
decided to begin again. The second half of this
necessarily willing but necessarily complicit: essay does not appear in the Déjà vu collection, as
theirs and ours; yours and mine. the events I discuss in that section had, apparently,
Watching television now and then between not yet occurred.
then and now, I begin to formulate a question. 4. Déjà vu is a sense of events as “already
Have American consumers, interpellated pri­ seen” or as if “seen again.” This results in a sense
of the present returning as “tediously familiar.”
marily as viewers, become as fixed and forget­
But jamais vu, the “never seen” or “never, again”
ful as stone monuments—or the twins to has a more medical connotation. According to the
monument—rigidly planted, seemingly unmov­ Concise Medical Dictionary, jamais vu is one of
ing, overlooking Never Again, again? the manifestations of temporal lobe epilepsy in
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Never, Again 31

which there is a sudden feeling of unfamiliarity event. See also Shoshana Felman (1983). For
with that which has already occurred, what has Felman, the event that cannot be fixed is linked
already been experienced. to the unfixedness of the live body—the “scandal
5. Quote taken from Cable News Network’s of the body”—always in free fall, perhaps, against
Web site on September 12, 2001. See http://www a grid.
.greatdreams.com/trade_day2.htm as well. 10. This endnote is actually meant for the sen­
6. See the speech on the Web site: http:// tence that follows it. In this way, the endnote comes
www.al-bab.com/arab/docs/pal/pal10.htm. before. I intend the last nonsentence of this section
7. See Ron Fournier, “Bush Defends (as well as footnotes 5 and 6) to resonate with Diana
Investigation Tactics,” http://multimedia.beloint Taylor on “percepticide” (1997).
eractive.com/attack/bush/1130bushspeech.html. 11. Michel de Certeau’s L’invention du Quo­
In an Associated Press report on November 30, tidian was first published in 1974 (Vol. 1, Arts de
2001, Ron Fournier reported that one in ten Faire). The book was translated into English as
Americans approved of Bush’s remand of freedom The Practice of Everyday Life in 1984 (translated
in freedom’s name. by Steven F. Rendall, Berkeley, CA: University of
8. See, for example, Judith Butler’s Excitable California Press). Naomi Shor published Reading
Speech (1997). Here, writing is not in opposition in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine in 1987
to performance or “liveness.” Rather, writing (New York: Routledge).
is a word used to suggest the ways in which the 12. Reading in detail is a methodological exer­
surrogate, the copy or the second, founds the first cise in tandem with poststructuralism generally,
backward through telling. Thus “writing” can although Schor is eager to point out how post-
happen in multiple media, from gesturing to structuralist analyses (pre-1987) so often forgot
whispering to painting to singing (see Roach, the historical feminization of the debased detail in
1996; Derrida, 1976). Writing, then, is both order to prop its new, and masculine, grand liter­
memory and memorial—the medium of ary promise (Schor, 1987, p. 6).
Heidegger’s Gedächtnis of Being—even as it is a
memory that forecasts, remembers the future, the
REFERENCES
“already seen.” The critique that “writing” is a
metaphor obsessed with textuality, or the literary, Blakesley, D. (2001, March). Prophesying after
and the suggestion that writing therefore forgets the event. Paper presented at the Conference
performance (or “the body”) is an important, on College Composition and Communication,
though limited, critique. Such a critique often for­ Denver, CO. Retrieved January, 2002, from
gets that writing is a gesture that takes place http://www.sla.purdue.edu/people/engl/dblake
always in the live space of exchange with a reader sley/burke/prophesying.html.
or orator—taking place again and again and Blanchot, M. (1986). The writing of the disaster
again in the living hands, mouths, and eyes of (A. Smock, Trans.). Lincoln: University of
readers, speakers, or hearers who, alive, necessar­ Nebraska Press, 1986.
ily rewrite. To divide writing or reading com­ Braun, E. (Ed.). (1969). Meyerhold on theater.
pletely from performance, or performance from New York: Hill and Wang.
writing, is arguably to reinstitute a delimiting Brecht, B. (1964). Brecht on theater. (J. Willet,
binary. Trans.). New York: Hill and Wang.
9. Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge Butler, J. (1996). Excitable speech. New York:
(1972) posits meaning as located in the practice of Routledge.
language, which is to say in bodies in time. It is de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life
important to remember, however, that the mean­ (S. F. Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley, CA: University
ing-effects that are produced in language (gestic, of California Press. (Original work published
textual, or aural) escape (or at least slip beyond) 1974)
both the intentions of speakers and the regula­ Derrida, J. (1976). On grammatolog (G. Spivak, Trans.).
tions of a particular episteme, or system of knowl­ Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
edge. An event (and its meaning) exceeds that Felman, S. (1983). The literary speech act: Don
which appears to fix it, even as that which appears Juan with J. L. Austin, or suction in two lan­
to fix an event (or a body) prescribes the condi­ guages (C. Porter, Trans.) Ithaca, NY: Cornell
tions of possibility for that event’s articulation as University Press.
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32 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Foster, H. (1996). Return of the real: The avant­ Shor, N. (1987). Reading in detail: Aesthetics and
garde at the end of the century. Cambridge the feminine. New York: Routledge.
MA: MIT Press. Taussig, M. (1992). The nervous system.
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowl­ New York: Routledge.
edge (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.) London: Taylor, D. (1997). Disappearing bodies: Writing
Tavistock. torture and torture as writing. In D. Taylor,
McDonald, C. (2003, April). Grieving in portraits. Disappearing acts: Spectacles of gender and
Paper presented at The Lure of the Detail: nationalism in Argentina’s “Dirty War”
A Conference in Honor of Naomi Schor, (pp. 139–182). Durham, NC: Duke University
Providence, RI. Press.
Roach, J. (1996). Cities of the dead: Circumatlantic
performance. New York: Columbia University
Press.
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3
Performance and Globalization
JON MCKENZIE

M ore than forty years ago, U.S.

President Dwight Eisenhower gave his
farewell speech to the American people. Near
supreme commander of the Allied forces
during World War II.
So which performance was Eisenhower
the end of his farewell, the president spoke the talking about? Decades later, could it be that
following words: his “improved performance” has become
“our” performance, the performance of art,
So—in this my last good night to you as the art of performance, or more generally, aes­
your President—I thank you for the many thetic or cultural performance? “Surely not!”
opportunities you have given me for public we may want to insist. And yet, what is per­
service in war and peace. I trust that in that
formance? And what is its relation to contem­
service you find some things worthy; as for
the rest of it, I know you will find ways to porary processes of globalization?
improve performance in the future. (1962, In 2001, at the Performance Studies interna­
p. 1040) tional conference held in Mainz, Germany (PSi
7), I was part of a series of panels addressing the
“Improve performance in the future.” topic of performance and globalization. I noted
Today, some forty years later, we might then that the organizers’ description had cast
ask: what performance did Eisenhower have globalization in two ways: either as something
in mind, and how was it to be improved? that threatened the production and study of
Eisenhower served as the U.S. president during performance, or conversely, as something that
the coldest years of the Cold War. He weathered performance must somehow resist at all costs.
the first phase of the nuclear arms race, the Either way, the descriptions assumed “perfor­
1957 Sputnik launch, and the shooting down mance versus globalization.” However, my
of a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union. And own research suggests another, very different
this was just his peacetime service, for prior relation between performance and globaliza­
to becoming president, he had also served as tion, and that is: performance as globalization.

33
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34 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

TOWARD A GENERAL Performance (Committee on Measuring and

THEORY OF PERFORMANCE Improving Infrastructure Performance, 1995).
Such performance research has trickled down
To give some sense of how I came to this for­ into low-tech commodities, such as cars and
mulation, allow me to present some of the stereos and mop handles. These technological
main ideas contained in my book, Perform or performances are not evaluated in terms of
Else, one goal of which is to rehearse a general their cultural efficacy but rather by their tech­
theory of performance. Significantly, the offi­ nical effectiveness, their ability to meet such
cial publication launch of the book occurred at criteria as speed, endurance, and reliability. As
the Mainz PSi conference. with cultural performance, technological per­
In contrast to the early researchers of cultural formances can only be defined and studied in
performance—e.g., Richard Schechner, Dell highly specific and localized ways.
Hymes, Victor Turner—whose task it was to There are usually no presentations on the
identify and theorize different cultural practices technological performance of missiles or mop
as “performance,” I set out several years ago handles at international conferences on cul­
with a slightly different task: to track down how tural performance. Nor do we find papers on
the term “performance” had been formalized in improving the performance of factory work­
other paradigms of research over the past half ers, or evaluating work-team performance,
century. Thus I wasn’t out to identify new prac­ or creating “peak performance” organiza­
tices and name them “performance.” Rather, I tions. But here again, over the past half
sought out the name “performance” in order to century, there has emerged a whole field of
study what other types of practices had already performance research quite distinct from per­
been produced and studied under this term. formance studies. Though it has its origins in
To get at these other practices, let me cite Frederick Taylor’s scientific management,
some of the performances we don’t often find which dominated the first half of the twentieth
discussed at international conferences on cul­ century, “performance management” emerged
tural performance. For starters, there are usu­ around the time of the Second World War. Its
ally no papers on the performance of guided proponents in industry and business schools
missiles, or computer facilities, or public infra­ countered Taylorism’s stress on the rationality
structures. I bring these up because over the and conformity of factory work by arguing
past fifty years, engineers and computer scien­ that management in the service and informa­
tists have developed sophisticated practices tion economy must encourage workers’ cre­
for creating and studying the performances ativity and diversity.
of technological systems, many of which came This organizational performance paradigm
out of the U.S. military-industrial complex: has also been formally institutionalized. To
high-performance fighter planes, guidance give one example: In 1993, the U.S. Congress
systems, and composite materials. passed the Government Performance and
Such research has been explicitly institu­ Results Act (1994), which sought to improve
tionalized. In 1991, the U.S. Congress passed the performance of federal departments and
the High Performance Computing Act (1992) agencies. It led to the establishment of the
to support the development of massively par­ National Performance Review. And yet for
allel computer systems, and today there are decades, U.S. companies have been conduct­
dozens of High Performance Computing ing annual “performance reviews” of their
Centers. In 1995, the National Research employees and managers. At the heart of this
Council published a wide-ranging report titled field of performance research is not cultural
Measuring and Improving Infrastructure efficacy or technical effectiveness, but rather
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Performance and Globalization 35

organizational efficiency: maximizing outputs drawn from Derrida, Foucault, and Deleuze
and minimizing inputs. and Guattari. What I found was this possibil­
To sum up, then, there are at least three ity: below the three research paradigms, at a
paradigms of performance research: cultural, more general level of analysis, performance
technological, and organizational, and each could be understood as an ontohistorical
is guided by different evaluative criteria and formation of power and knowledge.
different norms of defining and analyzing
performance: cultural efficacy, technological
PERFORMANCE STRATUM
effectiveness, and organizational efficiency.
What is the relationship among these To put this possibility as succinctly as possible:
performative values, these different kinds of performance will have been to the twentieth
performance? From the perspective of perfor­ and twenty-first centuries what discipline was
mance studies, with its emphasis on resistance, to the eighteenth and nineteenth: a stratum of
mutation, and transgression, the other two per­ power and knowledge. This power operates
formance paradigms appear highly, if not exclu­ through the conflicts and compromises of
sively, normative in their social functioning. different types of performance, for example,
Indeed, taken together, technological and organi­ cultural, technological, and organizational per­
zational performance research appears almost formance. This performativity demands that we
synonymous with Big Science and Big Business, be effective one moment, efficient the next, and
with what in the 1960s was called in the United efficacious at another—and sometimes to be all
States “the Establishment” or “the System.” three at once. In short, performative power and
Here resides the generative paradox of knowledge challenges us in different ways to
my research: performance contains both nor­ perform—or else (McKenzie, 2001).
mative and deviant valences. While perfor­ I am certainly not the first person to recog­
mance studies scholars have spent over four nize the power of performance. To my knowl­
decades producing and theorizing performance edge, Herbert Marcuse was the first to
as a force of social resistance, others have been theorize the powerful normativity of perfor­
studying and producing performances that we mance. In 1955, Marcuse argued that postin­
readily identify as dominant in the contempo­ dustrial societies were governed by a reality
rary world. How to make sense of this para­ principle that he called the “performance prin­
dox? Are these simply different meanings ciple.” Writing about the repressiveness found
of the term “performance,” or do the three in contemporary civilization, he wrote: “We
research paradigms share some common traits designate it as performance principle in order
that bind them together at a different level of to emphasize that under its rule society
analysis? is stratified according to the competitive
Far from existing in disconnected spheres, economic performances of its members”
these paradigms increasingly overlap and (Marcuse, 1955, pp. 40–41). According to
intersect: For instance, just as theatre takes Marcuse, the performance principle consists of
place in institutional contexts constrained a positivist, technological rationality that has
and enriched by technological and economic spread from factories to offices, homes, and
imperatives, the theatrical model has come to indeed all spheres of social life. Marcuse, writ­
inform organizational theory and web design. ing in the wake of World War II, conceived
To understand the mutual embedding of cul­ performative power as centralized, monolithic,
tural, technological, and organizational per­ and highly conformist, a conception informed
formance, I began studying performance from by his experience of Nazi Germany, Stalinist
a genealogical perspective, using methods Russia, and Cold War America.
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36 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Other important and more recent theorists time when Marcuse formulated the perfor­
have also analyzed performance as a form of mance principle and J. L. Austin lectured on
power. In the late 1970s, Jean-François Lyotard performative speech acts. Significantly, it was
explored the “postmodern condition” explicitly just after the Second World War that the para­
in terms of the performative legitimization of digms of cultural, technological, and organiza­
power and knowledge. In his now-famous for­ tional performance began to really take shape.
mulation, Lyotard argued that such modern According to Foucault, discipline produced
“grand narratives” as progress and revolution unified subjects through a series of institutions
had given way to a new type of power: perfor­ such as school, factory, and prison, each with
mativity. “In matters of social justice and of its own discrete archive of statements and
scientific truth alike, the legitimization of that practices (Foucault, 1975/1979). By contrast,
power is based on its optimizing the system’s performative power blurs the borders of social
performance—efficiency” (Lyotard, 1979/1984, institutions by connecting and sharing their
p. xxiv). While Marcuse stressed the uniformity digital archives. Financial information, crimi­
of the performative principle, Lyotard instead nal records, and school transcripts once stored
emphasized the heterogeneity of diffuse, agonis­ in separate file cabinets are now being uploaded
tic language games ruled by this performativity. to silicon databases and electronically net­
More recently still, of course, Judith Butler worked. Bodies that once passed neatly through
has called our attention to the “punitive perfor­ a linear sequence of power mechanisms are
matives” that govern gender and sexual identi­ now learning to switch rapidly between con­
fication (Butler, 1990). While Butler’s early flicting evaluative grids; the resulting subjects
theorization of performativity drew on Turner’s tend to be fractured, multiple, or hybrid. In
fieldwork research of ritual performance, she the U.S. workplace, for instance, we have wit­
soon turned to Austin’s linguistic studies to the­ nessed the rise of multitasking; in schools,
orize the role of performative speech acts in children are routinely diagnosed with attention-
both constituting and maintaining gender iden­ deficit disorders; and in everyday life, people
tity. Combining Butler’s notion of the citation­ have begun “culture-surfing,” moving through
ality of discourse with Schechner’s restoration different styles and traditions almost as quickly
of behavior, we can say that discursive perfor­ and easily as changing channels on the televi­
matives and embodied performances, when sion. From a wider historical perspective, while
bound together by normative forces of itera­ discipline functioned as the power matrix of
tion, together form the basic building blocks of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution,
the performance stratum. liberal capitalism, and European colonialism,
To say that the performance stratum will performance operates as the matrix of the
have been to the twentieth and twenty-first post-Enlightenment, the information revolu­
centuries what discipline was to the eighteenth tion, neoliberal capitalism, and postcolonial-
and nineteenth is more than an analogy, for ism. But let me stress again that performative
in many ways, performative power is precisely power and knowledge is really a thing of the
a displacement and radical reinscription of the future; the disciplinary formation wasn’t built
disciplinary power analyzed by Foucault. There in a day, nor has the performance stratum fully
are tremendous differences, however, that can installed itself.
only be sketched here.
While Foucault located the rise of disci­
CLARIFICATIONS
pline in Western Europe, I believe performative
power mechanisms crystallized in the United Here I would like to offer some clarifications.
States just after World War II, precisely the Contrary to objections that are sometimes
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Performance and Globalization 37

raised to me, I am not saying that perfor­ of the Spanish term performatico as an alter­
mances exist only in the United States, nor that native to the logocentric “performative”
one cannot study performances that took place (Taylor, 2003). Performance research has been
before the Second World War. The Mainz con­ U.S.-centric I would assert, but it is going
ference—and more recently, major conferences global, as contemporary cultural performance
on cultural performance held in Berlin, research makes clear—but so does perfor­
London, Tokyo, Lima, and Canterbury, New mance research carried out by the United
Zealand—all demonstrate that performance Nations, the International Monetary Fund,
research is global, and there exist many impor­ and other organizations associated with
tant texts on cultural performances from processes of globalization.
earlier centuries. Nor am I denying that some
performances can resist or critique globaliza­
PARADIGMS 4, 5, 6 . . .
tion. Indeed, significant research has begun to
address such resistance and critique. Whether one understands performance research
What I am saying, however, is that perfor­ as emanating from the United States or from
mance concepts and practices have a history, multiple nodes around the world, performance
and that this history is related to the history of has gone global, and not only cultural perfor­
other performance research, both applied and mance but also technological and organiza­
theoretical, and to the corresponding institu­ tional forms of performance. To make matters
tions that support and produce such research. even more complex, allow me to cite three
Concepts of technological high performance, additional paradigms of performance research.
for instance, grew out of the U.S. military- Building on the above discussion, a fourth
industrial complex, while those of organiza­ paradigm of performance research is that of
tional performance emerged from internal, government performance. Conducted by polit­
postwar critiques of scientific management. ical scientists, sociologists, and public policy
The study of cultural activities as “perfor­ analysts, this research largely concerns the
mance” arguably began in the United States, performance of national governments, i.e.,
and it is no coincidence that the first official how well such governments perform or carry
departments of performance studies were out their public duties in the opinion of their
established in the United States, or that the constituents. Frequently, this performance is
first four meetings of Performance Studies evaluated through large-scale public surveys
international also took place there. or “barometers,” such as the Eurobarometer,
Indeed, from my own travels and con­ the Latinobarometer, and the African and
tacts, I sense a growing suspicion of the Asian Barometers, all of which are carefully
“Americanness,” or, more accurately, the “U.S.­ designed and translated for consistency in
centrism” of performance studies, and perhaps order to facilitate comparison analysis between
of performance research more generally. This different nation-states and geographic regions
suspicion may, in part, inform recent attempts (McKenzie, 2003).
to articulate alternative genealogies of perfor­ A fifth paradigm is that of financial or eco­
mance research, genealogies that are often nomic performance, which involves the use
nationally or linguistically based. Such attempts of performance concepts to analyze individual
include Erika Fischer-Lichte’s keynote address financial instruments (e.g., stocks and bonds),
at PSi 7 in Mainz, which surveyed the devel­ the economic activities of small businesses and
opment of performance research in Germany large firms, and even entire markets, indus­
over the past half century (Fischer-Lichte, tries, and economies. To give you the big
2001), and Diana Taylor’s recent exploration picture: officials of the International Monetary
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38 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Fund (IMF) frequently cite the impact of IMF We can see one attempt at integrating
policies on “global economic performance” multiparadigmatic performances in the sum­
(International Monetary Fund, 2000). Financial mary of The Shell Report, prepared by the
performance differs from organizational per­ Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies and
formance in that it concerns overall financial verified by the accounting and auditing firms
or economic activities rather than the internal of KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The
management of workers. title of this report summary is, significantly,
And last, a sixth paradigm is that of envi­ People, planet and profits. Why is this title
ronmental performance. Over the past several significant here? Because “people,” “planet,”
decades, under increasing pressure from and “profits” correspond directly to the
environmentalists and, more recently, govern­ annual report’s three main sections, which
mental regulators, companies around the respectively are “social performance,” “envi­
world have begun systematic programs to ronmental performance,” and “economic per­
evaluate how well they meet environmental formance.” In short, the entire annual activity
standards. Such programs produce regular of this major multinational corporation is pre­
environmental performance reviews concern­ sented and assessed for its stakeholders—and
ing such areas as biosafety, airborne emis­ for the world at large—in terms of the integra­
sions, and water quality. Moreover, the tion of three different types of performance:
Organization for Economic Co-operation and social, environmental, and economic, or in
Development (OECD) now sets environmen­ Shell’s terms, the performances of people,
tal performance guidelines for its member planet, and profits (Royal Dutch Petroleum
states, some thirty of the world’s most highly Company, 2002).
industrialized countries, as well as three asso­ Royal Dutch/Shell’s attempt to integrate
ciated nonmembers. multiparadigmatic performances exemplifies
As is the case with cultural, organizational, the nature and functioning of performativity’s
and technological performance, “performance” operation at a global level. First, performativ­
in these governmental, financial, and environ­ ity is not “one thing”; it is not composed of
mental paradigms refers to highly specific, yet one single and coherent set of performative
highly contested sets of practices. Further, as discourses, practices, and values. Rather, it
should be obvious, each paradigm entails con­ consists of many conflicting and, at times, con­
tested sets of evaluative criteria that, in the tradictory performativities: cultural, organiza­
end, are socially and politically determined. tional, technological, governmental, financial,
Further, as can be seen from the examples environmental . . . and this list is not exhaus­
mentioned in all three of these paradigms, tive, for there are still other paradigms of per­
performance research has become crucial to formance research, including educational,
contemporary processes of globalization, from physiological, psychological, sexual, and phar­
governance to finance to ecological concerns. maceutical paradigms. Second, the perfor­
mance stratum functions precisely through
ongoing attempts to negotiate multiple and
GLOBAL PERFORMATIVITY
competing performativities. While Lyotard
As politically influential and geographically stressed performativity as optimization or
extensive as all of these performance para­ the maximizing of efficiency, a more accurate
digms may be individually, the performativity understanding of performativity is “satisfic­
of contemporary globalization is best revealed ing,” first theorized by Herbert Simon (1957).
by attempts to integrate different performative Efficiency may often need to be compro­
criteria. mised with other values, such as efficacy or
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Performance and Globalization 39

effectiveness. Decision-makers thus seek to Global Compact Office, this network includes
satisfy competing demands, but because they the Office of the High Commissioner for
work with limited knowledge, they must also Human Rights, the United Nations Environ­
make sacrifices; hence they satisfice, making ment Programme, the International Labour
not the best or optimum decision but one that Organization, the United Nations Development
is “good enough.” Programme, and the United Nations Industrial
Likewise, global performativity operates Development Organization. Currently, over
through what we might call satisficial rituals, 1,130 companies from 59 nations participate
routinized performance review programs that in the UN’s Global Compact. At the heart of
consist of highly formalized attempts to mea­ the program is the goal of encouraging private
sure, evaluate, and improve different types companies to incorporate human rights, labor,
of performance. Such evaluative programs are and environmental standards into their strate­
in no way limited to Royal Dutch/Shell. Quite gic planning and production processes. To this
the contrary: the focus on studying, evaluat­ end, in 2002, a Global Compact Policy Dialogue
ing, and integrating social, environmental, and consisting of UN representatives, business
economic performances is becoming increas­ practitioners, and labor and civil society orga­
ingly important to companies and countries nizations developed the Global Compact
who dedicate themselves to sustainable devel­ Performance Model. The dialogue group explains,
opment. Using guidelines established by the
Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), some 323 By model, we mean a system of rules, prac­
tices and means to achieve a set of results. By
organizations in 31 countries use social, envi­ performance we mean a minimum of inputs
ronmental, and economic performance mea­ and efforts to achieve the best results in the
sures to assess the impact their activities have shortest period of time. In other words this
on the natural environment and the social [performance model] describes a blueprint
well-being of their workers, customers, and or road map to help business to embrace
the Global Compact principles and move
communities. These organizations include
toward a satisfactory performance without
small and large companies, governments, detracting from their other business goals.
and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). (Company Performance Model, 2002)
Now an independent organization itself, the
GRI was founded in 1997 by the Coalition for Without going into the details of the Global
Environmentally Responsible Economies and Compact Performance Model, we can see that
is an official collaborating center of the United the dialogue group defines performance at the
Nations Environment Programme. most general level as minimizing inputs and
We can sense the breadth of global perfor­ optimizing outputs in a timely manner. Such
mativity by turning to the Global Compact “minimaxing” of input and output ratios is
Performance Model developed by the United central to Lyotard’s concept of performative
Nations. In 1999, UN Secretary-General Kofi optimization. At the same time, we can also say
Annan announced the Global Compact, a that to achieve the Global Compact’s criteria
global initiative aimed at encouraging private of “satisfactory performance,” companies
companies to work toward sustainable and must negotiate between traditional business
inclusive global economic development. The performance measures (in paradigmatic terms,
Global Compact focuses on three main areas those of organizational and financial perfor­
of concern: human rights, labor standards, mance) and new, emerging performance mea­
and the environment. The program became sures (those of environmental performance and
operational in 2000 and is today composed of social performance—which here includes
a network of five agencies. Coordinated by the human rights and fair labor practices). Such
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40 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

negotiations, again, can best be understood as generally, the widespread introduction of

satisficing rather than optimization. performance models into public institutions
The Global Reporting Initiative and the have come under increasing scrutiny and criti­
UN’s Global Compact provide ample evidence cism. Interestingly, many of these criticisms
of how performativity is going global and, echo the analyses of performative power made
indeed, in doing so they also reveal a third decades ago by Marcuse and Lyotard.
characteristic of global performativity. Not In January 2002, an international group of
only does it entail a multiplicity of performa­ NGOs called the Alliance for a Corporate-Free
tivities and formal programs that attempt to UN issued a blunt letter to UN Secretary-
integrate and satisfice these performativities. General Kofi Annan criticizing the effective­
In addition, global performativity operates ness of the Global Compact. While praising
through a complex network of social institu­ Annan’s motivation in creating the Global
tions, working not only at the level of nation- Compact, the sixteen signatories argued that
states, but also above them at the level of its design allows corporations to improve their
international and transnational organizations, public reputations via association with the
such as the UN and the GRI, and below them, UN without, however, committing themselves
through businesses and NGOs. It is precisely to real changes in their corporate behaviors
this global networking of institutions that regarding human rights, labor standards, and
helps distinguish the performance stratum environmental protection. To support this
from the much more hierarchical and nation­ charge, the Alliance enclosed documentation of
ally based institutions found on the discipli­ guideline violations by five corporate members
nary formation described by Foucault. of the Global Compact. Further, the Alliance
charged the Compact’s own operation with
inadequate transparency of its operation and a
PERFORMATIVITY’S
fundamental lack of regulatory strength.
PERVERSITIES AND AMBIGUITIES
In order to correct these problems, the letter
On the face of it, there is clearly a progressive proposed a redesign of the Global Compact,
dimension of global performativity, as seen in one that would transform it into the Global
the issues and values embodied in the Global Accountability Compact and thereby convert
Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative: it from being a partnership between the UN
improvement of human rights, environmental and corporations and into a watchdog organi­
protection, fair labor standards, and sustain­ zation that monitors companies’ performance.
able and inclusive economic development. Member corporations’ adherence to its guide­
These causes have long been championed lines would no longer be voluntary but manda­
by social activists and progressive political tory, and continued membership in the
groups, and especially so in light of contempo­ Compact would require any companies found
rary processes of globalization. The same in violation to take corrective action. At one
holds true with other issues often promoted point in their letter, the Alliance urged Annan’s
by institutional agents of global performativ­ office to “clarify that the Compact’s purpose
ity, such as diversity, creativity, education, and is not to advance a business agenda regarding
AIDS/HIV treatment and prevention pro­ trade and investment rules” (Alliance for a
grams. Global performativity is normative, Corporate-Free UN, 2002). Using the terms of
yet creating norms that promote progressive the Global Reporting Initiative discussed above,
values seems well worth supporting. we can read the Alliance’s letter as arguing that
At the same time, however, programs the UN Global Compact must show greater
such as the UN’s Global Compact and, more commitment to social and environmental
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Performance and Globalization 41

performance issues by distancing itself from measures. Among the reasons for this resistance
economic performance values. are the fact that such programs require both
A far more explicit and extensive critique time and money to establish and, once estab­
of performativity can be found in Hans de lished, they inform both budgets and work
Bruijn’s 2001 text, Managing Performance processes. Furthermore, biases in performance
in the Public Sector. De Bruijn, a professor measurement programs tend to reflect biases in
of organization and management at Delft the agency’s internal political culture, and thus
University of Technology in the Netherlands, correcting them may very well require a dra­
provides a substantive critique of the adoption matic organizational restructuring. Finally, even
of performance measurement programs by when perverse effects are recognized, directors
governments and public authorities around the may come to rely on performance programs not
world. He notes that while such programs only for assessment purposes but also for steer­
potentially offer greater transparency and pub­ ing or controlling the organization to meet
lic accountability, their actual implementation demands made upon it by outside agencies or
often produces what he calls “perverse effects” superiors. For a variety of reasons, then, orga­
(de Bruijn, 2001). Among the perverse effects nizations often resist attempts to correct the
de Bruijn identifies are (1) “gaming the perversities of performativity.
numbers,” whereby carefully selected inputs or The criticisms raised by the Alliance for a
outputs allow government agencies to meet Corporate-Free UN and by Hans de Bruijn
performance goals, while other valuable inputs echo critiques of performativity made long ago
or outputs are simply ignored; (2) inhibition by Marcuse and Lyotard. Both theorists tar­
of innovation and ambition, caused by public geted the economic and technological impera­
authorities developing efficient processes and tives that define the performativity of advanced
then only encouraging workers to maintain capitalism. The overriding values behind these
these processes, rather than seek innovations; imperatives are efficiency and expediency,
(3) veiling of actual performance, whereby values embodied in the high performance
aggregation of performance measures at upper demand to achieve maximum results with min­
organizational levels obscures information imum resources in the shortest period of time.
about lower-level performance; (4) deaden­ In short: profits now.
ing of professional responsibility, caused by Marcuse, writing in the 1950s, focused
internal and external competition to meet per­ on the technological rationality emanating
formance standards, which in turn leads to the from factories outward to society, whereas
compartmentalization of information, rather Lyotard later stressed the sophisticated opera­
than its cooperative, responsible sharing; and, tional optimization that digital computers
perhaps most perversely, (5) punishment of make possible. For both theorists, performa­
performance, for example, in cases where one tivity demands quantification, in particular,
group is rewarded for “good performance” the calculation of input/output ratios. Social
that is only “achieved” by its veiling of key data, and moral concerns, when not totally ignored
while another is sanctioned for “poor perfor­ by decision-makers, must become measurable
mance” made visible precisely by its trans­ in order to count, to matter, to have signifi­
parency of information. cance, indeed, to be. Thus under performativ­
De Bruijn notes that while it is possible for ity, public accountability increasingly entails
public organizations to counter such perverse the forced quantification of the nonquantifi­
effects of performance measurement, govern­ able, the qualitative, and this forced quantifi­
ments and agencies that have established these cation, I would argue, accounts for many of
programs may often vigorously resist corrective performativity’s perversities.
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42 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

While Marcuse gave little to no credit to the each case, the inclusion of these issues comes
performance principle he diagnosed at work in only after years and years of struggle by local,
postindustrial societies, Lyotard was willing national, and international groups, from com­
to acknowledge the ambiguities of performa­ munity activists to national advocacy groups
tivity. In particular, he noted that decision- to large nongovernmental organizations.
makers immersed in performative legitimiza­ However, as the Alliance for a Corporate-Free
tion did address the question of their own UN and other activist groups suggest, such vic­
decision-making and the rules or “metapre­ tories are easily co-optable and may be Pyrrhic
scriptives” that guide them. Indeed, we wit­ in nature: socially efficacious values may all
ness this ambiguity at work today in all the too quickly be sacrificed to other performative
ongoing performance review programs, all values. Marginalized voices may be listened
the incessant satisficial rituals for integrating to but not heard, qualitative matters may
diverse performative values. For not only is be crudely quantified, and highly publicized
performance evaluated: these evaluations are pledges of corporate and government respon­
themselves evaluated. Indeed, there now exists sibility may function merely as a fig leaf
an entire industry of competing performance for business-as-usual. Nonetheless, getting
consultants, each armed with programs, mod­ activists’ issues “on the table” in public dis­
els, and “best practice” case studies designed cussions and, more crucially, getting them “on
to create cycles of constant performance the books,” that is, written into laws, con­
improvement. In addition, given the increasing tracts, and mission statements, are important
importance of service industries and the rise achievements. Once on the books, it may
of public sector performance programs, the become possible for activists to turn the table
stakeholders of both private and public organi­ and use the very same performance models to
zations often no longer include only “insiders.” hold organizations to their word and effect
At first dismissively, then reluctantly, and now changes in both procedures and behavior
strategically for both operational and public (Keck and Sikkink, 1999).
relations reasons, many organizations have
begun to listen to consumers, clients, affected
“BUT WHAT
populations, social activists, and even politi­
ABOUT PERFORMANCE?”
cal protestors. To give one widely reported
example: President Bill Clinton surprised many I’d like to conclude by entertaining one possi­
people at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade ble, even likely, objection to these reflections
Organization—known to activists around the on performance and globalization: “But what
world as the “Battle of Seattle”—by saying that about performance? What does any of this
the organization needed to listen to the people have to do with theatre, performance art, the
protesting outside its doors. performance of everyday life, etc.?”
The emerging global performativity is First of all, concepts and practices of cultural
thus highly ambiguous. On the one hand, we performance have a historical relation to other
should affirm the inclusion of such issues as concepts and practices of performance, includ­
human rights, respect for diversity, fair and ing some very powerful ones, as I hope this
safe working conditions, protection of rights essay has shown. While global performativity
for women and children, and the improvement may seem far removed from the production and
of air and water quality within the perfor­ study of discrete cultural performances, it must
mance models of the UN’s Global Compact, be stressed that performativity operates through
the Global Reporting Initiative, and innumer­ a complex network that operates at the macro
able other organizations around the world. In and meso levels of large institutions and smaller
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Performance and Globalization 43

organizations, as well as at the micro level of me—‘How you say?’—dead meat every time”
subjectivity theorized by Butler. In short, global (Berry, 2000).
performativity operates both top-down and Shifting from the juggling act of everyday
bottom-up, both globally and locally, both life to the day-to-day operations of cultural
impersonally and intimately. It affects not only institutions, we can see how performativity is
political and business organizations, but also coming to inform the production, presenta­
cultural institutions and the comings and goings tion, and evaluation of works by theatres and
of everyday life. other arts organizations. Giacomo Pignataro,
To give an example at the micro level: in an Italian researcher of cultural institutions,
the late 1990s, WNYC, the local public radio writes that
station in New York City, launched a show
called The Juggling Act that focused on the use of performance indicators in the arts
how working mothers juggle the demands of is quite widespread nowadays. The basic rea­
both family and professional life. It was co­ son for the development of this practice is
that the scope for commercial profit-oriented
sponsored by the online magazine Salon’s activity is very limited, and the size of public
“Mothers Who Think” project, which pro­ and private contributions can be large. The
vides working mothers an opportunity to post different stakeholders cannot refer to any
stories of their own experiences online. The market signal, however imperfect it may be,
women editors behind the show dedicated it to to evaluate different aspects of arts produc­
tion. Therefore there is a need to define
“honoring the juggling act that we perform
“virtual” measures of arts organizations’ per­
every day.” As a performance of everyday life, formance so as to provide some empirical
raising children and pursuing a career simul­ support to the judgment on the value of arts
taneously entails negotiating conflicting sets productions. (Pignataro, 2003, p. 366)
of expectations, responsibilities, and values.
“Juggling act” is “satisficing” played out at an The growing use of performance measures
intimate level; it entails responding to diverse and management models within arts institu­
demands to perform—or else, demands made tions reflects their attempt to meet conflicting
by partners, children, doctors, teachers, demands, not only aesthetic and cultural ones,
bosses, and employees. In some cases, per­ but also economic, political, and social ones.
forming the juggling act may touch on one’s While it is tempting to criticize this increasing
deepest sense of identity while also being performativity as simply the corporatization
informed by global flows of labor and migra­ of arts institutions, one must also recognize
tion. One working mother, Cecelie Berry, an the ambiguities at work here. Just as the UN’s
African American lawyer, writes in a Salon Global Compact Performance Model valorizes
commentary of the lifelong guilt she has felt as such progressive causes as human rights and
a privileged black woman, guilt that became environmental justice, so too do new methods
acute when hiring caretakers for her children. of assessment and accountability in the arts
“As a young lawyer, I didn’t do the hiring, so stress such criteria as cultural diversity and
like many women, I first became an employer community outreach, criteria that may apply
when I hired a nanny. The nannies I hired to both institutional operations and the pro­
came from Panama, Jamaica, Israel, Sweden, duction of individual shows.
France, England, Ghana, and the United A recent prospective study by the Dutch
States. Though the cultures changed, the tac­ Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is
tics of the power struggle between mother and instructive here. Titled Culture as Confronta­
nanny remained the same. The mother lode tion: Principles on Cultural Policy in
of guilt I carried from childhood made 2001–2005, the study recommends four
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44 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

criteria for assessing individual arts institu­ today, cultural factors organize and legitimate
tions, including Amsterdam’s Municipal the political and economic factors.
Theatre and Theatre Company Amsterdam. Surprisingly, another body of research sup­
These four criteria, drawn from the Dutch ports this claim, while returning us to our
Council for Culture, are aesthetic quality, point of departure. I refer to research under­
social outreach, ticket subsidy ratio, and the taken by the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit
position of the particular institution within the organization with close ties to the U.S.
larger system of Dutch cultural institutions. Department of Defense. Since its inception
The study suggests that the during the early years of the Cold War, RAND
has conducted research on weapons technol­
assessment will normally be based on the ogy, military strategy, and other defense-
institution’s policy plan and on an estimate related topics. Recently, however, RAND has
of the feasibility of this plan in the light of
current performance. The extent to which
developed what it calls “new areas of research
the council relies on future predictions or . . . not traditionally part of its agenda.” In the
current performance may vary from one late 1990s, RAND established a research pro­
criterion to another. (van der Ploeg, 1999) gram devoted exclusively to the arts.
Significantly, the first book produced by this
It should be noted that the study begins program is titled The Performing Arts in a
by highlighting the need to maintain the New Era (McCarthy, Brooks, Lowell, &
Netherlands’ place within the cultural spheres Zakaras, 2001). A second book is titled A
of both Europe and the world. New Framework for Building Participation in
I’ll end by suggesting that not only has the the Arts (McCarthy & Jinnett, 2001). The fact
production and study of cultural performances that the RAND Corporation has turned its
come to be influenced by powerful forms of attention to the performing arts should be a
performativity, but also that cultural perfor­ wake-up call. In effect, RAND agrees with
mance plays an important role in global per­ many performance studies scholars: cultural
formativity. Within the field of human performances aren’t just about entertainment;
geography, theorists often distinguish three they also have social efficacy. And here we
eras of globalization: the mercantilism of the might wonder: what other cultural perfor­
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the colo­ mance research is RAND reading? Are our
nialism of the eighteenth and nineteenth cen­ books on their reading list? If so, would this be
turies; and the contemporary globalization that a bad thing—or a good one? And, finally,
began in the twentieth century. The Australian what if RAND is, in its own way, merely car­
sociologist Malcolm Waters argues that at rying out Eisenhower’s goal of “improving
the forefront of mercantilism was economics performance in the future?”
(the establishment of global trade routes and
trading companies). At the cutting edge of
colonialism was geopolitics (the creation of REFERENCES
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4
Performance, Performativity, and
Cultural Poiesis in Practices of Everyday Life
JUDITH HAMERA

W hen Victor Turner characterized

performance as making, not faking, he
did more than challenge the antitheatrical bias.
This essay offers multiple examples of the
theoretical and analytical potentials of perfor­
mance and the performative. It employs perfor­
He placed performance at the center of a larger mance theorists who have enlarged upon the
view of culture as constructed, embodied, and works of both Turner and Butler. Further, it
processual. The consequences of this move explores the multiple theoretical and method­
both include and exceed a focus on the theatri­ ological compatibilities between performance
cal, or even on “actors” loosely defined. They studies and critical scholarship across the
extend to larger issues of cultural poiesis humanities. Finally, these examples highlight
and enactment, including the development and the discipline’s contribution to an expansive
maintenance of communities, the social life and view of aesthetics, one committed to recasting
force of memory, and the production and con­ this realm of inquiry in explicitly social terms.
sumption of material culture and its contexts. In his classic essay “Rethinking Ethnogra­
Likewise, Judith Butler’s use of the perfor­ phy,” Dwight Conquergood discusses the
mative to explain the construction and sta­ relationship between performance and cultural
bility of identity illuminates more than just process. He asks, “What happens to our think­
gender and sexuality. Performance studies the­ ing about performance when we move it out­
orists have extended her insights to include side of Aesthetics and situate it at the center
performance per se, something Butler herself of lived experience?” (1991, p. 190). Yet, as he
resisted in her early writings. In so doing, these acknowledges in later work on Chicago street
theorists raise possibilities for a generative nexus gang graffiti, aesthetics always already is lived
of performance and performativity that can, in experience; performance studies reveals this
turn, extend our understanding of the very interrelationship in clear and compelling ways.
ground of social life. Aesthetics is inherently social. The formal

46
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 47

properties and presumptions intrinsic to account of human endeavor and therefore

the production and consumption of works increase the possibility of doing justice to
its essential complexity and ambiguity as
of art are communicative currency circulating
practice. (1991, p. 221)
between producers and consumers, binding
them together in material and highly situated
The social work of aesthetics is especially
interpretive communities, serving as bases for
central to performance, where the labors of
exchange in the public and private conversa­
creation and the dynamics of consumption
tions that constitute art’s relational, political,
are explicitly communal and corporeal, and
and affective lives.
where corporeality and sociality are remade
Aesthetics offers vocabularies for exploring
as surely as a formal event may be produced.
how art works and how it generates meaning.
Performance exposes aesthetics’ social work as
But even more importantly, aesthetic princi­
embodied, processual, rhetorical, and political
ples, values, and vocabularies organize where
and, especially, as daily, as routine, a practice
art works and means: in social time and in
of everyday life.
social space. Aesthetics are integral to finished
Victor Turner (1982) attested to the poten­
creative products and also to the myriad ancil­
tially world-making power of performance in
lary socialities that never take the stage.
his notion of communitas: the spontaneous
Scholars have argued forcefully for more
moments of ego-dissolution that bind per­
nuanced, politicized readings of the relation­
formers to audiences and audience members to
ships between art, society, and culture (see
one another. But this world-making power can
Matthews & McWhirter, 2003). Central to all
also be found in the daily mechanisms—the
such readings are aesthetics, the animating
rhetoric and the rituals—that produce perfor­
principles of art’s social lives. These principles
mance in specific communities. Here we move
emerge in the objects and events that aesthetic
beyond Erving Goffman’s (1959) germinal
practice leaves behind, and in the routine trans­
notion of the presentation of self in everyday
actions of those for whom art making is, and
life to examine how performance illuminates
happens in, a neighborhood, a set of corporeal
the deep structures of community in/and aes­
possibilities, comforts and constraints linking
thetic practice. How, for example, do perfor­
private self- and object-fashioning to commu­
mance and the performative contribute to
nity practice. Janice Radway makes precisely
our understanding of what Radway calls the
this point in her discussion of “mass culture
“essential complexities” of art’s social lives?
aesthetics” when she writes,

Commodities like mass-produced literary THE THING DONE AND THE THING
texts are selected, purchased, constructed GONE: PERFORMANCE, MEMORY,
and used by real people with previously
AND KHMER CLASSICAL DANCE
existing needs, desires, intentions, and inter­
pretive strategies. By reinstating those active The Khmer Rouge surrounded Phnom Penh,
individuals and their creative, constructive and on April 17, 1975, after five years of
activities at the heart of our interpretive civil war, they took control, waving their
enterprise, we avoid blinding ourselves to flag in the streets. Until January 1979 they
the fact that the essentially human practice forced all Cambodians to live in labor
of making meaning goes on even in a world camps and work fourteen-to-eighteen hour
increasingly dominated by things and by days. They fed us one daily bowl of watery
consumption. In thus recalling the interpre­ rice; they separated families; they destroyed
tive character of operations like reading, all Cambodian institutions and culture; they
we restore time, process and action to our systematically tortured and killed innocent
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48 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

people. It is estimated that during this time accordion despite warnings that this marked
nearly a third of the Cambodian population him for death, he used music to bind him
was killed due to disease, starvation, or
in solidarity to his Khmer Rouge would-be
execution. (Pran, 1997, p. 10)
executioner:
James Brandon observed that, while “per­ If I was going to die, I wanted to die playing
forming arts do not die, performers do” (in my accordion. . . . I played that song with
Sam, 1994, p. 47). As Dith Pran’s terse sum­ all the joy I had ever felt. The soldier did not
mary above states, Pol Pot and his Khmer shoot me. He listened until the end of the
song. Then he said in a small, quiet voice,
Rouge forces set out to systematically and
“Will you teach me to play?” “Yes,” I said.
ruthlessly destroy classical Cambodian perfor­ Yes was all I had left to say. (Lafreniere,
mance and culture. Benedict Anderson may be 2000, p. 152)
correct when he notes that classical Angkor,
“emblazoned on the flag of Marxist Democratic Khmer Rouge survivor Arn Chorn-Pond’s
Kampuchea,” was a “rebus of power” (1991, attempts to save formerly outlawed Cambodian
pp. 160–161), but neither power nor piety classical music, a mission documented in
spared the material bodies of the Apsaras, the Jocelyn Glatzer’s film The Flute Player (2003),
dancers who served as incarnations of likewise attests to these artists’ commitment to
Angkor’s reliefs. Pich Tum Kravel, and former both remember and restore both personal and
Minister of Culture Chen Phon, estimate that collective memories of Cambodian culture.
90 percent of Cambodian dance teachers and In these accounts, performance serves as a
performers were murdered or starved to death; technology of subjectivity through which sur­
the exact number may never be known (P. vivors wrestle with and justify their own sur­
Chen, lecture, December 5, 1993). Those few vival. Further, classical Khmer performing arts
who managed to escape either remained in the serve as templates organizing a new sociality
country posing as peasants or, more com­ among survivors, and an archive that links
monly, made their way to refugee camps along subjectivities and socialities to the glories of
the Thai-Cambodian border. Khmer history. In this archival incarnation,
Cambodian artists have generated numer­ performance actually becomes personal and
ous moving accounts of the fate of the arts dur­ collective memory; it is what Paul Connerton
ing and after the era of the killing fields. These calls an “inscribing practice.” It “traps and
are extraordinary testimonials to the social holds information long after the human organ­
powers of aesthetics to heal both individuals ism has stopped informing” its individual
and communities. For many of these artists, enactments (Connerton, 1989, p. 73). But this
performance itself became both the means by archive, and its residues and traces, its inscrib­
which they survived and a legitimation of that ing practices, are not only cognitive and cor­
survival. Daran Kravanh’s story is illustrative: poreal, as Connerton might lead us to believe.
It is not just physical labor that constructs
I cannot tell you how or why I survived; I do specific archives of performance, not simply
not know myself. It is like this: love and
cognitive labor that fills them, but also the
music and memory and invisible hands, and
something that comes out of the society of unrelenting dailiness of emotional and rela­
the living and the dead, for which there are tional labor that impels survivors to work on
no words. (Lafreniere, 2000, p. 3) behalf of Khmer art and culture.
Performance theorists offer bracing and
Kravanh describes a remarkable moment nuanced strategies for engaging this nexus of
when, exposed by his compulsion to play his survival, memory, and cultural continuity. In
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 49

Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, and “Songs My Enemies Taught Me” in Pran,
the Holocaust, Vivian Patraka employs Elin 1997, pp. 1–5).
Diamond’s (1996) notion of performativity, Patraka writes that doing/performance
itself a reworking of Judith Butler’s view, and is always accountable to the thing gone (1999,
reimagines it in light of the Holocaust: p. 7). It is also useful to imagine this account­
ability in Bakhtinian terms. Here, the survival
According to this model of the performative, of Khmer performance becomes the vehicle
“the thing done” is a kind of yardstick, a sys­
through which artists perform answers,
tem of beliefs and presuppositions that has
taken on an authority and become a hege­ both for their individual survival and for
monic means of understanding. The “thing that of Khmer culture. At its simplest,
done,” then, represents particular discursive Bakhtin’s “answerability” is very like account­
categories, conventions, genres and practices ability, predicated on an interanimation of
that frame our interpretations, even as we try art and guilt, life and blame. In “Art and
to perceive the present moment of doing. As
we are in the doing, then, there is the pressure
Answerability” (1990), his earliest known
of the thing done. The doing is not knowable publication, he writes,
without the thing done, and the thing done is
all the discursive conventions that allow us to I have to answer with my own life for what
think through a doing. (Patraka, 1999, p. 6) I have experienced and understood in art,
so that everything I have experienced and
In the case of “the Holocaust performative,” understood would not remain ineffectual in
my life. But answerability entails guilt, or lia­
Patraka identifies bility to blame. It is not only mutual answer­
ability that art and life must assume, but also
the thing done as the thing gone. . . . It is the mutual ability to blame. . . . Art and life are
goneness of the Holocaust that produces not one, but they must become united in the
the simultaneous profusion of discourses unity of my answerability. (pp. 1–2)
and understandings. . . . The absoluteness of
the thing done [gone] weighs heavily on any
doing in the Holocaust performative. . . . [It] Answerability is ambivalent. At its most
acknowledges that there is nothing to say generative, it seems to offer an ethical opportu­
to goneness and yet we continue to try nity to deploy art to speak back, both to life
and mark it, say it, identify it, memorialize and to goneness, as well as the reverse. At its
the loss over and over. This is the doing
most impotent, answerability seems to circum­
to which Diamond refers, the constant itera­
tion against the pressure of palpable loss. scribe agency, limiting it to reactions of singu­
. . . (1999, p. 7) lar subjects condemned to answer to, or “rent”
meaning (Hitchcock, 1993, p. 10). Central to
While I do not want to understate in any this ambivalence is Bakhtin’s emphasis on the
way the specificity of Patraka’s theorizing the mutuality of art and life congealed into a unity
Holocaust performative (per her observations through answerability-in-practice.
in Patraka, 1999, p. 3), it is striking to note Answerability to goneness through perfor­
how forcefully it resonates with the testimony mance cuts across many accounts of Khmer
of Khmer Rouge survivors against the gone- survivors. Likewise, after the collective trauma
ness of classical Khmer culture in the after­ of the Khmer Rouge, coalitions of performers
math of the Pol Pot regime. Indeed the mobilized to use performance technique as
invocation of goneness is explicit in both gen­ an affective and social infrastructure of
eral and highly personal “introductions of answerability for healing and renewal (see,
[Khmer Rouge] atrocity into representation” for example, Charlé, 2001; Coburn, 1993;
(p. 7; see also Sophiline Cheam Shapiro’s Mydans, 1993; Turnbull, 1999).
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50 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Just as the Holocaust performative enables admit there are few existing models to which
us to theorize the exigencies of Khmer sur­ reproductions can be compared, and even as
vivors’ personal and social relationships to they acknowledge the exigencies which disrupt
classical arts and aesthetics, performance such reproduction. Consider ethnomusicolo­
theory enables us to tease out the complexities gist and musician Sam-Ang Sam’s discussion
in these aesthetic practices themselves. In so of the contingencies surrounding the assembly
doing, it forges connections between perfor­ of a pin peat musical ensemble:
mance studies and immigrant studies in the
critical humanities. For example, according to In performances, Khmer musicians (myself
media scholar Hamid Naficy, the refugee or included) both consciously and uncon­
sciously borrow instruments from other
the exile faces Khmer ensembles and mix them with those
of pin peat. Because of the scarcity and dis­
two types of immanent and imminent threats tribution of musicians and musical instru­
simultaneously: the threat of the disappear­ ments this borrowing is difficult to avoid.
ance of the homeland and the threat of them­ In addition, Khmer traditionally hold great
selves disappearing in the host society. respect for elders. In performance situations,
Fetishization [as a strategy for negotiating we cannot tell our older musicians . . . not
these threats . . . ] entails condensing all the to play with us just because they do not
meanings of home . . . into substitute fetishes know how to play a pin peat instrument.
and frozen stereotypes. (1993, p. 129) Moreover, excluding them from the group
would reduce the ensemble even further,
Naficy concludes, the net result of this thus making it impossible to produce a full
accompaniment. Worst of all, discouraging
fetishization of past and future is that other musicians from playing might be seen
“[t]hrough controlling ‘there’ and ‘then,’ the as a break in the continuity of Khmer musi­
exile can control ‘here and ‘now’” (p. 132). cal life. (1994, p. 45, italics added)
The fetish of Cambodia as it was and never
was has an especially acute pull for refugee sur­ Yet “fidelity” was still the god-term for
vivor artists, for whom answerability to and Khmer artists, even if, in reality, it can only be
through Khmer culture is seen as rooted in a approached asymptotically.
sacred, utopian past while mired in a degener­ The acute investment in “there and then”
ate present. No matter that the exact nature evident in the concerns of Khmer artists points
of this past is unclear as Khmer traditions are, to larger relationships between performance,
to a great degree, contested constructs among space or place, and time. Performance rewrites
Khmer themselves. Juxtaposition between the body’s, and the community’s, relationships
sacred past and degenerate present permeates to space, to time, and to the intersections of
Khmer discourse, as does the sense that the both. It transforms “context” into a product
future may hold only greater remove from of aesthetic activity and supplies us with the
utopian antiquity and, ultimately, perhaps theoretical and methodological tools we can
abyss, though this has been modified consider­ use to examine this process.
ably by the death of Pol Pot and the collapse of
the remaining Khmer Rouge forces, as well as
MARKING TIME AND
a concomitant investment of both Cambodian
MAKING PLACE IN BALLET
and American resources and commitment.
Literature, lectures, and performances Auden once observed that all ballets are made
authored by Khmer artists are replete with in Eden. They are not. They are made in sweaty
assertions of this necessity for reproducing the rehearsal halls, in storefront studios, and in
pure Khmer product/fetish, even as they freely community centers. And as surely as ballets are
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 51

made in these spaces, the spaces themselves In each of these locations, in myriad
are remade in the process, becoming, perhaps idiosyncratic ways, communities of dancers
through the repetition of this epitome of classi­ deploy and circulate rituals and stories
cal technique, a kind of Eden both inside and through and about performance that help
outside of everyday space and time. them examine and navigate relations between
the body, agency, and time.
Marking Time
Making Place
Dance and time are intimately linked; in
ballet, this linkage is especially acute. Indeed, Performance, and ballet in particular,
ballet technique makes the embodied experi­ revisions and recreates space by literally “plac­
ence of time communicable. Steps are counted ing” it in dialogue with the body. Space, writes
into the future, beginning “on the ones” and de Certeau, is a practiced place (1974/1984,
proceeding through “five and six and seven p. 117). Space is multivocal, characterized by
and eight.” Classes are organized ritualisti­ perpetual possibilities for transformation. Place
cally, beginning with barre exercises and end­ is univocal, stable, proper. I would argue that
ing with reverence, a bow or curtsy to the the construction and reproduction of place from
instructor and, if present, the musical accom­ space can be explored in performative terms.
panist as well. Advancement in technique is Judith Butler characterizes the performative
tied to age and measured by “levels”; in the as the “power of discourse to reproduce effects
Cecchetti method, these are actual “grades” through reiteration” (1993a, p. 20); these
assessed by exams though, in many studios, “effects” constitute “identity,” which repeti­
these levels are enforced less programmati­ tion then stabilizes. While Butler is reluctant
cally. The limits of the body are temporal to claim rhetorical power for the theatrical
markers: too young for pointe shoes, too old 1993b, p. 278), Elin Diamond argues for a
for quick jumps or fast footwork. Time, for more generative relation between performance
those committed to ballet, always seems to be per se and performativity, one especially con­
running out: training should not start “too ducive to reading places of performance and
late,” generally not after age 10, and careers performance’s placement. Diamond writes,
are over “too soon,” in a dancer’s thirties or,
with injuries, even younger. The repertoire When performativity materializes as perfor­
itself is replete with backward glances: to mance in that risky and dangerous nego­
tiation between a doing (a reiteration of
royalty and dancing peasants, and to
norms) and a thing done (discursive con­
Romanticism, both historically and more ventions that frame our interpretations),
broadly construed. between someone’s body and the conven­
Yet, whatever its general contours, details tions of embodiment, we have access to cul­
of the relationship between ballet and time are tural meanings and critique. (1996, p. 5)
always local, always contextual. Time in/and
technique is very different for an American As useful as Diamond’s reformulation of
Ballet Theatre principal dancer, for whom the the relationship between performance and per­
demands of career and chronology are inti­ formativity is, I would put this another way.
mately and fairly publicly connected, than it is Individual performances, I suggest, do make
for the thousands of girls and boys, men and performativity material but such negotiations
women, taking classes in recreation centers are not always risky; they may be, or seem,
and neighborhood studios, and for dancers perfectly banal. The performative production
performing with semi-professional companies. of place is one example.
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52 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Cultural meanings of place in dance, includ­ practice reveal that, in ballet as in walking, the
ing the most sublime and the most ritualistic, answer is both yes and no.
the most familiar and the most sedimented ones, There are in fact some “laws” by which
are generated by iterations of bodily doings, ballet transforms space into place and these
organized by technique’s protocols, its “discur­ are explicit. The technique performatively con­
sive conventions” for reading corporeality and structs place by, first, “placing” mapped bod­
geography (the thing done). That such doings ies into it. These bodies are themselves viewed
may be banal rather than obviously subversive as spaces to be organized by technical proto­
makes them no less meaningful or constitutive. cols, then performatively stabilized. Even in
Home places can be performatively stabilized preballet classes reserved for children ages
through performances of the banal. Yet, as three to six, students are inserted into the
Diamond (1996) suggests, there are also other Euclidean imaginary of the technique: shoul­
possibilities—chances to undo place, to enact ders and hips form the four corners of a
erasures of technique’s protocols containing “square.” Squares are always perfectly bal­
“doings,” to challenge sedimented meanings in anced; ballet dancers are to achieve the same.
performance and disrupt the readability offered Bodies stay square by ensuring that the hips
by the thing done, or even feign that readability and shoulders remain aligned and in the same
to insinuate something else. In such operations, plane during the execution of a movement.
space might be performatively generated from The illusion of two-dimensionality is the ideal,
place. As geographer Yi-Fu Tuan observes, as in “turn out,” which rotates the upper
“Place is security, space is freedom; we are thighs and, in turn, knees and toes, away from
attached to one and long for the other” (1977, the body so that, when feet are positioned with
p. 3). This performative negotiation of space heels together, they form a line at a perfect
into place, and the reverse, is implicit in Michel 180 degrees.
de Certeau’s geopoetic essay “Walking in the The body in ballet is “centered”; move­
City.” He writes, ments originate from the torso, which is
“pulled up,” always poised between yielding
The long poem of walking manipulates spa­ to and resisting gravity, occupying a
tial organizations, no matter how panoptic metaphoric middle place of stability and bal­
they may be: it is neither foreign to them (it
can take place only within them) nor in con­
ance. The center is also a reference point, a
formity with them (it does not receive its corporeal prime meridian running down the
identity from them). It creates shadows and torso lengthwise; turning “outside” (en
ambiguities within them. It inserts its multi­ dehors) is to move away from this imaginary
tudinous references and citations into them axis, while an “inside” turn (en dedans) initi­
(social mores, cultural norms, personal fac­
ates an action toward it. Arms and feet are
tors). Within them it is itself the effect of
successive encounters and occasions that mapped onto five positions; all movements
constantly alter it and make it the other’s begin in, go through, and end in a position,
blazon. . . . (1974/1984, p. 101) theoretically if not literally. Further, unlike
de Certeau’s walkers in the city, practitioners
In her introduction to The Geography whose improvisatory negotiations of the land­
of Identity, Patricia Yaeger asks, “Are there scape rewrite it in the most protean and
‘rules’ if not laws driving the narration of anonymous terms, ballet dancers are given
space?” (1996, p. 4). Are there regulations that seven basic movements that govern interac­
dictate protocols for the performative transfor­ tions with space: one can bend at the knees
mation of space into place, or the reverse? toward the ground, rise on the balls of the feet
Here, critical close readings of performance or toes away from the ground, jump or stretch
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 53

into space, turn around in it, or glide or dart self-surveillance by dancers looking in the
through it. mirror at (some would say “for”) themselves.
Rules for corporeal placement in ballet There are also “back backstages,” escapes
are echoed by maps organizing studio space. from ballet’s official panoptic regime. These
Walls and corners are numbered; there are are waiting and dressing rooms, though they,
eight positions or spatial orientations possible like the barre, may be tactically appropriated
in a room. Dancers in class may, as directed, for self-display beyond the rubric of official
face corners, generating a diagonal alignment, pedagogy and for audiences other than the
or face walls, appearing “straight on.” The mirror or instructor.
proscenium stage is the architectural paradigm And yet, despite the labeling of bodies,
for studio space; “front” is where the audience walls, and corners, the answer to Yaeger’s
will be, though this spot is occupied by a mir­ question of laws narrating space is also “no.”
ror in most studios, transforming “front” Whatever ballet’s strategic ambitions for bod­
from a dialogic location between dancer and ies in/and space, individuals inevitably seize
audience into a “screen wherein dancers enact opportunities to narrate studio space, and
[and display] their competence” for them­ performatively construct place, differently, in
selves (Sadono, 1999, p. 164). Thus, the mir­ turns of physicality and of phrase that insinu­
rored front of the studio is both a model of the ate themselves into and redeploy ballet’s ritu­
performance stage, the goal, and a metaphoric als of proprietary power. In these cases, ballet
and pedagogical “‘stage’ on which the dancer creates vernacular landscapes, transforming
enacts her acquisition of the ballet ideal,” and the sparseness of studios into home places and
through which she must pass, as she engages bodies into maps; it organizes relationships
“‘the socio-cultural construct of an ideal to form affective environments, geographies
image’ reflected back to her” in the process of of the heart. The vernacular landscapes con­
training (p. 165). structed through performance are the settings,
While the paradigm of the proscenium the literal and psychic grounds, for the daily,
figures prominently in the logic governing bal­ routine time and talk that shape art in com­
let’s negotiation of space and place, it is impor­ munities of practitioners. As J. B. Jackson
tant to note that the studio is simultaneously argues, such landscapes are always local,
configured, both geographically and chrono­ regardless of the ideals incarnated there; they
logically, as onstage and backstage. Dance are stabilized by idiosyncratic ways of seeing
barres typically line three of four studio walls, the world (1984, p. 149) as well as by the
exempting only the front or audience position. community’s “distinct way[s] of defining and
One-half to two-thirds of a ballet class takes handling time and space” (p. 150).
place at the barre. Here, drills of basic move­ Jackson suggests that such landscapes are
ments enforce steps and skills to be reassem­ not “political,” in the sense of engaging those
bled later into choreography. Warming up and superstructures that “official” discourses erect
stretching happen here. The barre is back­ to maintain “the public” (p. 150). Yet, just as
stage, where isolated mechanics are perfected. “most buildings can be understood in terms
Generally, a time break separates barre work/ of power or authority—as efforts to assume,
backstage from center work/onstage, which extend, resist, or accommodate it” (Camille
emphasizes the combinations of steps intrinsic Wells as quoted in Hayden, 1997, p. 30), just
to choreography in performance before the as there is, in effect, a politics of use, vernacu­
gaze of the mirror/audience. The ballet studio lar landscapes made through dance are deeply
is a panoptic place; even the barre as backstage and thoroughly political. These landscapes
is a place of surveillance by instructors, and are shot through with contested notions
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54 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

of appropriate gender performances and Bakhtin developed the chronotope to

gendered resistances, class-inflected expecta­ examine historical poetics in literature, though
tions of the relationship between art and life, he also offered possibilities of more expan­
and issues of discipline and authority, all nego­ sive readings. He writes, “Out of the actual
tiated using ballet as a road map for navigat­ chronotopes of our world (which serve as the
ing family, as a stage for the self, or as a refuge source of representation) emerge the reflected
from routine. Ballet technique constructs inti­ and created chronotopes represented in the
mate, familiar places for a politics of self- and work (in the text)” (1981, p. 253). Thus, the
community-building that Leonard Hawes chronotope functions as a dialogic intersection
characterizes in spatial terms; this politics of the world and the representational gram­
“disclos[es] ways of escaping from and relo­ mars and protocols that organize and repro­
cating to different subject positions at the duce it, like technique. As Katerina Clark
same time [it] redraw[s] ideological bound­ observes, “The chronotope is a bridge, not a
aries” (1998, p. 273). wall” between materiality and technologies
Performative theories of place and time and products of representation (Clark &
emphasize the relational, embodied nature of Holquist, 1984, p. 279). The metaphors Bakhtin
context. In so doing, they mesh with other uses to characterize the relationship between
scholars’ critical formulations of the literal the “actual world as sources of representation
ground of aesthetic experience. In “Forms of and the world represented” are generative
Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel,” (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 253). He writes,
Mikhail Bakhtin theorizes time as a social loca­
tion. The chronotope, he argues, names “the However forcefully the real and the repre­
intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial sented world resist fusion, however
immutable the presence of that categorical
relationships.” Here, “time, as it were, thick­ boundary line between them, they are nev­
ens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; ertheless indissolubly tied up with each
likewise, space becomes charged and respon­ other and find themselves in continual
sive to the movements of plot, time, and mutual interaction; uninterrupted exchange
history” (1981, p. 84). Chronotopes are plural; goes on between them, similar to the unin­
terrupted exchange of matter between living
they describe organizing and support functions
organisms and the environment that sur­
of representation and meaning, much as tech­ rounds them. . . . Of course this process
nique serves as the infrastructure shaping cor­ of exchange is itself chronotopic. . . . We
poreality and narrating space in dance: might even speak of a special creative
chronotope inside which this exchange
What is the significance of all of these between work and life occurs. (p. 254)
chronotopes? What is most obvious is their
meaning for narrative. They are the organiz­ Bakhtin’s organic imagery here recalls his
ing centers for the fundamental narrative other physiological metaphor used to charac­
events of the novel. The chronotope is the
terize the chronotope: where “time takes on
place where the knots of narrative are tied
and untied. It can be said without qualifica­ flesh” (1981, p. 84). As Clark notes, “Time
tion that to them belongs the meaning that assuming flesh is something more than a trope
shapes narrative. (1981, p. 250) here, for those who enflesh the categories are
people” (Clark & Holquist, 1984, p. 280).
Further, chronotopes, like technique, are More specifically, they are bodies.
prospective, delimiting “a field of possibili­ I suggest that performance theory reveals
ties” and specifying “the possibility of events” chronotopes as corporeal as well as textual.
(Morson, 1994, p. 106). They are enacted by material bodies who
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 55

invigorate formal, representational grammars corporeal chronotope of ballet holds them in

and protocols like ballet technique and, in tension, not as antinomies but as partners.
turn, manipulate these grammars and proto­ As a formal category, the chronotope
cols for their own ends. Here the ballet studio, links the organizational mechanics of telling
in all its temporal and geographical speci­ (szuzhet) to the messiness of the told (fabula);
ficity, becomes the membrane facilitating this it is the place “where the knots of narrative,”
chronotopic process of exchange between those intersections of events and plots, “are
particular bodies and the technologies of repre­ tied and untied” (Holquist, 1990, p. 113; quo­
sentation, between art and life. tations from Bakhtin, 1981, p. 250). Corporeal
Two additional aspects of the chronotope chronotopes in the ballet studio inhabit and
make it especially useful for characterizing the enact these same dynamics as they performa­
busy intersections of bodies, space, and time in tively constitute space and time. Here, ballet’s
the ballet studio. In Dialogism: Bakhtin and technical protocols of reading and writing the
His World, Holquist notes an apparent antin­ body generate “formal and rational design” in
omy in the concept: class and “enslavement to narrative” onstage,
particularly in the action ballet warhorses that
Certain chronotopes are treated by Bakhtin so often figure in the repertories of semipro­
as if they were transhistorical structures that fessional companies (Foster, 1998, pp. 258,
are not unique to particular points in time.
There is a tension, if not a downright con­
262). Yet corporeal chronotopes also organize
tradiction, between these examples and the just-so stories of self-creation in commu­
the claims Bakhtin makes elsewhere for the nity, stories that redeploy ballet’s technical
chronotope’s ability to be in dialogue with rhetorics to other, infinitely more idiosyncratic
specific, extra-literary historical contexts. ends (Clark & Holquist, 1984, p. 68). They
(1990, p. 112)
emerge in those banal and essential moments
of reminiscence where events retrospectively
Holquist suggests resolving such a contra­
become narrative: “Remember when?” These
diction by thinking of the chronotope “bifo­
stories both reflect and construct corporeal
cally”: “invoking [the chronotope] in any
chronotopes similar to those Bakhtin finds in
particular case, one must be careful to discrim­
the novel.
inate between its use as a lens for close-up
One corporeal chronotope is particularly
work and its ability to serve as an optic for see­
useful for describing how ballet organizes bod­
ing at a distance” (p. 113). Holquist makes a
ies, time, space, and stories. “Roam” is a per-
valid point but corporeal chronotopes in ballet
formative version of Bakhtin’s chronotope of
suggest thinking differently about “bifocality”; the road; it reflects the process of moving, as
perhaps less discrimination rather than more is well as the location of movement, that charac­
called for. As I mentioned above, ballet tech­ terizes the corporeality of time and space in
nique—including its grammar of bodies and/in ballet. “Roam” refers to
space, and its repertoire, places its participants
in a “both-and” relationship to here and now, both a point of new departures and a place
there and then. In ballet, participants literally for events to find their denouement. Time,
follow in the transhistorical footsteps of other as it were, fuses together with space and
dancers, though their pointe shoes may be flows into it (forming the road); this is the
source of the rich metaphorical expansion
made from high-tech composite materials
on the image of the road as a course: “the
rather than layers of fabric and glue. Both the course of a life,” “to set out on a new
convergences and the discrepancies between course,” [or a course of training]. (Bakhtin,
here and there, now and then matter, and the 1981, p. 244)
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56 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

Moreover, the road may be “one that passes In ballet, as in all aesthetic enterprises,
through familiar territory, and not through spatial practices, like chronological ones, are
some exotic alien world” (Bakhtin, 1981, locally enacted. However they may be legiti­
p. 245). In ballet, the chronotope of “roam” mated by appeals to transhistorical precedent
often unites both the familiar and the exotic. or ahistorical purity, space and time in perfor­
To roam is to move away from home, mance are uniquely inflected by the bodies
narrowly construed as the domestic sanctuary and stories that put them in play. Yet perfor­
of/for the family, perhaps toward a new home mance’s potential for theorizing the daily,
in technique. Both popular representations of social dimensions of aesthetics is not limited
ballet and the chestnuts of the classical reper­ solely to what bodies do. Artifacts perform.
tory bear this out. Pursuing ballet means leav­ They become animated by, and animate, the
ing home, whether such leave-taking involves commodity exchanges that also constitute the
moving across town or to another part of the material ground of aesthetic experience.
country, as in the popular films Flashdance
and Billy Elliot. Typically in these accounts,
the terminus of roaming, like Bakhtin’s road, THE SOCIAL LIVES OF THINGS
is a point where “social distances collapse,” if
only, as in these examples, through fantasies Commodities, like persons, have
of pure merit that admit the hardworking social lives.
seeker to the exotic and hallowed inner sanc­ —A. Appadurai
tum of technique. Likewise, the repertory is
filled with images of roaming: Clara and her A study of commodity culture
nutcracker prince journey to the “Kingdom always turns out to be an explo­
of Sweets,” where familiar confections become ration of a fantastic realm in which
dancing marvels; Albrecht goes slumming things act, speak, rise, fall, fly,
incognito in a peasant village and Giselle trav­ evolve. . . .
els back from the dead; James follows the —T. Richards
Sylphide into the literal and affective woods.
Roaming is, in fact, logistically central to After Arjun Appadurai, consider the commod­
a professional ballet career; frequently this ity as “anything intended for exchange”
involves moving, or aspiring to move, to (Appadurai, 1986, p. 5). This definition avoids
New York where not one but two highly any binarism between art and commodity,
esteemed companies beckon like the promised thus also avoiding what Appadurai calls “an
land. It may mean touring with the relative excessively positivist conception of the com­
minor leagues and small markets of semi­ modity, as being a certain kind of thing,
professional and regional companies across thus restricting . . . debate to the matter of
the country. Even with a position in a com­ deciding what kind of thing it is” (p. 13).
paratively secure major company, roaming This is in contrast to Bill Brown, who distin­
means touring, not only in the United States, guishes between the “object” and the “thing.”
but across the world as well. Most dramati­ The former is characterized by its use value
cally, chronotopes of roaming in ballet link and symbolic capital, i.e., its commodity
geopolitics to bodies, as in the famous Cold potential, and the latter by its misuse value, its
War defections of Rudolf Nureyev, Natalia potential to be deployed counter to its purpose
Makarova, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, or in (2003, p. 399).
less publicized contemporary dancers’ flights For Appadurai, a contextual, social life is
from Cuba. intrinsic to the commodity. He writes,
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 57

Let us approach commodities as things in enter into relations with us but, potentially,
a certain situation, a situation that can make claims on those who enter these situa­
characterize many different kinds of thing,
tions as well. As Richards observes, “Things
at different points in their social lives.
This . . . means breaking significantly with act, speak, rise, fall, fly, evolve” (1991, p. 11).
the production-dominated Marxian view of Performance theory’s emphasis on the
the commodity and focusing on its total tra­ embodied, contested notions of culture makes
jectory from production through exchange/ it a particularly useful tool for examining
distribution, to consumption. (1986, p. 13) which theatrical techniques animate specific
commodity situations, and how particular
The commodity situation in the social life objects assert their claims, in their individual
of any thing can be productively enlarged by contexts. Further, it clearly illuminates the
reading with and against the notion of “com­ macro and micro politics involved in these
modity fetishism” wherein objects are ani­ transactions. Native American art, and Navajo
mated, appearing “as autonomous figures folk art in particular, offer rich opportunities
endowed with a life of their own, which enter to employ performance-based theories of the
into relations both with each other and with commodity.
the human race” (Karl Marx as quoted in
Bennett, 2001, p. 117). In classical Marxist
terms, things perform and “living, laboring THE COMMODITY SITUATION
persons are deadened” (Bennett, 2001, p. 117). OF NAVAJO FOLK ART
Yet, as both Appadurai and philosopher Jane “Navajo folk art” is a contested and elastic
Bennett suggest, the commodity situation is term. In their book Navajo Folk Art: The
not quite so simple. Bennett suggests that People Speak, the first and only systematic
“Marx is too dismissive of this animation of book-length treatment of the subject, Chuck
the object” (2001, p. 117). “Within his and Jan Rosenak argue that the category is
frame,” she argues, “it is reduced to the atavis­ characterized as
tic of commodity fetishism.” In contrast,
Bennett sees the animation of objects as a work by untrained, self-taught artists that
source of productive questions: is nonutilitarian, highly personal, even idio­
syncratic. The craft may be derived from
What does it mean for ethics and politics communal traditions, but something per­
when objects appear as animate or as capa­ sonal must be added to qualify it as art. In
ble of making claims upon us? Is this best other words, the craft may be learned but
described as “fetishization”? . . . What are the art is self-taught. (1988, p. 5)
the theatrical techniques by which commodi­
ties exert power over human bodies? What is
However, the distinction between craft/learned
the role of repetition in commodification?
What dimensions of the consuming self does and art/self-taught is difficult to uphold in prac­
such repetition act upon? (2001, p. 116) tice. Further, the emphasis on being self-taught
presupposes a level of isolation from institu­
Viewed from a performance perspective, tions that is often more imagined than real,
there are several striking elements about this particularly for younger Navajo artists. Many
list of questions. Implicit here are the assump­ folk artists have had formal art training in high
tions that “theatrical techniques” and repeti­ school; others have attended community col­
tion are intrinsic to the commodity situation; leges or universities, or conservatories like the
our task is only to discover which ones and Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
how. Further, in commodity situations, Finally, boundaries between folk art and fine
objects are not only animated; they not only art are likewise complex.
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58 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

I opt for a more emic definition: pictorial they move from one field to the other, being
rugs, carvings, pottery, baskets, and paintings equally tactical and subtle in both; they keep
the ball moving between them—from the
can be considered folk art if they fit within, or
workday to evening, from cooking to leg­
expand, the existing range of objects already ends and gossip, from the devices of lived
included in the category and/or if the creator history to those of history retold. (p. 78)
of the piece, or the trader or collector who
buys it, considers it part of the category. Thus, After de Certeau, I see a praxical and pro­
“Navajo folk art” describes a set of relation­ cedural homology between stories, perfor­
ships between people, objects, and history, not mance in the verbal field, and Navajo folk
the biographies of individual artists or the art objects as “nonlinguistic action.” All are
properties of the objects themselves. devices of lived history, all move from the ver­
Appadurai’s definition is particularly rele­ bal field into those of the visual, tactile, kines­
vant to Navajo folk art, which functioned thetic. All assume and demonstrate what de
at its very outset as a medium for exchange Certeau calls savoir-dire, the “know-how-to­
rather than solely and simply as an aesthetic say,” the communicative competence integral
practice. I suggest that objects animated in and to a story’s, or an object’s, social and poetic
by commodity situations, and Navajo folk art functions. The object, like the performed
in particular, perform in multiple senses of story, is the membrane across which per­
the word. Here I am working closely from former/artists and audiences encounter and
Richard Bauman’s definition, developed in the imagine one another, whether from opposite
context of his work with the folktale: sides of the proscenium or opposite sides of
a trading post or gallery counter. Neither is
I understand performance as a mode of simply a text waiting to be animated but a
communication, a way of speaking, the display that binds communicative competence,
essence of which resides in the assumption
of responsibility to an audience for a display
history, affect, action, and thought together
of communicative skill, highlighting the within the commodity situation. Thus, the
way in which communication is carried out, object in the situation speaks; it is, simultane­
above and beyond its referential content. ously, a story and an event. It animates rela­
. . . Performance calls forth special attention tions of exchange even as it is, itself, animated
to and heightened awareness of both the act
in the process.
of expression and the performer. Viewed in
these terms, performance may be understood These relationships between stories in
as the enactment of the poetic function, the performance and the Navajo folk art object
essence of spoken artistry. (1986, p. 3) as performance are not simply theoretical.
Acquiring these objects in commodity situa­
Bauman’s references to “speaking” and tions is suffused with performance. Indeed,
“spoken artistry” are not impediments to my it is possible to view the purchase of these
view of the commodity as performance. In de objects as the purchase of stories in perfor­
Certeau’s discussion, “An Art of Speaking,” mance. An anonymous article in Brush and
also focused on the folktale, he argues for a Pencil, 1905, asserts,
view of story that makes a movement rather
than simply telling about it (1974/1984, One may view an olla or a basket and
admire, in a casual way, its odd designs, and
p. 81). For de Certeau, stories bind the art of
turn away with but a slight thrill of plea­
speaking to the art of operating (p. 79): sure. Let the maker of that article interpret
the significance of those colors, pattern,
The same practices now appear in a verbal and shape, and he has found a feast for his
field, now in a field of nonlinguistic actions; soul. These are poems, histories, and creeds
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 59

woven into every Indian basket and story more directly and specifically (2002),
imprinted upon every decorated piece of though other artists opt for different strategies.
pottery. (“Art of the American Indian,”
For example, Betsy Emerson uses humor to
1986, pp. 84–85)
“animate” her fired mud toy horses; she noted
that the hair for their manes and tails came
This desire for story in performance and/as
from her own animals. “So,” she said, “if you’re
the commodity is not purely historical, as Barry
riding around Navajo country and you see a
Simpson, a member of one of the major South­
horse with no tail, he’s mine” (B. Emerson, per­
west trading families and owner, with his
sonal communication, February 9, 2002).
brother Steve, of Twin Rocks Trading Post
The Rosenaks subtitle their book The
indicates in the following narrative. The
People Speak, but, in the performances of
Simpsons are known for their commitment to,
these commodities, who and what speaks is not
and advocacy on behalf of, Navajo basketry.
always obvious. Specifically, I would suggest
They are widely credited with raising the pro­
that commodity performances in the case of
file of the form and with the development of
Navajo folk art are complex acts of ventrilo­
the spectacularly complex “art basket.” Here,
quism where objects enact stories of disrup­
Barry relates how Jonathan Black, whose wife
tion and continuity created or imagined by all
Alicia Nelson is also a gifted weaver, negotiates
involved in the commodity situation.
performance in/as the commodity situation.
In the examples above, the artist/performer
animates the object in the commodity situa­
On a recent visit . . . Alicia made her way
tion through story; the residues of these stories
into the trading post with a very interesting
basket, which portrayed an ear of corn on continue to be ventriloquized through the
a white background, surrounded by a green object across the contexts of trading post and
and black border. There were a number of collection. Yet there are two other options for
people in the store, and everyone was drawn commodity ventriloquism. In the first, the
to the basket; they all wanted to know what
objects themselves perform stories seemingly
it meant. Alicia quickly let everyone know
that she had not woven the basket; her intrinsic to their own design. In the second, the
husband did and he was in the car. . . . object performs the projections of its owners
The people were happy to meet Jonathan, in a manner that recalls the character Seymour
and they shook his hand, congratulated him on Polatkin’s observation in Sherman Alexie’s
his artistic accomplishment and asked him to film The Business of Fancydancing: “Indians
interpret the basket’s hidden meaning. Poor
must see visions and white people can have
Jonathan gulped, took a deep breath and began.
Pointing to the ear of corn he said, “That’s us.” some visions if they are in love with Indians”
He then pointed to the white background and (Estes, Rosenfelt, & Alexie, 2002). The fol­
said, “That’s the dawn.” Finally he pointed to lowing example explores both of these perfor­
the encircling pattern and said, “This is protec­ mances, as well as issues of continuity and
tion.” He smiled uneasily and exited the trading
disruption, map and story, as all are concretized
post, escaping back to the car and his child care
duties. Everyone looked after him, feeling, I am in the performance of a particular genre of
sure, a little short changed. Their interest had folk art object.
been sincere and they wondered what had hap­ The Hathale family, Bruce and Dennis, paint
pened. (B. Simpson, personal communication, images on old bedsheets dyed the rosy brown
October 11, 2002) hue of red rocks. The resulting images are them­
selves performatively constituted small worlds;
Barry Simpson notes, “the manner in which they feature clouds, corn, trolls, mountains,
Jonathan teaches us about his art” forces the water horses and water oxen, and rainbows:
spectator to engage both the object and the geographies organized into narratives and
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60 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

further organized into images. But these sections taboos on “fixing” these performances,
of dyed bedsheet do more than represent the particularly for an audience of outsiders, had
world in a nonmonumental format. Through a to be both managed and disrupted. The
complex interplay of continuity and disruption, Rosenaks quote Roger as saying,
these textiles create and perform the world as
both map and story. I . . . felt [his sons] could reproduce the
The Hathale brothers are the primary artists sandpaintings I made for ceremonies as long
working in a genre called “memory aids,” a as they were accurate. If others did this type
of art they would be harmed, but I have the
variation on Navajo sandpainting. The Navajo power to protect my boys. The idea was
word “hataalii” can be generically translated as mine, but I have never made one myself.
“healer,” or more specifically, as a healer spe­ Certain figures would bring harm, but I will
cializing in ritual performances that treat both not let these be sold. (1988, p. 77)
individuals and the community. The late Roger
Hathale, Bruce and Dennis’s father, used sand- Here it is worth noting the influence of
paintings, complex multicolored reproductions the Rosenaks’ book; it both contributed
of ceremonial motifs, to effect individual and to the creation of, and legitimated and codified,
communal cures. Mark Bahti writes, the commodity situation for Navajo folk art.
Certainly such an authoritative testament to
Sandpainting images require the careful atten­ the authenticity of the Hathales’ paintings gen­
tion of the hataalii, as a slight error could erated heightened interest in, and marketability
result in harm rather than a cure. The image of, this work, particularly on the part of collec­
itself, which must be started at sunrise and
completed by sunset, can cause harm to those
tors who knew of the cultural taboos around
present. To prevent this from happening, the preserving actual sandpaintings. For collectors,
image is first “erased” with a wooden stick the vision of vicarious participation in the real
with praying feathers attached. In some thing would be inextricably linked to the social
instances the sand on which the image has life of the memory aid. They could both buy
been created rests on a tarp in order to facili­
and be in the performance.
tate complete removal of the sand and image.
The material is disposed of some distance Yet the Rosenaks’ account does not stand
from any home, trail or corral. A final prayer alone. James Ostler, owner of the Cow Canyon
is said over the remains, which some say Trading Post, recalls Roger Hathale offering a
“discharms” the sands. (2000, p. 9) different account, one emphasizing disruption
of, rather than continuity with, the “authen­
The sandpainting is a performance. It is an tic.” According to Ostler, Hathale told him
action as well as an object. Exact or inexact, that his experience as a medicine man did
its animation has consequences for the per­ indeed protect his sons, but it was because of
formers and for the world. It is, simultane­ his advice on details to alter in the paintings
ously, object, story, performance, and event. precisely to disrupt their authenticity. Because
The paintings, and not only the performers, of the intricacies of the form, changes of color
“work” in the performance context. or breaks in lines effectively neutralize any
Reproductions of sandpaintings have been threat posed by either fixing exact copies of
widely circulated as both tourist art and fine sacred forms or making gravely consequential,
art for decades. The Hathales’ paintings on though unintended, mistakes. The issue here is
muslin, however, are especially interesting. not which story is true, but rather how multi­
According to the Rosenaks, the late Roger ple and even contradictory narratives often
Hathale suggested to his boys that they repro­ embrace one another in the commodity per­
duce sandpaintings. However, the strict formances that are Navajo folk art.
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Performance, Performativity, and Cultural Poiesis 61

Notions of the performing object, or the of encountering an Indian other in another

object as an act of ventriloquism, are not in place, now preserved both in and out of time.
themselves new. Indeed they are prefigured The folk art object becomes both the (imag­
in Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism and ined) voice of, and a synecdoche for, a tribe
Bennett’s critique discussed above. Elaine or a place or a fantasy of authentic contact or
Scarry adopts and modifies this Marxist frame­ expression. Some authors and critics suggest
work in support of her argument that “artifacts that “the opportunistic reworking of the
are (in spite of their inertness) perhaps most past” is central to the commodity situation of
accurately perceived as a ‘making sentient of Native American art generally because the
the external world’” (1985, p. 281). Scarry complex political dimensions of native subjec­
posits the object as a “projection of the human tivity are “beyond the ken of most Americans,
body,” intimately linked to subjectification. for whom Indians largely remain a people of
This process of projection “ultimately sug­ myth and fantasy” (Bordevich, 1996, p. 40).
gest[s] that by transporting the external object In this view, the “vanishing” native is both
world into the sentient [subject’s] interior, that brought to life and frozen in forms that
interior gains some small share of the blissful could be superficially viewed as naive, politi­
immunity of inert objecthood” (p. 285). cally innocent, and timeless—products of a
Further, the projective animation of the object homogenous “folk” whose artists, neverthe­
deprives it of “its privilege of being irresponsi­ less, speak with amusing idiosyncrasy. Further,
ble to its sentient inhabitants on the basis that the object functions as a perpetual perfor­
it is itself nonsentient.” mance of inclusion and appreciation for col­
An explicitly theatrical example of a per­ lectors, a performance that simultaneously
forming object illustrates Scarry’s point while offers them absolution for their positions of
illuminating specific dynamics of the commod­ relative privilege vis à vis the artist; exemption
ity situation of Navajo folk art. This is the from the often sordid history of non-Indian
stage prop that, like a folk art object, occupies desires for, and designs on, Indian objects;
“an uneasy position between text [as story] and recognition for a good eye, aesthetic
and performance” (Sofer, 2003, p. vi). savvy complete with multicultural sophisti­
According to Andrew Sofer, props, like the cation. Scarry’s “blissful inertness” is a privi­
folk art object, are animated by performance lege transferred from the performing object,
and, in the process “trace spatial trajectories and the residues of its production, to the pas­
and create temporal narratives as they track sive, innocent, appreciative audience even
through a given performance” (p. 2). Just as as the Hathales’ memory aids, for example,
Scarry argues for the object’s capacity to ani­ enact their responsibility for cultural exacti­
mate the external world, Sofer posits that the tude or cultural disruption, depending on the
function of the prop (and, indeed, of theatre) account.
is “to bring dead images back to life—but with In Navajo folk art, and in social aesthetic
a twist” (p. 3). In a sense, props are part of transactions generally, object/performances
the larger poiesis of “drama’s opportunistic create and stabilize small worlds of creativity
reworking of its own past” (p. 202). and commerce replete with history and desire,
Likewise, Navajo folk art, animated by with contested “tournaments of value” and
artists, traders, and collectors, ventriloquizes politics of discipline, “diversion and display”
and accommodates a variety of spatiotempo­ (Appadurai, 1986, p. 57). In so doing, these
ral narratives with a variety of political performances remind us of what Bennett has
valences, from Jonathan Black’s truncated called “the uncanny ability of nonhuman
glossary of Navajo iconography to fantasies things to act upon us” (2001, p. 127).
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62 PERFORMANCE TROUBLE

CONCLUSION collection is neither absolute or innocent.

Ballet’s inscription of its corporeal geography
These examples demonstrate the generative
exposes the performative investments all
utility of performance and the performative in
techniques—performance and otherwise—
addressing two clarion calls from contempo­
make in mapping their object-bodies.
rary critical cultural theory. The first is Michel
Even as it embraces, indeed depends, on
de Certeau’s (1974/1984) advocacy of a science
embodied, situated knowledges of the particu­
of the singular in The Practice of Everyday
lar, performance studies heeds Joan Scott’s (1991)
Life. He argues that consumers, including con­
warnings against the uncritical valorization of
sumers of culture, are engaged in complex acts
experience as the ultimate referent, the final
of poiesis always already in motion. The atom­
arbiter of truth claims. To the contrary, the view
izing practices of conventional quantitative
of cultural poiesis (and cultural poets) that per­
social science are
formance studies offers to scholars in the human
virtually ignorant of these trajectories, since sciences is predicated on the kind of dialogic
[they are] satisfied with classifying, calculat­ exchanges between multiple texts, conversa­
ing, and putting into tables the “lexical” tions, and perspectives often labeled “triangula­
units which compose them but to which tion” in qualitative research. It sees the research
they cannot be reduced. . . . Statistical inves­
enterprise itself as a form of cultural poiesis, an
tigation grasps the material of these prac­
tices but not their form. . . . (p. xviii) ensemble performance, if you will, replete with
all the political, aesthetic, and affective fields
Performance and performativity, however, central to memory, to place, and to the human
proceed from the premise that culture, and the and nonhuman actors that live there.
myriad acts of daily poiesis that produce it, are
always already in motion: memory is continu­ REFERENCES
ally produced in ongoing dances between there Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities.
and then, here and now; places are created out London: Verso.
of spaces; artifacts become animated through Appadurai, A. (1986). Introduction: Commodities
consumption. In the second of these clarion and the politics of value. In A. Appadurai
(Ed.), The social life of things (pp. 3–63).
calls, Donna Haraway (1991) advances an
England: Cambridge University Press.
intellectual program of situated knowledges, Art of the American Indian. (1996). In L. Dilworth,
rooted in the recognition that truth claims are Imagining Indians in the Southwest. Washing­
embodied, contingent and accountable, as a ton, DC: Smithsonian Press.
way to reinvigorate objectivity as a social and Bahti, M. (2000). A guide to Navajo sandpaintings.
epistemological force. Haraway writes, “Femi­ Tucson, AZ: Rio Nuevo.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination:
nist objectivity is about limited location and sit­ Four essays (M. Holquist, Ed.; C. Emerson &
uated knowledge, not about transcendence and M. Holquist, Trans.). Austin: University of
splitting of subject and object. In this way we Texas Press.
might become answerable for what we learn Bakhtin, M. M. (1990). Art and answerability:
how to see” (p. 190). Haraway’s use of “answer­ Early philosophical essays (M. Holquist &
V. Liapunov, Eds.; V. Liapunov, Trans.).
able” recalls Bakhtin’s answerability discussed
Austin: University of Texas Press. (Original
above: the idea that art and life are partners work published 1919)
in a profoundly political duet. Performing Bauman, R. (1986). Story, performance, event.
objects reveal that de/recontextualization in the England: Cambridge University Press.
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Bennett, J. (2001). The enchantment of modern life. Haraway, D. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. women: The reinvention of nature. New York:
Bordevich, F. (1996). Revolution in Indian country. Routledge.
American Heritage 47(4), 34–46. Hawes, L. (1998). Becoming-other-wise: Conversa­
Brown, B. (2003). The secret life of things: Virginia tional performance and the politics of experi­
Woolf and the matter of modernism. In P. R. ence. Text and Performance Quarterly, 18(4),
Matthews & D. McWhirter (Eds.), Aesthetic 273–299.
subjects (pp. 397–430). Minneapolis: University Hayden, D. (1997). The power of place: Urban
of Minnesota Press. landscapes as public history. Cambridge, MA:
Butler, J. (1993a). Bodies that matter: On the dis­ MIT Press.
cursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge. Hitchcock, P. (1993). Dialogics of the oppressed.
Butler, J. (1993b). Performative acts and gender con­ Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
stitution: An essay in phenomenology and femi­ Holquist, M. (1990). Dialogism: Bakhtin and his
nist thought. In S. E. Case (Ed.), Performing world. New York: Routledge.
feminisms: Feminist critical theory and theatre Jackson, J. B. (1984). Discovering the vernacular
(pp. 270–282). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press.
University Press. Lafreniere, B. (2000). Music through the dark.
Charlé, S. (2001, August 12). With monkeys and Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
giants, rescuing a lost world. New York Times, Matthews, P. R., & McWhirter, D. (Eds.). (2003).
p. AR6. Aesthetic subjects. Minneapolis: University of
Clark, K., & Holquist, M. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin. Minnesota Press.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard University Miller, D. (1998). Why some things matter. In
Press. D. Miller (Ed.), Why some things matter
Coburn, J. (1993, September 26). Dancing back. (pp. 3–21). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Los Angeles Times Magazine, pp. 14ff. Morson, G. S. (1994). Narrative and freedom: The
Connerton, P. (1989). How societies remember. shadows of time. New Haven, CT: Yale
England: Cambridge University Press. University Press.
Conquergood, D. (1991). Rethinking ethnography. Mydans, S. (1993, December 30). Khmer dancers
Communication Monographs, 58(2), 179–194. try to save an art form ravaged by war.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life New York Times, pp. C11ff.
(S. Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley: University of Naficy, H. (1993). The making of exile cultures:
California Press. (Original work published 1974) Iranian television in Los Angeles. Minneapolis:
Diamond, E. (1996). Introduction. In E. Diamond University of Minnesota Press.
(Ed.), Performance and cultural politics. Patraka, V. (1999). Spectacular suffering: Theatre,
(pp. 1–12). New York: Routledge. fascism, and the Holocaust. Bloomington:
Estes, L., Rosenfelt, S. (Producers), & Alexie, S. Indiana University Press.
(Writer/Director). (2002). The business Pran, D. (1997). Children of Cambodia’s killing
of fancydancing [Motion picture]. United fields: Memoirs by survivors. (K. DePaul, Ed.).
States: FallsApart Productions. (Available New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
from FallsApart Productions, www.fallsapart Radway, J. (1991). Reading the romance. Chapel
.com) Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
Foster, S. L. (1998). Choreography and narra­ Richards, T. (1991). The commodity culture of
tive: Ballet’s staging of story and desire. Victorian England. London: Verso.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Rosenak, C., & Rosenak, J. (1988). Navajo
Glatzer, J. (Director/Producer). (2003). The flute folk art: The people speak. Flagstaff, AZ:
player [Motion picture]. United States: Over Northland.
The Moon Productions. (Available from Sadono, R. F. (1999). Performing symptoms. Text
National Asian American Telecommunications and Performance Quarterly, 19(2), 159–171.
Association, [email protected]) Sam, S. A. (1994). Khmer traditional music today.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in In M. E. Ebihara, C. A. Mortland, &
everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. J. Ledgerwood (Eds.), Cambodian culture
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since 1975: Homeland and exile (pp. 39–47). Turnbull, R. (1999, July 25). Reconstructing
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Khmer classics from zero. New York Times,
Scarry, E. (1985). The body in pain: The making p. AR6.
and unmaking of the world. New York: Turner, V. (1982). From ritual to theatre. New
Oxford University Press. York: PAJ Publications.
Scott, J. W. (1991). The evidence of experience. Yaeger, P. (1996). Introduction. In P. Yaeger (Ed.),
Critical Inquiry, 17(4), 773–797. The geography of identity. Ann Arbor:
Sofer, A. (2003). The stage life of props. Ann University of Michigan Press.
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Tuan, Y. F. (1977). Space and place: The perspec­
tive of experience. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press.
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PART II
Performing History
A Politics of Location

LISA MERRILL

SHARING THE TOOLS cultural practices or aesthetic acts. We know of

any past instance of cultural production by the
This section of The SAGE Handbook of traces it leaves for the historian to question and
Performance Studies deals with the field of to analyze. But traces are fragmentary at best
performance history. The past—shimmering and not all cultural practices are preserved or
with its ghosts—infiltrates the present moment documented. Significant efforts have been taken
and the future, as I write these words, antici­ to save some cultural events, document their
pating the histories new theories and ways physical production, and celebrate their recep­
of seeing call into being. History, like perfor­ tion, while other cultural events have been over­
mance, is both a subject of study and the looked, erased, or discarded.
object or fruits of that study. The doing of Within the field of performance history
history, inquiring into the past, then, is an act there has been a productive tension between
which results in “histories” the narratives or a focus on “recovering” as objects of study a
stories or performances which are the objects broad range of historical acts as performances,
and products of that study.1 And history, how­ and a focus on “uncovering” and analyzing
ever it is performed, is an embodied interac­ agendas in texts, artifacts, and embodied prac­
tion with traces found in the material evidence tices so as to challenge the conceptual cate­
of artifacts, whose interpretation demands gories that frame much historical work and
other performances of meaning-making. These transform the disciplinary paradigms within
traces are rendered significant through the which such concerns have been addressed tra­
historian’s imaginative acts of reconstruction ditionally.2 Thus, the practice of performance
and deconstruction. Performance history, then, history inevitably involves various disciplines
like other forms of historicizing, involves the sharing their tools.
performative act of telling a story—literally Performance historians are particularly
calling it into being. well-positioned to examine the connections
Historians of performance endeavor to place between spectatorship and the power relations
into temporal and social context particular intrinsic to the processes of identification and

65
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66 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

objectification, so as to explore how dominant with the actual objects touched by historical
ideologies were constructed, resisted, and dis­ subjects. Encountering fragmentary objects—
turbed in spectatorial processes in a given time such as manuscript letters, diaries, broadsides,
period. Suren Lalvani (1996) has contended illustrative material, props, costumes, and
that “concepts of seeing must be viewed as his­ scripts, for example—prompts me to question
torically specific—not only embedded in par­ ways in which representations and perfor­
ticular epistemologies . . . but linked to specific mances of race, gender, and sexuality in an
discourses and forms of social power, and con­ earlier period drew upon and constructed
sequently a particular matrix for organizing the legible bodies as potential objects of identifica­
relations between observer and observed, the tion, of desire, or of vilification for audiences.
visible and the invisible” (p. 2). Thus, perfor­ Part of the challenge and pleasure of the
mance historians need to question how specta­ “doing” of such historical work lies in recog­
tors in earlier time periods saw and understood nizing and teasing out multiple and often con­
performing bodies, focusing on the discourses tradictory meanings inherent in these objects
and material practices that shaped the repre­ and the stories told about them. Implicated
sentations and readings available to audiences. in this act, of course, are the historian’s own
choices to attend to or disregard any of the
relics he or she encounters, as well as to
THE ARCHIVE AS BOTH
acknowledge the limitations inherent in the
REPOSITORY AND “CLOSET”:
form, function, and setting of the closet/archive
A POLITICS OF LOCATION
as well as its fragmentary contents.
Locating oneself as a performance historian Performance historians frequently look for
implies a positionality, and an acknowledg­ what is missing as well as what is present. We
ment of a politics of location. For example, we often assume a role Michel de Certeau (1998)
must recognize how the institutional space of likens to that of a “prowler” in the margins of
a given archive directs and enables some ways accepted narratives and disciplinary practices;
of seeing, while obstructing others. In my own paying particular attention to the absences and
work on the performance of sexual, gender, rationalizations in the archive as we attempt
ethnic, class, and national identities in the nine­ to “circulat[e] around acquired conventions”
teenth century, I have engaged with material of theatre, literary, cultural, and social history,
artifacts housed in the institutional contexts of reading the spaces, silences, and rationaliza­
archives, frequently preserved for reasons hav­ tions in the archive and “deciphering hidden
ing more to do with the performance of history relations held in discourses of other times”
than the history of performance. I have come (p. 79). In my work on nineteenth century
to these artifacts and the repositories that con­ American actress Charlotte Cushman (Merrill,
tain them as a translator, attempting to locate 1999) and her artfully managed presentation
them in their historical moment, as well as to of self, in addition to analyzing Cushman’s
consider them as performances. public theatrical appearances, I examined her
In so doing, I have noticed that the erotic unpublished letters as a series of autobio­
economy of the archive and its holdings is graphical performances in which she played
charged by its potential as both repository and multiple parts. The stories performers like
closet—a collection, and a house for a collec­ Cushman told in their personal correspon­
tion—containing, hiding, erasing, and poten­ dence or authorized to be told in interviews
tially revealing strategies for secrecy and and articles, and even the photographs or
discovery, as well as offering the performance paintings for which they sat, can be considered
historian the tactile pleasures of interacting attempts (albeit not always conscious ones) to
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Performing History 67

position themselves both within and against they addressed. And each built upon the
dominant cultural narratives of gender, sexu­ visibility and accessibility of the other.
ality, race, and class. Exploring nineteenth century representa­
Archives, as I have noted above, are repos­ tions of cross-dressing, same-sex desire, and
itories of artifacts considered by some agency “passing” or shifting racial identities provides
as worthy of saving and are thus subject to particular challenges for archival research,
all of the limitations and interests of the given the ephemeral quality of performance,
agency or institutions that have preserved coupled with the need to recover intentionally
them. Nonetheless, they offer a rich—and censored material. Just as Martha Vicinus
often underutilized—source of primary mater­ (1994) considers it imperative that historians
ial to performance historians. In a recent pro­ of sexuality explore the absences and silences
ject on homoeroticism in the cultural critical in the historical record of subjects who would
constructions of American actors Edwin today be considered gay or lesbian, “argu[ing]
Forrest and Edwin Booth (Merrill 2002), for the possibilities of the ‘not said’ and the
I have drawn upon official texts, such as peri­ ‘not seen’ as conceptual tools” (pp. 58–59) for
odicals, as well as unpublished personal corre­ the writing of history, it is critical that perfor­
spondence to argue that public reception of mance historians read as significant absences
Forrest and Booth—the two foremost nine­ as well as presences in the historical record,
teenth century male actors in the United States particularly when engaging with subjects
and the matinee idols of their times—was whose traces may be intentionally missing,
shaped at a nascent point in the career of each hidden, or not saved by institutional bodies.
by pseudonymous critical reviews and articles
which I discovered to have been authored and
THE ELUSIVENESS OF
authorized by men with deep personal attach­
PERFORM[ANCE]/ING HISTORY
ments to Forrest and Booth respectively.
Prowling has its rewards, as I recognized in Part of the elusiveness of history lies in the
the unpublished letters and articles of these inchoate longing for a story to fill up the
little-known cultural critics the role played by spaces—to make both the “now-ness” of
an economy of homoerotic desire in the the­ the present and the absent past make sense.
atrical reviews published in the periodical Intrinsic to current debates about performance
press. Reading the published criticism along­ history are constructs imposed by the various
side private letters to and from critics James disciplinary genealogies, practices, and effects
Oakes and Adam Badeau, I found that such of both history and performance. At the center
pseudonymous cultural critics set the tone for of the study of many events performed in the
ways in which their subjects would be received past are tensions between the embodied and
by others, operating as metonymic representa­ ephemeral nature of live performance and the
tives for the communities that informed or narrative structure and discursive approach to
motivated their judgments. Moreover, I dis­ history as story.
covered ways in which the development of the Dwight Conquergood (2002) has critiqued
popular cultural institutions of the American as “scriptocentric” the assumptions and prac­
theatre and the American press were closely tices that underlie much theatrical and liter­
related. Each of these discourses and material ary history—noting how the valuing of
practices served as a platform for representa­ literacy over orality privileges elites and leads
tions of a form of nineteenth century white researchers to draw upon written texts as the
American masculinity; in so doing, they exclusive or primary artifacts to be studied,
inevitably helped produce the various publics and even to deploy the trope of “reading”
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68 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

cultural practices to describe ethnographic All historiographical research is articulated

engagements. Following Conquergood’s injunc­ over a socioeconomic, political, and cultural
place of production. It implies an area of
tions, Diana Taylor (2003) urges performance
elaboration that peculiar determinations
studies scholars and students to look beyond circumscribe: a liberal profession, a position
the traditional archive of written texts, to as an observer or a professor, a group of
include for analysis a repertoire of embodied learned people, and so forth. It is therefore
acts and scenarios as paradigms for under­ ruled by constraints, bound to privileges,
standing social structures and their history, and rooted in a particular situation. (p. 58)
noting that, “writing and embodied perfor­
mance have often worked together to layer the This performance history section of The
historical memories that constitute commu­ SAGE Handbook offers a range of examples
nity” (pp. 26 and 35). and applications of performance history.
In addition to shining a light on the Certainly the essays included below are subject
neglected, silenced, or transgressive perfor­ to the challenges de Certeau notes, however,
mances and performers in an earlier period, as examples of performance history, they
performance historians, along with other post- demonstrate complications additional to those
modern theorists, must necessarily trace the constraints, privileges, and positionalities that
elusive ways that culture serves power. Thus, beset more conventional historiographic pro­
the politics of performance history can be one jects. In this section, we explore some of the
of its most elusive features. In terms similar ways performance historians engage and inter­
to those Joyce Appleby (1998) claims beset act with objects or documents or embodied
national histories, we need be mindful that acts, as well as to note the performative nature
performance histories may do more than of their engagement.
account for a particular kind of progress nar­ Some of the performance texts and prac­
rative, but rather, may serve to proselytize for tices discussed in this section, such as the
it (pp. 9–10). Artifacts and relics of perfor­ scripts for preparedness and response to
mances can be rearranged, accidentally or nuclear war analyzed by Tracy C. Davis, and
willfully discarded, evacuating a past too the oral histories of integration explored by
painful to remember, or magnifying and dis­ Della Pollock, are located primarily in the
torting relatively obscure traces into a retro­ social and political dimensions of everyday
spective primacy in service of a particular life and are offered here as examples of per­
politicized narrative of an elusive past. In formance history in which the tropes of
keeping with this largely unarticulated aspect theatrical performance, when deployed by
of historical narratives, Peter Fritzsche (2004) theorists and historians, offer insights into
has suggested that what he refers to as “the the ways everyday social and political life is
melancholy of history” is based upon the his­ staged, heard, remembered, and understood.
torical knowledge of shared losses, wherein Others, such as the essays by Gay Gibson
“people consume and produce historical texts Cima and Shannon Jackson, ask us to ques­
as a way to connect their personal ordeals with tion the archive of performance history—to
larger social narratives” (p. 8). note strategic absences of accounts of cultural
Moreover, inevitably the economy of the performances by women in Cima’s case, and
archive or the academic milieu within which in Jackson’s essay, to note the disciplinary
most performance historians labor reflects the investments in a politics of location that has
class interests these institutions support. As valorized elite ways of knowing, to the detri­
Michel de Certeau (1998) reminds us, ment of performance.
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Performing History 69

Perhaps as a result of the need to grapple them into history.” In fact, “the work of the
with the here-and-now of live performance, historian,” according to de Certeau, involves
performance historians are uniquely prepared transporting the raw material of a primary
to observe ways in which accounts of acts per­ source “from one region of culture (curiosities,
formed in the past serve both as cultural arti­ archives, collections, etc.) to another (history)”
facts of the moments that produced them, and, (p. 71). This transporting is clearly the case in
as historian Greg Dening (1996) reminds us, Tracy C. Davis’s essay. In “What to Do When
“they also become cultural artifacts of all the Nuclear War Breaks Out,” Davis explores
moments that give them permanence.” Thus, 1950s nuclear preparedness scripts in Canada
the past “is only known through symbols and in the United States as a rehearsal for a per­
whose meaning is changed in the reading of formance that, thankfully, did not occur.
them and in the preserving of them” (p. 43). Drawing upon tropes of theatricality and
This historical contingency is demonstrated performance theory, Davis’s chilling account
most clearly in Gay Gibson Cima’s essay, of anticipatory scripted responses to nuclear
“Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis: war demonstrates how performance theory
Mid-Nineteenth Century American Women’s has a necessary place in historical examina­
Performance Criticism.” In this essay, Cima tions of the public sphere. Like Jennifer Terry
examines ways women’s identities were for­ (1999), who describes herself as a historian
mulated through concrete institutions and of effects, interested in “exposing the points
material practices and through rhetorical iden­ at which certain ideas came to be accepted as
tifications with surrogate bodies, particularly truthful and analyzing what conditions made
bodies of persons of color. As Cima’s work on their ascent to the status of truth possible”
cultural critics’ responses to public speaking (p. 21), Davis’s project traces how authority
performances by nineteenth century women on Cold War safety was staged, as she
demonstrates, historically contingent beliefs explores the discursive moves that produced
about race, gender, and sexuality shaped the “common knowledge” about nuclear threat
discursive frames through which cultural crit­ in an earlier era. Furthermore, Davis’s use of
ics viewed performers and public speakers. performance theory complicates and broadens
Cima’s nuanced readings of these texts and conventional notions of temporality, in that
performances illustrates what Catherine Davis reminds readers that the scripts she
Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt have called examines were not merely relics of the past,
“the tension between certain artifacts . . . and but—as with all play scripts—formed the
their cultures” and explores ways her subjects blueprint for potential, and in this case, chill­
may have expressed “resistance as well as ing, future performances as well.
replication, friction as well as assimilation, In an interview published in the Radical
subversion as well as orthodoxy” (2000, History Review (1976), historian E. P.
p. 16) to norms about gender, sexuality, and Thompson asserted that “the historian has to
race in a given era. be listening all the time. . . . The material has
In an attempt to find that which has not got to speak through him” (p. 15). Della
been noticed before, historians perform a Pollock’s project of oral history as performance
figure/ground sleight of hand, attempting to see literarily enacts this injunction, as she explores
what others have not. In an oscillating con­ her student performers’ engagements with oral
sciousness of context and text, performance histories of racial desegregation as told to them
historians, in Michel de Certeau’s terms, “deal by others. In “Memory, Remembering, and the
with physical objects in order to transform Histories of Change: A Performance Praxis,”
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70 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Pollock provides an account of a pedagogical [a] history writer should think of him or
technique for doing performance history which herself as a composer. That way it is the
reader who is the performer and the thing
she describes as “listening out loud.” While
performed . . . the history I write is the score
the connection between history and storytelling for all sorts of flights of the imagination.”
has now become a fundamental axiom of (p. 102, my emphasis)
history-making, Pollack’s essay reminds read­
ers of the importance of listening as a perfor­ The essays here offer such models to read­
mance praxis, crucial to the historiographical ers of the breadth of technique and application
project. Drawing upon performed memories for performance history.
of racial desegregation in the United States,
Pollock explores the effects of students’ re- NOTES
performance of the oral histories and memories
1. As performance theorist Elin Diamond has
of others. Pollock’s self-reflexive analysis of the
observed, “performance is always a doing and a
challenges and rewards of engaging with these thing done. On the one hand, performance describes
performed histories draws readers into the certain embodied acts, in specific sites, witnessed by
politic of the construction, performance, and others (and/or the watching self). On the other hand,
reconstruction of accounts of critical moments it is the thing done, the completed event framed in
in U.S. racial politics. time and space and remembered, misremembered,
interpreted, and passionately revisited across a pre­
Finally, Shannon Jackson’s essay on per­
existing discursive field” (1996, p. 1).
formance genealogies traces a particular disci­ 2. Karen Offen, Ruth Roach Pierson, and
plinary history, tracking some of the ways Jane Rendall have made this case about the disci­
performance was understood, deployed, and pline of women’s history (1991). I believe a simi­
denigrated in academic departments in the lar tension exists in the development of the field of
performance history.
U.S. institutions of higher education. Jackson’s
genealogy traces the relative privileges and
constraints experienced by academics in REFERENCES
departments of English, Speech and Rhetoric, Appleby, J. (1998). The power of history. The
Theatre, and Performance Studies in elite aca­ American Historical Review, 103(1), 1–14.
demic institutions in the United States, partic­ Conquergood, D. (2002). Performance studies:
ularly focusing on how texts and their analysis Interventions and radical research. The Drama
came to be valued over theatre and the perfor­ Review, 46(2), 145–156.
de Certeau, M. (1998). The writing of history
mance of literature and drama. Jackson’s essay
(T. Conley, Trans.). New York: Columbia
illustrates ways the subject matter and skill set University Press.
constitutive of elite knowledges in the acad­ Dening, G. (1996). Performances. Chicago:
emy have served particular classed interests University of Chicago Press.
and shifted over time. Thus, Jackson’s essay Diamond, E. (Ed.). (1996). Performance and cul­
demonstrates that one of the tasks appropri­ tural politics. New York: Routledge.
Fritzsche, P. (2004). Stranded in the present:
ately taken up by performance historians is to Modern time and the melancholy of history.
question, reconstruct, and analyze dominant Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
narratives, to attend to “the cultural matrix” Gallagher, C., & Greenblatt, S. (2000). Practicing
out of which such representations emerge. new historicism. Chicago: University of
Each of the following examples and inter­ Chicago Press.
Lalvani, S. (1996). Photography, vision, and the
ventions into the practice of performance
production of modern bodies. Albany, NY:
history has value for the student or practitioner SUNY Press.
of performance studies. As you read them, con­ Merrill, L. (1999). When Romeo was a woman:
sider Greg Dening’s (1996) suggestion that Charlotte Cushman and her circle of female
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Performing History 71

spectators. Ann Arbor: University of Taylor, D. (2003). The archive and the repertoire:
Michigan Press. Performing cultural memory in the Americas.
Merrill, L. (2002). Appealing to the passions: Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Homoerotic desire and nineteenth-century the­ Terry, J. (1999). An American obsession: Science,
ater criticism. In K. Marra & R. A. Schanke medicine, and homosexuality in modern
(Eds.), Staging desire: Queer readings of society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
American theater history (pp. 221–261). Ann Thompson, E. P. (1976). Interview with Edward
Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Thompson. Radical History Review, 42, 15.
Offen, K., Roach Pierson, R., & Rendall, J. (1991). Vicinus, M. (1994). Lesbian history: All theory and
Writing women’s history: International perspec­ no facts or all facts and no theory? Radical
tives. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press. History Review, 60, 57–75.
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5
Genealogies of Performance Studies
SHANNON JACKSON

DISCIPLINARY GENEALOGIES
I n the last decade, several scholars have inno­
vated in the practice of performance his­
toriography. Significant for this body of
My approach in this essay derives from a larger
project, one that itself derives from a larger
scholarship is the notion of a “genealogical” mission, to reconcile if not exactly to resolve
consciousness, one that calls for history writing the relationship between the study of perfor­
that recognizes the multireferentiality of par­ mance and the structures of higher education
ticular terms and that takes seriously patterns (Jackson, 2004). Many of us who identify as
of discontinuity in apparently linear historical scholars of performance have found it neces­
progressions.1 As performance scholars use the sary to adopt a heuristic as well as ironic per­
concept of genealogy to write histories of per­ spective on what exactly it means to affiliate
formance, I will argue for a similar conscious­ with such a protean, productive, and impossi­
ness in our histories of performance studies as ble discipline. As a field recently consolidated
a discipline itself. Any introduction to perfor­ under the umbrella of “performance studies”
mance studies must include an understanding —incorporating literary, media, theatrical, art
of the many, often contradictory, ways that historical, and anthropological analyses of
our field has been incorporated into the acad­ diverse cultural forms—performance draws
emy. By scrutinizing the arena of academic from newer discursive currents in cultural stud­
knowledge production in which many of us ies and in feminist, critical race, postcolonial,
learn, teach, and are employed, we will better and queer theory.2 As such, the field can be said
define the predicament of performance as a to be both an activator and a symptom of new
cultural practice, as a historical body of trends in humanities scholarship, incorporating
knowledge, and as a discipline in higher edu­ interdisciplinary approaches and responding to
cation. Through such an encounter, the study political critiques of identity that have circu­
of performance history comes to terms with lated throughout the cultural field. Such larger
the history of performance study. trends have of course been the subject of

73
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74 PERFORMING HISTORY

conflicted discussion as scholars such as Gerald production” (¶ 7). The “arts” also reappeared
Graff (1987, 1992), Sander Gilman (2000), again as a domain that was “vital” to the
John Guillory (1993), and (posthumously) humanities, “co-terminous and codepen­
Bill Readings (1996) consider the future of dent . . . both are concerned with representa­
the humanities and, indeed, the field of the tion. . . . Both are based on assumptions that
cultural more generally. It will be my con­ there are multiple forms of intelligence.”
tention throughout this essay that perfor­ However, their elaboration had a slightly dif­
mance and performance studies actually play ferent tone: “The relationship of the humani­
a partial, multireferential, and ambiguous role ties to the arts, however, cannot be simply
in such discussions, an instability whose con­ subject and object (the aesthetic production as
sequences come into higher relief when current an object for humanists). Artists have tradi­
discussions are placed next to disciplinary tions of expression, voice, and performativity
histories. from which those of us in the humanities have
To exemplify the predicament of perfor­ much to learn” (¶ 19). Rather than simply
mance in larger discussions of higher educa­ another normative characterization of the
tion, consider Cathy Davidson and David Theo humanities, the domain of the arts was less
Goldberg’s “A Manifesto for the Humanities in securely under the humanist umbrella, even if
a Technological Age” (2004, p. B7), a much- its potential contribution warranted inclusion
circulated document that called for a firm in a humanist manifesto. By suggesting that
embrace of new trends in “literary theory,” humanists still had much to learn from artists,
“science studies” and “post-colonial” classics. Davidson and Goldberg somewhat unselfcon­
While celebrating the fact that the “humanities sciously qualified their own previous assertion
in 2004 are a many-splendored thing” they that performance theory had (“at long last”)
also lamented the fact that “humanists do not broken down the barrier between these realms.
receive credit for the contributions they make” Interestingly, their text seemed both to cele­
(¶ 11). In the document, Davidson and brate and defer the undoing of the boundary
Goldberg offered bullet-pointed lists of differ­ between the humanities and “actual artistic
ent “characterizations of the humanities,” production.”
deciding to position it “normatively” as a site While it is exciting to have luminaries such
for disseminating an “historical” imagination, as Cathy Davidson and David Theo Goldberg
an understanding of “relationality,” a “con­ inscribe a place for performance and the arts
science and critical memory,” the “social val­ in their program for the humanities, there is
ues” behind social policy, and a respect for an unprocessed quality to their incorporation.
cultural and linguistic “diversity” (¶ 16–23). Indeed, several performance scholars would be
They argued that such moral and critical skills frustrated to hear that the breaking down of
were part and parcel of the cultural education the binary between the humanities and actual
now offered in a modern research university, a artistic production was all that performance
realm of “insight” and “value” that surpassed theory had to offer a modern research univer­
the technical training in “expertise,” “voca­ sity. Meanwhile, others affiliated with theatre,
tional training,” or “specialized . . . skills” dance, and oral rhetoric would be more cha­
offered “in a trade school” (¶ 11–12). grined to hear that that breakdown only just
Interestingly, “performance theory” made an happened and, moreover, that performance
appearance on their list of humanist contribu­ theory was the responsible party. Those same
tions, credited with having “(at long last) bro­ field specialists—along with artistic counter­
ken down the barrier between humanistic parts in the fields of music and the visual
writing about the arts and actual artistic arts—might feel an odd mixture of hope and
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Genealogies of Performance Studies 75

cynicism to hear that humanists feel that they monologues and “scene study” of contempo­
have “much to learn” from artists, wondering rary drama into its performances of Sophocles
for how long this sentiment will be couched in and Shakespeare. Meanwhile, another geneal­
terms that leave it perpetually unfulfilled. It is ogy of performance study appeared in the
at such times that a consideration of discipli­ educational context of visual art practice. In
nary genealogies becomes crucial, for the fact, the first American theatre department
perceived newness of performance studies can appeared at Carnegie Mellon’s School of Fine
perpetuate a somewhat partial, if well inten­ and Applied Arts in 1914. Later, when perfor­
tioned, understanding of what the study of mance served as a provocative means of artis­
performance might mean to the humanities. tic innovation in the sixties and seventies,
While performance is often appropriately visual art pedagogies altered as well. As avant­
aligned with newer fields and theories in the garde painters and sculptors began to experi­
humanities, it is in fact also a very old form of ment with the durational, environmental, and
study in the academy. And as an older form of embodied techniques of performance, art
study in the humanist academy, its varied and schools around the country found it necessary
conflicted history reflects forward on how the to incorporate performing arts into an other­
future of the humanities gets charted. What wise “fine” curriculum.5
are those old forms of study? Consider, for Those three genealogies only begin to chart
instance, disciplinary traditions that worked to the heterogeneity of performance as an educa­
undo boundaries between performance prac­ tional object and an educational practice in
tice and humanistic inquiry (or proceeded as higher education. In other disciplinary deriva­
if the boundaries did not need to be there). tions from anthropology, sociology, folklore,
Performance pedagogy appeared classically in and literature, the boundary between art prac­
oratorical form, as training in the techne- of tice and humanistic writing is less of a concern
rhetorical speech and oral poetics.3 That tradi­ than is the understanding of performance as
tion of education has reappeared and been social form, as a model of identity, or as liter­
revised in a variety of educational formations ary genre of dramatic form. What exactly
across the conventional periods of western these genealogies have had to do with each
history and now serves as a productive tool in other is an ongoing question. Do the acting
comparative analyses of western and nonwest­ student’s “objectives and obstacles” have
ern cultural practices. In its twentieth century, any compatibility with the performance art
Euro-American guise, oral rhetoric most often student’s experiments with duration? Can the
appeared as “public speaking” while, in some performance art student reconcile her explo­
universities, the tradition of oral poetics con­ rations of image and movement with the
tinued as the oral interpretation of literature. highly verbal, lectern-centered performances
There are other newer old versions of perfor­ of oral interpretation? Does the “public
mance pedagogy, however. Classics students speaker”—the student who is often honing
of the mid-nineteenth century and Shakespeare preprofessional skills for law and business—
students of the late-nineteenth century increas­ understand or care about any of the above?
ingly sought opportunities to actually produce Meanwhile, these already contradictory insti­
the plays that they read, eventually prompting tutional genealogies bear an even more
university professors to move this extracurric­ ambiguous relation to the late-twentieth cen­
ular practice into the standardizing domain of tury scholarly formation called performance
the curricular.4 The phenomenon of the “act­ studies. As an interdisciplinary formation
ing class” became the staple of many univer­ in the arts and humanities that draws from
sity theatre departments, incorporating the the social sciences, performance studies
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76 PERFORMING HISTORY

attempts to incorporate theoretical models discontinuity and that allows speculation on

and methodological conventions from fields performance as a perpetually unfulfilled possi­
with fundamentally different reality principles. bility. In his famous revisions of Nietzsche,
Additionally, participants are trained in home Michel Foucault developed the concept of
departments with different ideas of what it genealogy as a counter to a model of history
means to be a professional academic and with that aims “to restore an unbroken continuity.”
different assumptions of what constitutes the Rather genealogists attempt to “maintain
basic skills of undergraduate and graduate passing events in their proper dispersion”; to
students. When the divided unions of perfor­ think genealogically “is to identify the acci­
mance studies meet the divided histories of dents, the minute deviations—or conversely
performance study, we can find ourselves ask­ the complete reversals—the errors, the false
ing even more complicated questions. Is there appraisals, and the faulty calculations that
a relation between the study of “objectives gave birth to those things that continue
and obstacles” and the analysis of the “social to exist and have value for us” (Foucault,
drama”? Between the how-to’s of oral argu­ 1977/1980, p. 146). Earlier in the Archaeology
ment and the history of minstrel performance? of Knowledge (1972), Foucault had found that
Between the oral interpretation of literature “the non-unity of discourse” had to be a prin­
and the interpretation of oral cultures? Between ciple operating assumption in disciplinary
dance technique and queer performativity? history. By extension, my excavation of per­
Can the same department prepare graduate formance in its many institutional forms is
students professionally for the Modern an examination of its many references and its
Language Association, the National Communi­ shaky self-oppositions, requiring an awareness
cation Association, the Association for Theatre of their “non-identity through time, the break
in Higher Education, and the American produced in them, the internal discontinuity
Anthropological Association? Can that same that suspends their permanence” (Foucault,
department prepare undergraduates profes­ 1969/1972, pp. 32–33). As it happens, perfor­
sionally for careers in theatre and film and mance turns out not only to be internally dis­
dance and the visual arts? Can that same depart­ continuous itself, but also a tool with which to
ment prepare undergraduates professionally isolate larger discontinuities in the academic
for careers in law and business? arts and humanities. As such, its historical
My questions about professionalization genealogies expose the larger institutional
anticipate the central preoccupation of the issues behind the “non-identities” and “minute
next section, for I want to suggest that an derivations” of the humanist manifesto. My
analysis of the self-contradicting dynamics of hunch is that actualizing a partnership
professionalist discourse—as well as the self- between the arts and the humanities actually
defeating effects of professionalist ultimatums— requires a more careful interrogation—rather
provide an alternate way of organizing disci­ than totalizing denigration—of the role of
plinary history. Such a reorganization will in “technical” and “specialized skills” in humanistic
fact require more reflection on the opposition education more generally.
between the humanities and the preprofes­
sional skills of the vocational school that often
JUMP FORWARD TO THE PAST
appears as the object of denigration in many a
humanist manifesto. The concept of “geneal­ The notion of “professing performance” is
ogy” offers the analytic mixture of irony and ambiguous partly because of its multiple
history necessary to embark on such a project, referents in several fields. To many ears,
a mixture that does justice to institutional however, and despite many histories, the idea
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Genealogies of Performance Studies 77

of professing performance sounds not only their ability to participate in field-based

ambiguous but oxymoronic, largely because of domains of expertise, providing an expert
the barriers between art practice and humanis­ knowledge that is both distinctive and rigor­
tic writing to which Goldberg and Davidson ous. The Ehrenreichs identify a paradox in
refer. But what might this oxymoronic status, that, despite their role in the reproduction
the improbability of the connection between of capitalist relations, PMC members often
the verb (“professing”) and the noun (“perfor­ invoked an anticapitalist rhetoric. Whether
mance”), say about the institutions, structures, through an appeal to socialism or through a
and disciplinary genealogies already sketched moral appeal to cultural preservation, acade­
above? mic humanists in particular tried to create a
One way to investigate this question is to legitimating sphere of cultural capital outside
put some pressure on the term “profess” and, of the domain of business—despite the social
with it, the terms “professional” and “profes­ location of the university within relations of
sor” with which it might be associated. I have class mobility and economic advancement and
been inspired in this vein by Gerald Graff’s despite professors’ own emulation of expert
formative explorations into the institutional­ models.
ization of literary studies.6 Graff (1987, 1992) This made for a messy, complex, and
joined and would be joined by other schol­ occasionally self-contradicting context for
ars such as Richard Ohmann (1976), John humanist self-definition, one that reveals a
Guillory (1993), and Michael Bérubé (1998) Foucaultian disunity at the so-called center of
who took a critical stance on their field’s humanistic professionalization. Indeed, it has
development within conventions of profes­ made the idea of joining the term professional
sionalism and rigor and while addressing (or to the term professor somewhat unsavory to
disavowing) the economic pressures of a professors on both the right and the left who
changing student body and a modernizing, imagine themselves existing outside of such
technocratic university. Later, Bill Readings’s careerist—certainly, vocational—domains.
posthumously published The University in Nevertheless, academics have borrowed vari­
Ruins (1996) considered how those economic ous professional terms of legitimation, using
effects continue to exert pressure and continue concepts of rigor, research, and expertise in
to remain underanalyzed, even in the domains order to solidify the autonomy of the profes­
of interdisciplinary humanities scholarship sional academic. There is, moreover, a partic­
that sought to progressively redefine the space ular way that the addition of “performance”
of culture studies (pp. 89–118). Barbara and further unsettled this already shaky defini­
John Ehrenreich’s influential work has served tional situation. When theatre and perfor­
as a springboard for much of this discussion, mance appeared in the professorial context, it
for many have felt compelled to engage their was both a practice and an object that could
Marxist critique of an emerging “professional­ be too easily characterized as the opposite of a
managerial class” (PMC). The Ehrenreichs modern academic field. Performance’s status
(1979) included “college professors” in what as both a practice and a liberal art also meant
they identified as a group “consisting of that it was not purely either one, neither a fully
salaried mental workers who do not own the skill-based vocation nor a securely cultural
means of production and whose major func­ object. As such, it has occupied an institutional
tion in the social division of labor may be chiasmus, perplexing the domain of cultural
described broadly as the reproduction of capi­ knowledge with a so-called technical pragma­
talist culture and capitalist relations” (p. 12). tism, perplexing the domain of technical
PMC members measure and confer value by knowledge with a so-called cultural imagination.
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78 PERFORMING HISTORY

That ill fit has vexed many a professor of effects, particularly in academic theatre. It
performance and resulted in a variety of defen­ plays out institutionally in the traditional
hierarchies of academic practices in which
sive strategies.
the discourses of literary, critical, or histori­
Rather than defending against pejorative cal researchers are of far greater economic
labels, however, I find it more intriguing to value and intellectual capital than the manual
argue that performance has had a troubled life labor that theatre requires. The valuation and
within the academy precisely because it makes cultural capital of the written word—known
the disavowals of a “professorial-managerial as publication—exposes the theological
structure of both theatrical and educational
class” discomfortingly explicit. If the life of the
institutions. (Rayner, 2002, p. 544)
mind already has an unsavory alliance with
professionalism, even in its humanistic guise, Rayner’s essay is sensitive to how the habit­
then the study of performance makes those ual devaluation of the technical in academic
professional contingencies less easy to disavow. theatre is an accident that, in Foucaultian
That institutional ambiguity provides an ana­ terms, continues to “exist and have value for
lytic opportunity. Tracking performance’s ill fit us.” Indeed, the cultural field of “literary, crit­
within the academy can defamiliarize academic ical, and historical researchers” that humani­
processes and reframe current thinking about ties manifestos attempt to defend appears as
the employment and mission of the arts and the theologically dominant in this picture,
humanities. It is in the cultural/technical chias­ sidelining technical labor with classically clas­
mus that performance can be particularly pro­ sist indifference.
ductive, even if paradoxically it is because I want to take Rayner’s line of thought back
of that chiasmus that such an opportunity through some earlier genealogies of perfor­
remains continually deferred. mance in higher education. While I am inspired
In a recent essay entitled “Rude Mechanicals by her use of Jacques Derrida in “Rude
and the Specters of Marx” (2002), theatre Mechnicals,” I will situate his work somewhat
theory scholar Alice Rayner meditates on the differently, for the paradox of using Derrida to
“rude mechanicals” necessary to produce the conduct this analysis is that the institutional
“actual artistic production of theatre” and effects of Derrida’s own philosophical contri­
intriguingly alights upon the cultural versus butions have often contributed to the forgetful
technical divide. Joining Jacques Derrida’s own devaluation of what stands in for the technical.
Artaudian-inspired disquisition on what they Derrida’s critique of presence, most promi­
called the “theological stage” to Derrida’s later nently theorized in Of Grammatology (1967/
attempt to come to terms with Marx’s specters, 1974), would greatly affect the terms under
Rayner finds in the domain of technical theatre which performance scholars of various stripes
a productive, self-different mechanism for insti­ could argue for the materiality of theatre.
tutional critique: Indeed, while that materiality had been vari­
ously devalued before the 1960s, deconstruc­
tion’s critique of metaphysics would give it a
The theological stage still requires the ser­
vices of labor and defines its value as prag­ particular spin, couching appeals to the non-
matic. But it is also merely pragmatic, i.e., at textual elements of performance as a naïve
a discount. Labor is excluded from participa­ reification of presence. Sometimes performance
tion in the guarantees of the word and in the appeared as orality, as in Derrida’s critiques of
idea except as service. . . . The exclusion of
Rousseau; sometimes it appeared as a theatrical
technical theatre, no matter how accidental,
is inherited from the theological position artist’s desire for the “closure of representa­
that consigns the real labor of theatre to tion,” as in his roundabout critiques of Artaud.
servitude. That inheritance has profound In either, both, and subsequent cases, however,
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Genealogies of Performance Studies 79

the appeal to performance as spoken and professionalization of the humanities. In order

embodied too easily assumed a naïve represen­ to suggest what I mean, let me return to my
tational structure, misrecognizing its material opening comments on the older histories of
condition as pre-representational rather than as performance in the academy in order develop
the epiphenomenon of representation (writing) a few concrete examples.
that it really was. In their introduction to The Origins of
I agree with the Derridean critique and Literary Studies in America (1989), editors
also take a great deal of pleasure from it. Its Gerald Graff and Michael Warner described
thought structures have also supported many the emergence of literary studies as a discrete
of the newer critical formations to which I professional field by painting a picture of its
referred in my introduction. Because perfor­ earlier, less discrete, practitioners. In nine­
mance scholars are interested in the mediating teenth century universities, Graff and Warner
work of realms other than print, we can make humorously describe the rhetoric-and-oratory
the adaptation that he did not make in those professor as the type of person most often
arguments, mapping the pro-representational responsible for “introducing boys to the
argument to the representational work of per­ golden passages in Shakespeare and the
formance. Indeed, Rayner’s own essay is one poets.” “To be a rhetoric-and-oratory profes­
of many illuminating examples of an alternate sor,” they continue, “one had only to know
use of his theories. This productivity and plea­ the classics, have a pretty way of talking, and
sure notwithstanding, there is also reason to what some at the time referred to as ‘a general
be suspicious of the critique’s effects, particu­ society-knowledge of literature’” (p. 4). In the
larly in its vulgarized forms, particularly in history of literary studies, the rhetoric-and­
their relation to the modernizing pedagogical oratory professor serves as a useful counter­
structures of a print-based university. While point, retroactively emerging as the denigrated
Derrida’s “writing” did not mean print, per se, “amateur” to the English professor’s “profes­
its curricular manifestation most often turned sional.” As such, he shadows the rest of their
up on a printed page, challenging conventions book, serving as a marker for disciplinary
of close reading with the innovations of cri­ transformations such as a shift from a classical
tique but not challenging close reading and to vernacular curriculum as well as the consol­
publication as basic occupational practices.7 idation of the fuzzy generalist who increas­
To profess performance in a twenty-first cen­ ingly served as foil to the humanist specialist.
tury context is, in some way, about re-engaging Interestingly, to “have a pretty way of talking”
nonwritten speech and nonprint corporeality is also an index of his generalized amateurism;
and about believing that it is possible to do so it divides implicit delineations between a
without succumbing to metaphysical naiveté. retroactively defined amateurism and the rigor
However, the ubiquity of a Derridean thought and expertise of the Ehrenreichs’ professional-
structure in humanities gatherings often short- managerial class. Elsewhere, the rhetoric-and­
circuits the argument, making the attempt to oratory professor appears as a “spellbinder,”
grapple with performance look like a kind of as a mystifying “belletrist,” or as a “rear­
throwback, as the regressive ponderings of guard” spiritualist. With less and more
irrepressibly literalist imagination. I would self-consciousness, the pretty talker is framed
argue that this knee-jerk neutralization is not historically and in the present as the opposite
necessarily or purely intellectual, since a care­ of everything that the humanist academic
ful reading of Derrida does not automatically would become—the opposite, that is, of
support this reaction, but is more specifically professional, rigorous, scholarly, rational,
institutional, based upon a longer history of theoretical, disciplinary, modern. Indeed, in
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80 PERFORMING HISTORY

some institutions, the denigration or excision dog and pony show thus deflated the profes­
from the curriculum of speech, oral English, sionalist hopes of professorial performance.
and theatre was fundamental to the intellec­ From another angle, we can also see that it was
tual redefinition and professional rise of the institutionally efficient, though not necessarily
literary. Neither Graff nor Warner has much philosophically consistent, to pin the profes­
interest in unsettling the feminizing and prim­ sional hopes and symbolic claims of literary
itivist associations attached to this spellbinder and humanistic studies onto something other
who “only” talked prettily to boys. Instead, than the inefficient, less reproducible form of
the rhetoric-and-oratory professor functions oral performance pedagogy. John Guillory
as a source of amusement in the otherwise makes a similar point in his discussion of the
disputed origin narratives of literary studies. deracinating effects of school culture on the
It might be the Michael Warner of Letters of production of literacy and cultural capital,
the Republic (1990) (rather than the Michael where a modernizing university incorporated
Warner who edited Fear of a Queer Planet, print objects of study and their concomitant
1993) who decides not to see anything radical practices of teaching:
in this homosocial talking scene. And while
I am not exactly committed to its celebration It is not a mere contingency that oral works
either, I am interested in the historical occlu­ must become “written” in order to be
sions and institutional effects of personifying brought in the arena of curricular conflict as
“noncanonical” works, excluded or devalued
“belletrism” in the image of the performing
by the Western text tradition. In fact, oral
professor. For one thing, this mystifying figure work cannot otherwise enter the institutional
further mystifies and homogenizes a great deal field, since orality as cultural condition can
of heterogeneity. Stories of Hiram Corson’s only be studied at all ethnographically, as the
spiritualist quests notwithstanding, for many “writing of culture.” When the condition of
teachers of rhetoric, oratory, and other of its oral production is on the other hand ignored
in the context of interpreting or evaluating
compatriot fields in elocution, expression, these works (by treating oral works as
argumentation, platform reading, and theatre, though they were other written works), the
the how-to’s and wherefores of oral perfor­ real difference between school culture and
mance were complex, varied, and debated; and the culture which gives rise to works disap­
they subscribed to a range of theoretical princi­ pears from view. (Guillory, 1993, p. 43)
ples. Paul Edwards’s (1999) and Margaret
Robb’s (1954) studies of early proponents While the pedagogical practice of buying
demonstrate a range of philosophies and prac­ books, attending lecture, turning pages, and
tices in the work of expression figures such as reading closely all are ways of eliciting the plea­
Samuel Curry, Charles Wesley Emerson, and sures of the text, they also can be seen as part of
Elizabeth Stebbins; meanwhile, early theatre an efficient infrastructure, a set of techniques
proponents’ (George Pierce Baker, Thomas that facilitates the incorporation of certain
Wood Stevens, Brander Matthews, Frederick knowledges into the educational project of the
Koch) constant arguments for the performance modern university. The problem is that if edu­
of drama had another kind of rationale for oral cation in the arts and humanities wants to make
pedagogy. All of them attempted to make a good on the idea of valuing multiple forms of
claim for the academic professionalism of per­ intelligence, the effort will often require a more
formance at a moment when performance had varied pedagogical infrastructure.
become a signal of a maligned antiprofession­ The issue of infrastructure brings to mind
alism within literary-humanism. The specter of another type of institutional obstacle that
an amateur, unrigorous, feminized belletrist’s inhibits engagement with performance. In
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Genealogies of Performance Studies 81

addition to belletristic amateurism, the preprofessional curricula of undergraduate

phenomena of performance have also been careers in law and business. While Baker’s
located historically in the domain of the tech­ applied humanities teaching addressed the
nical and of the basic skill. To the extent that perceived needs of what John and Barbara
performance was aligned with art-making, its Ehrenreich would recognize as an early
pedagogy had associations with the manual professional-managerial class, Barrett Wendell
and the industrial. As such, it fell to the wrong was already jadedly suspicious of whether
side of what Guillory calls the “constitutive such teaching addressed the career needs of the
distinction between intellectual and manual teacher, that is, of whether they advanced a
labor” on which the classed history of the pro­ member of the professorial-managerial class.
fessoriate rests, a constitutive distinction that Wendell advised Baker to learn from his own
continues, however accidentally, to reinforce abjected example:
barriers between humanistic writing and artis­
tic production. To the extent that performance As the writer of English Composition, I
was associated with oral argumentation and believe myself to be commonly grouped with
elocutionists rather than with scholars.
“public speaking,” such pedagogy was an
Kittredge’s reviews, and Monty’s Specimens,
antecedent of the composition class, what is meanwhile—to say nothing of Child’s
known variously as freshman or expository Ballads—have forced respectful recognition
writing. As such, it has associations with what not only for them but for their subjects from
has been characterized as the least interesting scholars of the widest rarity and range.
type of teaching, as the opposite of a research You see my conclusion. I honestly believe
that in maintaining prescribed argumentation
field, and as something to which emerging you are unwittingly crucifying yourself.
graduate students in the humanities learn to Martyrdom is normally admirable; but is
turn up their noses. This kind of move, one the faith in this case worth martyrdom?
made by professors of both right and left per­ (Wendell, 1899)
suasions, exemplifies the class disavowals in
the formation of the professorial-managerial A picture of Barrett Wendell’s self-crucifix­
class. ion as Harvard’s composition instructor actu­
To show its history, consider an excerpt ally appears in Warner and Graff’s collection,
from an exchange between two rhetoric pro­ inside William Lyon Phelps’s memory of
fessors at Harvard in the late-nineteenth cen­ Wendell’s office where stacks of student com­
tury, Barrett Wendell and George Pierce positions lay on every available surface. When
Baker. The former is a somewhat notorious Wendell wanted to rest from the Sisyphean
figure in the history of literary studies, one task of grading, he reportedly used a pile of
who produced an eclectic body of scholarship student essays for a pillow. “It seemed to me,”
in literary history but who was most famous Phelps remembered, “that this work was not
for his book, English Composition (1918), a University work at all, and that any primary
success that would have deleterious conse­ school ma’am would probably have been
quences for his professional life. The latter, more efficient in the correcting job” (Graff
whose later history in the formation of acade­ & Warner, 1989, p. 160), testifying to what
mic theatre is well known to theatre scholars, James Berlin (1987) identifies as the tendency
was a younger professor whose courses in oral of college professors to define technical and
argumentation were receiving congratulatory skill-based training as something other than
boosts of support from both President Charles our own responsibility. Composition may be a
Eliot and the Harvard Corporation, helpful necessary skill to support and serve humanis­
as such courses were in supporting the tic critique but, by virtue of being technical, it
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82 PERFORMING HISTORY

is not a valued subject of humanist pedagogy. institutional context that is much less supple.
That this siphoning off of responsibility had I know that I am not the first to notice that
a gendered dimension is apparent in Phelps’s deconstruction’s critique of presence has ratio­
invocation of the “school ma’am.” That this nalized the largely decontextualized practices
gendering could also be wrapped up in the of close reading in new form, one that also lent
delegitimated domain of oral performance itself well to the efficient syllabification and
is apparent in Wendell’s invocation of the grand lecturing of a modernizing university.
“elocutionist,” the increasingly feminized Additionally, deconstructionist knowledge,
figure who, as Elizabeth Bell (1993) has whatever its innovations in understanding
argued, would become the convenient foil for relationality or the social assumptions behind
just about any humanist, literary, or rhetorical social policy, also participated in an occupa­
attempt to define its own professional creden­ tional context that needed academic require­
tialization. As performance teachers continued ments for gauging rigor in humanist
to enmesh themselves in the workaday domain expertise. Even when humanists have been
of technique—whether as the teacher of speech loathe to call literary, critical, or historical
and elocution or as the teacher of acting and research “specialized skills,” the fruits of criti­
voice—they immersed themselves in a peda­ cal labor can circulate in a way that satisfies
gogy that signaled antiprofessionalism to the “only a few can do it” pretensions of a
many a humanities professor. professorial-managerial class. This is what is
often missing from humanist manifestos, a
way of considering how the critical paradigms
BACK TO THE FUTURE
of humanist inquiry can also be used to come
I want to pause for reflection now, for I am not to terms with the professional politics of
arguing for a collective de-skilling to embrace humanist inquiry.
belletrism, technicality, or talking prettily. If there is a technical, expert-driven, pre­
I am, however, interested in pointing up an professional dimension to humanist knowl­
institutional legacy that has persistent discur­ edge, there are particular ways that the
sive effects. More recent attempts to take the incorporation of performance threatens to
phenomena of performance seriously, vari­ expose this oft-disavowed component of the
ously, as object of study, as method of under­ liberal arts. However, we can also say that the
standing, and as mode of analysis inevitably opposite is true, that performance’s associa­
encounter these institutional genealogies. The tion with the realm of the cultural—whether
specter of the fuzzy belletrist, the dunder­ conceived morally as cultural capital, politi­
headed technicist, and—more recently—the cally as cultural studies, or philosophically as
naïve metaphysicist linger in a humanist imag­ critique—is also a force that more explicitly
inary and can be quite easily invoked to end technical and professional fields must face.
experimentation in performance study. It is This is the other side of the institutional chias­
the persistence of the stereotype of the rude mus, the reversed mirror that refracts within
mechanical and his gendered or amateur com­ and outside the genealogies of performance
patriots that can interfere with the attempt to studies. If performance is the technical supple­
follow through on the optimistic hopes for a ment to cultural knowledge production, it
meeting between the arts and the humanities. is also the cultural supplement to technical
Indeed, whatever the pleasures of a critique of knowledge production. While critiques of the
presence, whatever its formative intellectual professorial-managerial class tend to position
contribution, it is also a discursive formation all capacities and practices as reiterating enact­
that interacted with and still interacts with an ments of a capitalist economy, the space of the
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Genealogies of Performance Studies 83

cultural is also a domain—however partial, relationship between the arts and humanities
unsystematic, and imbricated—that tries to will require experimentation in what it means
enable an alternate way of imagining human to use the technical humanistically. It will mean
enactment. A number of curricular objects and avowing the infrastructural labor that consti­
objectives ride on the impulse to perpetuate tutes humanist knowledge in order to refashion
such a space. Schools of the humanities rely that infrastructure more creatively and more
upon it; departments such as literature and critically.
philosophy rely upon it; research fields such as If this is one thing, if not the only thing, that
performance history rely upon it. Whether one performance theory has to offer to a modern
defines that imagining in philosophical, politi­ research university, it is also one that might
cal, artistic, or ethical terms, its resilience is bring us closer to acting on Davidson and
testament to the importance of understanding Goldberg’s sense of what the arts and the
both its promise and its limiting conditions. humanities have to learn from each other.
The paradigm of performance might be Indeed, their longer characterization of what it
most promising for the way that it can perpet­ means for creativity to count in the humanities
uate a cultural space that does not automati­ gestures to the differences that are both stum­
cally position the technical as a symbol of bling blocks and opportunities:
philistine encroachment. Performers—and art-
makers more generally—have to resist such The very highest standard of collaboration,
limiting characterizations of the technical for example, is what dance troupes, actors,
and musicians do as a matter of course:
largely because they know that they cannot do combine an array of individual talents into
without the service of the technical itself. When a whole. . . . By insisting on the interconnec­
art-makers accept the necessity of a technical tions among our endeavors, and by
apparatus, they implicitly endorse a fuller and acknowledging that those trained in expres­
more varied representation of its material func­ sive cultural forms may be better communi­
cators of certain messages than humanists,
tion; art-making means understanding that
we can shape intellectual projects that
the technical might also, like the humanities, be widen the scope, audience, and importance
a many-splendored thing. In departments of our intertwined endeavors. (Davidson &
devoted to performance pedagogy—whether Goldberg, 2004, p. B7)
in oral rhetoric, theatre, performance art, or
dance—the question (and consistent bureau­ Incarnating this vision requires a taste for
cratic headache) has always revolved around cultivating a humbling, sometimes utopian,
whether the promise of a sustained imagina­ always workaday space for testing, re-skilling,
tion can find a self-reflexive way of engaging and incorporating many talents and tech­
domains of infrastructural labor to which niques. Of course, the highest form of collabo­
humanists have been quick to oppose them­ ration that performing artists do as a matter of
selves. Consequently, a changed institutional course has not historically honored their multi­
relationship between the humanities and per­ ple forms of intelligence. Moreover, the theo­
formance—and between the humanities and logical practice of evaluating the individuated
the arts more generally—will require an inter­ publication of humanities professionals has not
rogation rather than a reproduction of the often positioned collaboration very high on its
opposition between the technical and the cul­ professional barometer. If, as Davidson and
tural, between basic skills and the liberal arts. Goldberg also suggest, humanists are trying
Rather than using definitions of humanist “to stop talking around the issue of the single-
value to prop up a defense against vocational author monograph as the benchmark for excel­
invasion, the “coterminous and codependent” lence” (2004, ¶ 25), then they might be
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84 PERFORMING HISTORY

interested in talking to those whose work has prompt debates where tables are continually
historically fallen outside those standards of turned. Upon reflection, it turns out that no
evaluation for quite some time. Meanwhile, domain can be said to be purely preprofessional
artists might want to seek out humanists whose or purely cultural, purely technical or purely
interests in collaboration could propel a larger liberal in its approach to the arts. Preprofes­
institutional reflection. This is another place sionalism has many faces, making it necessary
where a pragmatic insight into the academic to see a similarity if not an equivalence among
humanities can be brought round to help us the acting instructor, the public speaking
understand what it means institutionally to teacher, and the humanities professor, each of
link the humanities and the arts. whom renews respective professional member­
For me, the appeal to actual artistic produc­ ships. The space of the cultural is also similarly
tion is in fact less interestingly understood as an hybrid, something made more explicit by track­
appeal to a metaphysics of presence. However, ing the contradictory life that performance
it is interestingly, if disconcertingly, understood study has had inside its gendered and classed
as a valuing of different representational prac­ discourses of legitimation.
tices, even forms of intelligence that may ini­ In university contexts that are working to
tially seem technical to humanist eyes. Widening imagine new knowledges and new pedagogies,
the scope of our intertwined endeavors means whether in programs that locate themselves in
understanding that some critical practices do theatre, performance studies, dance, or other
not always take shape within the professionally wings of the liberal arts, I think that it is
imaginative conventions of critique. A general important to analyze this discontinuity.
acceptance of this possibility does not always go Current efforts may find themselves reinvent­
far enough to question the technical and cul­ ing older wheels and, in the process, fending
tural division that underlies our professional off familiar pejorative attributions—literal,
habits. That division hangs in the air in many mechanical, hysterical, preprofessional, tech­
domains of the academy. It underwrites nical, spiritual, amateur, feminine, ornamen­
exchanges in faculty meetings, in curricular tal, drill-like, artificial, theatrical, belletrist,
planning, in cross-campus committees, in cam­ vocational. Rather than seeing any of these
pus art agencies, and in the meetings of schol­ terms as referential, it might be worth asking
arly bodies. It is broached and deflected at the how this noncoincident series of adjectives
communication conferences, every time a functions and what anxieties are addressed by
black-turtlenecked cultural studies scholar and such a contradictory discourse of delegitima­
black-suited public speaking professor sit near tion. I think that it is particularly important
each other at the conference’s hotel bar. In the lest our own defensive counter-response to a
registration line of academic theatre confer­ variety of antitheatrical, antiprofessional,
ences, blazered scholars stand behind acting antitechnical, antihumanities prejudices repli­
teachers who are “ready-to-move” in their cate rather than critique their contradictions.
loose-fitting clothes. Occasionally one of those Doing so, however, might mean admitting to
scholars carries a plastic bag with a change of some of the contradictions in our own profes­
clothes for a late afternoon workshop; occa­ sional lives. Without denying the fact that an
sionally a sweatshirted studio teacher can be appeal to the pragmatic and the technical has
seen in the scholars’ auditorium, listening near a legitimating force in the academy, perfor­
the EXIT sign with back against the wall, sur­ mance’s suspect status in the domain of the
reptitiously stretching his calves. At the current humanities can have an effect on our own
moment, the ambiguities of these concurrent claims and aspirations as performance schol­
genealogies elicit a great deal of confusion and ars. In particular, it can cause us to replicate
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Genealogies of Performance Studies 85

the blind spots and class disavowals of a Performativity (pp. 40–78); Wisner Payne Kinne
professorial-managerial class rather than to (1954), George Pierce Baker and the American
Theatre; and Walter Spearman (1970), The Car­
use the equivocal status of performance as a
olina Playmakers: The First Fifty Years.
tool to expose the fundamentally equivocal 5. For a study of the twentieth century
ground on which professorial self-definition history of visual art practice in higher education,
rests. The result, I have found, is not necessar­ see Howard Singerman (1999), Art Subjects:
ily one that will righteously justify each one of Making Artists in the American University.
my or your occupational choices; nor will it 6. This section reworks and revises examples
that appeared in Chapters 2 and 4 of Shannon
confirm our predetermined sense of who the
Jackson (2004), Professing Performance: “Institu­
good guys are and who the bad guys are in our tions and performance: Professing performance in
departments, universities, or larger scholarly the early twentieth century,” and “Practice and
bodies. Indeed, I had to give up hoping for such Performance: Modernist Paradoxes and Literalist
personal and professional ratification from this Legacies” (pp. 40–78, 109–145).
7. Sue-Ellen Case is particularly interested in
project long ago. It might, however, give a
pursuing this issue in The Domain-Matrix: Performing
more complicated picture to fellow scholars Lesbian at the End of Print Culture (1996).
and graduate students of what we are defend­
ing and of why we are being defensive. The
REFERENCES
recognition of such a heterogeneous discipli­
nary history might also allow us to imagine a Bell, E. (1993). Performance studies as women’s
future in which the collection of divided posi­ work. Text and Performance Quarterly, 13,
362.
tions within theatre and performance study can
Berlin, J. (1987). Rhetoric and reality: Writing
be seen as a symptom of larger paradoxes in instruction in American colleges, 1900–1985.
higher education and, therefore, as a tool in a Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
larger project of professorial redefinition. Bérubé, M. (1998). The employment of English:
Theory, jobs, and the future of literary studies.
New York: New York University Press.
NOTES Case, S.-E. (1996). The domain-matrix: Performing
1. Joseph Roach’s Cities of the Dead (1996) lesbian at the end of print culture. Bloomington:
was one of the most provocative instances of this Indiana University Press.
reorientation. Davidson, C. N., & Goldberg, D. T. (2004). A man­
2. For commentary on these and other discipli­ ifesto for the humanities in a technological age.
nary trajectories, see Jill Dolan (2001), Geographies Chronicle of Higher Education, 50(23), B7.
of Learning: Theory and Practice, Activism and Retrieved June 24, 2004, from http://chron
Performance; Peggy Phelan (1998), “Introduction: icle.com/free/v50/i23/23b00701.htm
The Ends of Performance,” in J. Lane & P. Phelan Derrida, J. (1974). Nature, culture, writing. In
(Eds.), The Ends of Performance (pp. 1–19); and Of grammatology (G. C. Spivak, Trans.)
Richard Schechner (2002), “What Is Performance (pp. 96–164). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer­
Studies?” in R. Schechner (Ed.), Performance sity Press. (Original work published 1967)
Studies: An Introduction (pp. 1–21). Dolan, J. (2001). Geographies of learning: Theory
3. See Christopher Stray (1998), Classics and practice, activism and performance.
Transformed: Schools, Universities, and Society in Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
England, 1830–1960; for an example of contem­ Edwards, P. (1999). Unstoried: Teaching literature
porary histories of speech education, see Karl in the age of performance studies. Theatre
Richards Wallace (1954), The History of Speech Annual, 52, 1–147.
Education in America. Ehrenreich, B., & Ehrenreich, J. (1979). The
4. For accounts of early theatre departments, professional-managerial class. In P. Walker
see Shannon Jackson (2004), “Institutions and (Ed.), Between labor and capital (pp. 5–49).
Performance: Professing Performance in the Early Boston: South End Press.
Twentieth Century,” in Professing Performance: Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowl­
Theatre in the Academy from Philology to edge; and, the discourse on language (A. M.
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86 PERFORMING HISTORY

Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. Readings, B. (1996). The university in ruins.
(Original work published 1969) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Foucault, M. (1980). Language, counter-memory, Roach, J. (1996). Cities of the dead: Circum-
practice: Selected essays and interviews (D. F. Atlantic performance. New York: Columbia
Bouchard & S. Simon, Trans.; D. F. Bouchard, University Press.
Ed.). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Robb, M. (1954). The elocutionary movement and
(Original work published 1977) its chief figures. In K. R. Wallace (Ed.), History
Gilman, S. (2000). The fortunes of the humanities: of speech education in America (pp. 178–201).
Thoughts for after the year 2000. Palo Alto, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
CA: Stanford University Press. Schechner, R. (2002). What is performance studies?
Graff, G. (1987). Professing literature: An institu­ In R. Schechner (Ed.), Performance studies: An
tional history. Chicago: University of Chicago introduction (pp. 1–21). London: Routledge.
Press. Singerman, H. (1999). Art subjects: Making artists
Graff, G. (1992). Beyond the culture wars: How in the American university. Berkeley, CA:
teaching the conflicts can revitalize American University of California Press.
education. New York: W. W. Norton. Spearman, W. (1970). The Carolina Playmakers:
Graff, G., & Warner, M. (Eds.). (1989). The origins The first fifty years. Chapel Hill: University of
of literary studies in America: A documentary North Carolina Press.
anthology. London: Routledge. Stray, C. (1998). Classics transformed: Schools,
Guillory, J. (1993). Cultural capital: The problem universities, and society in England, 1830–
of literary canon formation. Chicago: 1960. England: Oxford University Press.
University of Chicago Press. Wallace, K. R. (1954). The history of speech edu­
Jackson, S. (2004). Professing performance: Theatre cation in America. New York: Appleton­
in the academy from philology to performativ­ Century-Crofts.
ity. England: Cambridge University Press. Warner, M. (1990). The letters of the Republic:
Kinne, W. P. (1954). George Pierce Baker and the Publication and the public sphere in eigh­
American theatre. Cambridge, MA: Harvard teenth-century America. Cambridge, MA:
University Press. Harvard University Press.
Ohmann, R. (1976). English in America: A radical Warner, M. (Ed.). (1993). Fear of a queer planet:
view of the profession. England: Oxford Queer politics and social theory. Minneapolis:
University Press. University of Minnesota Press.
Phelan, P. (1998). Introduction: The ends of perfor­ Wendell, B. (1899, February 11). Letter to George
mance. In J. Lane & P. Phelan (Eds.), The Pierce Baker. In the papers of George Pierce
ends of performance (pp. 1–19). New York: Baker, Harvard Theatre Collection, Pusey
New York University Press. Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
Rayner, A. (2002, December). Rude mechanicals Wendell, B. (1918). English composition. New
and the “Specters of Marx.” Theatre Journal, York: Scribner.
54(4), 535–554.
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6
Memory, Remembering,
and Histories of Change
A Performance Praxis

DELLA POLLOCK

T he feminist philosopher, Julia Kristeva,

recently declared that, “faced with the
invasion of the spectacle, we can still contem­
in human activity in a fluid state so as to
possess it in a congealed state as things which
become the exclusive value by their formula­
plate the rebellious potentialities that the tion in negative of lived value” (1977/1983,
imaginary might resuscitate in our innermost entry 35). The society of the spectacle Debord
depths. It is not a time of great works, or describes is one in which appearance subsumes
perhaps, for us, contemporaries, they remain lived relation:
invisible. Nevertheless,” she argues, “by keep­
ing our intimacy in revolt we can preserve the The world at once present and absent which
possibility of their appearance” (1997/2002, the spectacle makes visible is the world
p. 13). Referring primarily to the intimacies of the commodity dominating all that is
lived. The world of the commodity is thus
of psychoanalysis, Kristeva articulates a praxis
shown for what it is, because its movement
of mundane transference and disclosure that is identical to the estrangement of men
goes well beyond claims for compassion and among themselves and in relation to their
unproblematized “empathy.”1 What she calls global product. (entry 37)
the “invasion of the spectacle” describes in
many ways the introversion of the extrover­ Capital, once the operative secret of the
sion Guy Debord found in the rise of capital. ideological machine, now becomes mirrored
The essential movement of the spectacle, for in the extent of goods produced: “Capital is
Debord, “consists of taking up all that existed no longer the invisible center which directs the

87
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mode of production; its accumulation spreads “past.” A story of change may thus become a
it all the way to the periphery in the form of history hardened against change. In general,
tangible objects. The entire expanse of society and in the particular instance of the desegre­
is its portrait” (entry 50). gation performance project, “listening out
For Kristeva, this expansionism is also an loud” interrupted the spectacular condensa­
“invasion.” The consolidation of production tion of story and history, drawing on oral
and its products as “spectacle” turns inward history exchange to dissolve even liberal pride
on the subject, surrogating the self-seen for into a pool of (re)new(ed) rememberings.
the scene of subjective interaction. Accordingly, Oral histories draw (historical) fact and
sustained and deliberate intimacy may be a (storied) symbol into the precarious, cocre­
nascent form of revolt. At this juncture of psy­ ative process of memory-making. Doing oral
choanalysis and social theory is the counterac­ history involves staging a conversation in the
tive movement of lived relation and the vitality relatively artificial context of the interview.4 It
of a collective imaginary that may turn specta­ engages its participants in a heightened, reflex­
cle inside out into visionary possibilities and the ive encounter with each other and with the
“rebellious potentialities” of “great works.” past, even as each participant and the past
In this essay, I will address a critical perfor­ seem to be called into being and becoming by
mance practice that links the work of preserva­ an as-yet unknown future. The interviewer is
tion and imagination in order to “preserve the herself a symbolic presence, invoking not only
possibility” of great acts through what Kristeva other, unseen audiences but promising—as if
considers the revolutionary work of intimacy. by bodily contract alone—that what is heard
This evolving praxis entails paring down the will be incorporated into public memory and
exchange of memory to the unsteady contin­ acted on in some way, that it will make a dif­
gencies and risks of mutual remembering. It ference. Oral histories thus write the past into
in turn suggests the power to intervene on the present on the promise of an as yet
Debord’s “society of the spectacle” through the unimagined, even unimaginable future. They
resurgent, lived value of public re-remembering. dream the past—performing what happened
I will focus on two aspects:2 first, one ver­ as an image of what might happen. Entwining
sion of historical intimacy I have come to call what is with the normative claims of what
“listening out loud,” and, second, its manifes­ might be, oral histories tell the past in order to
tation in a recent public event, “Desegregation tell the future—not to predict, to reveal, or to
and the ‘Inner Life’ of High Schools,” which in foreclose on it but to catch it in ethical threads
many ways took spectacular claims for inte­ drawn in the act of telling.
gration as its nemesis. The event did not so It was with this performative vision of oral
much question or critique pervasive, sedi­ history in mind that, in the spring of 2001, I
mented conclusions about the achievement of embarked on a collaborative project with my
integration or even the lack thereof but mobi­ colleague in the Department of History at the
lized a rough concord about work yet to be University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
done. Through its modest but hard-won inti­ and the director of the Southern Oral History
macies, it preserved the possibility of a critical Program there, Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, a project
and hopeful racial politics covered over by tri­ that we came to call “Desegregation and the
umphalist (or declensional) accounts of Brown ‘Inner Life’ of High Schools.” The project
v. Board of Education.3 involved coordinating our respective courses
Integration is a good story. It embeds a on oral history, and oral history and perfor­
vision of radical breach and redress into a nar­ mance, around issues of desegregation in
rative hardened by repetition into fact and the Chapel Hill and the southeastern region more
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 89

generally. It culminated in an afternoon of preserve. But to preserve is to burn, for under­

performances and presentations that retold the standing means creating” (1989, p. 121).
substance of student interviews to a gathered Begun in the spirit of preservation that drives
audience of approximately one hundred much oral history practice—the desire to save
friends, interview participants, invited guests, stories from both political obscurity and the
interested local residents, scholars, and family ravages of mortality, listening out loud sets fire
members. to the thing saved: through the course of con­
The event drew into tight focus the open, versational interviews, improvised retellings,
uneasy correlation between two social and scenic description, poetic transcription, and
aesthetic goods—integration and identification. public rehearsal, the story as a historical arti­
While desegregation may be described as the fact goes up in the flames of committed under­
restructuring of major institutions for formal standing, becoming the molten energy of
equity, integration suggests a more personal, re-creation. The stories the students tell in the
often unquestioned commitment to knowing end are not verbatim. They resemble the first-
the other as one’s self on the logic that: if I told versions only or, perhaps, at their best,
become you, I know you as me, and social dif­ in their evocation of the “innermost depths”
ferentiation—and the hierarchies tenuously of the storyteller. They reflect as much on the
balanced upon it—collapse into “color-blind” transformative process of listening, telling, and
sameness. Integration as or by identification retelling as on what is told. And in the case
recommends the assimilation of the raced of the desegregation project: they burned—
“you”/other to the unraced “I”/one—or, at through distrust and sentimentality—into
best, I to you, ignoring altogether the limits of something like the heart of possibility.
“becoming” an-other in the name of eliminat­ The practice begins with an informal inter­
ing strangeness and estrangement. What we view, a conversation that focuses primarily on
discovered, among so many other things, was one person and then the other. This conversa­
that intimate strangeness might be a lived value tion may occur over the course of several
that could answer to estrangement even insofar meetings and days, or in two short periods
as it dramatized the limits of representation. In during a long class session. When I initiate
the end, we achieved what one student called a this process, students typically start scram­
“fantastic failure”: while the temptation was bling for paper and pens and wondering
to believe that we could create integration-as where they can obtain a tape recorder.
identification-by-imitation (or mimetic repre­ Assumptions about what composes an inter­
sentation), it quickly became clear that this was view kick in. Clearly the first assumption is
no more possible than it was desirable. In the that it involves a recording device of some
end, all and everything we could offer was the kind. I tell them they can use only the tech­
ashen glow of broken and breaking memories nology of the ear. That they must listen body
fanned into the fire of creative possibility by to body, heart to heart, not so much record­
the rough intimacies of student interviews and ing as absorbing the other person’s story. I
reperformance. then generally talk with them some about
I stumbled onto the process I am calling what it means to listen hard and to learn
“listening out loud” over a dozen years ago as something by heart.
part of developing a regional performance tour The room is suddenly stuffy. The students
based on interviews with workers in the textile are nervous. We all shift and fidget. I have
industry.5 On the face of it: a simple exercise, taken something away from people I hardly
listening out loud takes up Trinh Minh-ha’s know. Something that is clearly important to
eloquent charge: “To listen carefully is to them. I stay my course. We talk about their
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90 PERFORMING HISTORY

confusion and anxieties. I suggest that the of listening hard and as a variation on the kind
interview conventions they had expected to of secondhand storytelling that we do every­
use might have kept things somewhat cooler; day, incorporating others’ memories into the
I encourage them to explore—and to use—the body of our own and then again into others’
rising heat. through public reperformance.6
Simultaneously invoking and refusing I also exhort them to work from below
assumptions cultivated by the spectacularity of appearances. I point them away from both the
TV talk shows and conventional social survey external features of the performer and their
techniques generates a performative frame­ correlate in the surface text—or what could be
work for what is often, then, a supercharged called the word-score of the performance each
interaction. Challenging some of the residually received—toward resounding images; patterns
positivist critique of oral history method, this of emphasis, hesitation, and silence; qualities
exercise initiates a subjectivist approach that of voice and interaction. This is usually
requires something as yet unnameably more of enough to shift them out of a kind of deer-
the participants as human beings in intimate, caught-in-the-headlights defensiveness into
temporal-historical relation, one to the other. I active curiosity. It suggests a more literary
indicate that this is an exercise, an experiment, than journalistic interest, affirms the listener’s
a first trial, a try out, an audition, an auditory role in making meaning, unburdens the entire
experience; you will be audience to each other, project of the kind of text-centrism that favors
I tell them, easing a quick slide from the exper­ the text-artifact to the relational art of telling,
imental controls and gridlike patterning of and introduces the pleasures of mutually
some social science to the confusion and chaos attentive improvisation.7
of embodiment. Finally, I suggest that their concerns already
I then ask them to tell each other’s story signify readiness to get it right. I can’t tell you
(the story each heard) in one to two minutes, how often students express their resistance to
in the first person—using “I” but not using this process as fear about not “getting it right”
names, substituting “This is what I heard:” for and desire to “get it right,” their perfectly jus­
the usual “Hi. My name is. . . .” (The room tified concerns about what might happen to
soon echoes with rounds of “This is what I their stories in performance leading them
heard:” “This is what I heard:”). immediately to get the ethical issues at the
Keen to impersonation as a form of comedy heart of oral history practice—including the
and caricature, the students are immediately impossibility of ever representing another
leery of exaggerating superficial qualities or person exactly and the problem of obscuring
details. Their astuteness on this point seems to or patronizing someone else’s story by pre­
be enhanced by a sudden, reflexive awareness suming to speak for him or her—and so, at
that they don’t want anyone to impersonate least in part: already getting it right.
them. They start looking around the room to What’s “right” in this case is not the kind
see who will see them, or is it: who won’t see of empathic identification that is often taken
them: who will be party to someone else’s to be a self-evident good in performance and
mis/representation of them? If they weren’t communication studies. Empathy is a good
already, they are now beginning to feel really thing. But it is not always the right good thing.
out of (representational) control. I was consulting with a colleague recently
I have to say that I don’t try to ease as much about the possibility of developing a prison
as to condition this anxiety by, first of all, writing workshop into a performance. She
encouraging them to think of the “return” per­ shared with me some of the remarkably
formances as an extension of the primary act accomplished poems and stories from the
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 91

workshop. I asked her how she felt about the makes them both particularly unnerving and
participants possibly performing each other’s exhilarating. Empathy is clearly a principal
work. “No!,” she balked. Each should do her dynamic here, but it would be a mistake
own, in her own voice. To some extent, I to overemphasize its value, especially at the
expected this response. It is a ready claim on expense of countervailing dynamics—dynam­
voice and narrative as private property that ics that emphasize social difference without
has gained momentum from feminist claims reverting to individualism. While I recognize
on owning one’s voice and that gains a politi­ the political power of identification, through
cal valence in the context of all other rights the next few examples I want to consider the
denied. I was sympathetic and yet suspicious performative force of disidentification along
of the reiterations of (capital) ownership and two main axes: differentiation, or the delin­
its implications for, at best, rugged individual­ eation of identity boundaries, and misrecogni­
ism. Despite my colleague’s good intentions tion, or the dialectics of identity play and
and the vast body of feminist theory that sup­ replay. These dynamics work, I would argue,
ported them, I couldn’t help but feel that the precisely because they work against the grain
politics of her quick “No!” reflected more of empathy.8 In so doing, they distinguish per­
than it resisted the invasion of the spectacle, formance from spectacularity in Debord’s
recreating the story as commodity, and para­ sense. They keep historical intimacies from
doxically, even perversely risking further being taken up “in a congealed state as things
estrangement. which become the exclusive value by their for­
I offered the listening out loud practice as mulation in negative of lived value” by keep­
a rough model for another way of looking at ing them unstable, ongoing, difficult, highly
things. When I briefly described performances reflexive (down to the most minute detail),
the students gave in return for each other’s and often very messy.
accounts, “Oh!” she said, “total empathy!” Differentiation may be most evident in
I agreed at the time, pleased to think that the Brechtian sense of the Verfremdungseffekt
my short take on narrative exchange had jos­ (roughly, “alienation effect”) of the familiar
tled the commonsense stability of the private becoming strange, here, however, tuned to the
property model. My colleague quickly identi­ strangeness of sudden familiarity.
fied the difference between a performance A female student recounts—play by careful
that was about separate people telling their play—the details of her male interview part­
separate lives and one that was about what ner’s crowning, high school football game: “I
could happen between people in that process. received . . . and then I ran . . . he tried to inter­
The image of “total empathy” carried a cept but I . . .” Everyone laughs with her, gen­
utopian vision of alliance and understanding tly, recognizing what she clearly knows: that
across difference. It suggested qualities of she is not the “I” of whom she speaks. And yet
warmth, trust, and solidarity from which the laughter turns to something like awe at the fact
incarcerated women with whom she was that she doesn’t miss a beat. With almost no
working were personally and institutionally time to prepare, she moves through the long,
guarded. And yet I had to back off from both measured sequence with perfect regard for its
“total” and “empathy.” integrity and for the meaningfulness of each,
There is nothing complete about the kinds apparently slight detail left in her reverberant
of identification that occur in the return per­ care. She is like someone trying to speak with
formances. Nothing “total.” In fact, it seems due courtesy in her foreign host’s tongue.
that it is the incompleteness and sometimes Another student starts only to find herself
raw partiality of these performances that suddenly weeping through her friend’s
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92 PERFORMING HISTORY

account of moving from India to the United from someone who had been “left.” Rather,
States. She didn’t know, she says later, she for the first time, he gave himself permission to
didn’t know. The friend trails tears too, her back think about why he never used this phrase,
straight, gazing in silent repose into the eyes about how much cultural baggage this con­
of people listening to her although she isn’t ventional locution carried, and how he had
speaking and, indeed, doesn’t have to. Her alternatively constructed his sense of himself in
eyes well with a sense of vindication and story. He ended up happily in between the
recognition; her friend and teller’s with sor­ story he told and the story he heard, in a place
row, indignation, surprise, and some dismay. of heightened reflexivity and re-creativity: piv­
She feels for, with, on behalf of, and in oting on a phrase, having heard himself remade
response to her friend. This isn’t a mimesis of in another’s image, he began to wonder about
feeling in the sense of a direct copy. The per­ himself and his story, and felt encouraged to
former isn’t feeling—and doesn’t pretend to rethink/remake both.
feel—what her friend felt. But the friend’s—or Another student responded to hearing her­
first performer’s—feelings are doubled, and self mirrored in an account of a broken family,
doubled again—one body to another, and past alcoholism, and abuse with some consterna­
to present. Both the primary teller and the lis­ tion: “That was so depressing! I’m a cheerful
tener/teller are moved in corresponding but person!” Coming back hard on her listener­
markedly different ways. Both weep now with teller’s litany of facts, she nonetheless felt con­
the power—and grandeur—of bringing the founded by the bleakness of the facts as such,
depths of their private encounter into the light and the extent to which they neglected or
of public regard. Both also weep with the gen­ obscured her sense of herself as “cheerful.”
uine pain of becoming isolated in their rela­ She resisted the apparent elision of the facts of
tionship, of being separated in strangeness: of her life and her attitude toward them, finding
entering unknowing, suddenly not knowing a difference there that she wanted to hang on
what they thought they knew or presumed too to—and yet that continued to hang in the air,
well to know: each other. despite her protestations: a figure of shifting
Misrecognition may mean seeing one’s self and contested perspectives. She wanted her
in a kind of funhouse mirror—with painful story back. We wanted to give it to her—but
clarity and/or pleasurable curiosity: there was no going back exactly. Her history
One student, after hearing his proxy teller as story had become irretrievably part of col­
faithfully report that “my father left me” at an lective rehearsal.
early age, noted that, in all the years he’d told In both of these instances, misrecognition
this story, he’d never used the phrase “left involved an element of recognition: I never
me.” We all winced. A violation. A reposition­ use that phrase; that was so depressing!—and
ing of the teller as a pathetic victim. The per­ refusal: in response, each student basically said:
former apologized, stricken with guilt. No, no, that’s not me. But neither made simply regres­
the initial teller responded, to our visible dis­ sive claims on their “original” stories. Neither
comfort. This will forever change how I think said he or she got it wrong; here’s what I
about my story. We thought he was joking. said. . . . Both, rather, found themselves in the
No, no, he insisted more adamantly, indicat­ peculiar place of being critically distanced from
ing that he neither now saw himself as the dis­ the “me” they initially represented and from
torted image of the abandoned kid, as if the the “not me” they saw represented by their
performer’s version were the correct one, as if the partners. Each was left to work through the
performer knew better than he who he really performative dialectics of what Richard
was; nor was he bitterly distancing himself Schechner, combining insights from the
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 93

psychoanalytic work of D. W. Winnicott and propels the exchange forward. The distances
ritual studies by Arnold Van Gennep, Gregory provoked by disidentification help to shift the
Bateson, and Victor Turner, has called the “not I/you, self/other relationship with which the
not me”—the self who is no more originally participants typically begin into a tentative
defined than he or she is lost in mimetic I/thou ethic of respect and appreciation. In
replay.9 Beyond the opposition of “me” and turn, the performative relay sets up a play of
“not me” is the possibility of a self turning in a ideal selves, linking personal investments in
tender spiral outward into remaking. Rather being seen and being seen well to desires to see
than a foundational reality, “me” becomes the and represent each other as well as possible,
playful figure of a double negative: “not not.” resulting in what I can only call consistently
We’d normally say that the second negative and remarkably dignified performances. The
cancels out the first, returning us to the positive strange imbalances and asymmetries of this
“me.” Within the performative grammar of exchange seem to increase its affective weight,
this exercise, however, the “I” is displaced into suggesting why one student described the
a reflexive object—“me” twice-removed: experience in this way: “I feel what she’s
That’s not me! . . . but it’s also not not-me! feeling so much more . . . and so remember
This student, moreover, might as well have it more.” It may also be why these stories seem
been saying: That’s not right or that’s not not- to lodge themselves so fully in collective
right, morphing as she did everyone’s initial memory, becoming points of ongoing refer­
fears about getting it right or wrong into ence and return, creating more yet—more stories,
points of collective inquiry—what happened more reflection, more—and more intense—
in the transfer from the initial teller to the lis­ disidentification, more sensuous, embodied
tener-teller to us? What discursive constraints responsiveness.10
or imperatives led her listener to convey a The practice seems to yield at least this hard
more “depressed” or self-pitying tone than she lesson: a story is not a story until it is told; it is
either thought she conveyed or performed in not told until it is heard; once it is heard, it
the first place? Is one version more “right” changes—and becomes open to the beauties
than another? On what basis would we make and frailties of more change; or: a story is not
that call? Accordingly, what’s “right” begins a story until it changes. Indeed, until it changes
to shift tectonically from a figure of either or until it changes someone else,11 until it
validity (a measure of accuracy: he got the becomes part of the vital histories of change it
facts “right” after all) or ownership (as in: recounts. Finally, then, for now: the practice
who has rights to this story?) to a figure of defies the color-blind fantasy of integration
value. The question becomes: what good is as identification or knowing the other as one’s
lost or gained in the triangulation of this story self. In this practice, the “I” who becomes
between teller, listener/teller, and secondary “you” who is “not-not-me” trembles at the
listeners, of whom the first teller is now one? shimmering horizon of all that “I” don’t know
Matters of textual fidelity and property rights about “you”; the “I” I become in telling your
melted into ethical intimacy; and the smaller, story is one who doesn’t and can’t possibly—
the more intimate the practice of ethical in any kind of full or total sense—know you,
engagement the students pursued, the more who learns the limits of representation—and
passionate the public inquiry that ensued. begins to enjoy and to remember the selves
There is an element of unrequited love in that emerge within those limits nonetheless or
this practice—a desire for total empathy or maybe “so much more.”
perfect mirroring that can never be and maybe The desegregation project would elabo­
should never be fully realized, and yet that rate the minimalist “listening out loud”
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94 PERFORMING HISTORY

practice into minimalist reperformance by to try to mix,

listening, telling, relistening, and retelling if they don’t feel comfortable.
again, preserving the stories told in the heat of
But you know,
cocreative understanding. Begun with great
enthusiasm, the project came to a sudden halt it’s the growth,
when Jacquelyn first sought support from the of the individual:
leaders of the alumni association of the local, when you
formerly black high school. The president of can step
the Lincoln High School alumni association,
beyond
Ed Caldwell, initially refused, arguing that the
university had studied the hell out of the black what the
community without making the promised tribe—
difference, without giving anything back. He I’m going to call it the tribe—
invoked the long and painful history of the
expects you to do,
relationship between the University of North
Carolina and the black community when he you can start to,
insisted that our project would be for us alone, to buck the tribe,
to sit on the shelves of the library, never heard and say,
from again. He eventually agreed to avail us
“That’s not for me.”
of critical contacts but cautioned us to tread
lightly on ground that had, apparently, And that means,
already been trammeled. within yourself,
We proceeded, chastened—even mortified— you’re beginning to grow
and tense. The provisional result was an after­ and that you’re an individual.
noon of presentations and performances for an
Tribe’s going to try to knock you
invited audience of interview participants and
down
invested community members that culminated
in these comments from Ed, who returned per­ and make you conform. . . .
formance for performance by rising from his But you know,
seat in the front row, turning toward the audi­ it took me a long time to,
ence, and recounting, first of all, his first mem­
to study religions and whatever,
ories of learning history—learning “who you
are,” who he is—through stories his grand­ and I have evolved.
mother told to him on her front porch while he And I am not about to let
watched his pals run down the street to play. no professed Christians tell me how to
He then became insistent: think.

Let me say this: (Audience laughs.)

I think it’s very hard, And I’m going to move about,
for both based on my growth.
black, I’m not going to let the tribe tell me,
white, that this is the way we’ve always done
Asian, it and this is the way that we do it.
or whatever, And I think that,
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 95

when you begin to grow— Ah, I mean it’s just been,

In high school you wouldn’t expect exhilarating to me.
the young people to have the And,
emotional Jacquelyn Hall,
fortitude,
and whatever, (Ed points a mock scolding finger at Jacquelyn
who is standing on the sidelines of the audience.)
to stand outside
of the peer groups— Girl,

just as many black peer groups may, I came up there,

get on those black kids, to your class,

as white kids get on them. and I was very strong—

And it’s not easy,
(Jacquelyn smiles broadly and answers,
to buck them, “Yes!”)
and say,
about what I expected to come out of
“I’m an individual.” this.
But when you do, And it has passed
you, you have begun to arrive. my expectations.
And that’s what’s going on. You’ve got— (extends his hand out
That’s why we can’t get rid of over the entire audience)
the, you’re all just great.
the professed segregation, I’ve got you as missionaries
and whatever going out to do . . . whatever.
because we as individuals, Okay,
will not stand up to our friends, sometimes
our peer groups, you’re going to have to be challenged
our churches, by

our buddies . . . people that are not as far evolved as

you are. But you know you’ve got
And, what’s been so heartfelt,
to stand up.
being here today,
is that you all were beginning to (Gestures toward Bob in the front row.)
think. This is my best friend.
I cried as much as you did Bob. Okay.
We have lunch every Wednesday.
(Ed gestures toward a white man sitting in
the front row, his friend of many years, Bob And we talk about different things.
Gilgor, who was, at the time, producing a I give him—
photographic documentary of Lincoln High
for the local museum; the audience laughs (Bob stands and interrupts Ed with a hug.
with them.) They remain standing together with their arms
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96 PERFORMING HISTORY

around each other’s shoulders. Audience public reflection, affective investment, political
members laugh, clap and make warm, sur­ critique, and hope. He sits down on the edge of
prised comments. Bob speaks over the tumult: hope. This was no formal praise. No pat on the
“He’s my brother. He is. He is. He’s a man of back for a job well done. Even what at the time
character.” Ed continues:) felt like the worrisome length of Ed’s com­
ments (would he stall out conversation with
And his children,
monologue?) proved to be a vigorous refusal of
they come to me as if another kind: a refusal to let his praise stand
I’m Uncle Ed. uncontextualized, to let the performance go
They talk to me. without nurturing its deepest roots and furthest
reach, to fail to articulate the depth of his own
And that’s,
turnaround from suspicion of the university’s
that’s what, part in spectacularizing black history to this
what has to happen. final confidence in the promise of the work to
So, this has been great. which he now paid witness.
I could stop here and make this a story
(Ed looks at and addresses one of the of personal and political heroism: University
performers, Shannon Best, in her seat in the Project Wins Over Black Leaders; Professors
audience.) Beat the Political Odds—but I can’t, of course,
without succumbing to the same logic of lib­
Young lady,
eral apologia and redemption that has secured
I cried the whole time you talked. fantasies of color-blind integration in the U.S.
cultural imaginary. Doing so, moreover,
(Audience laughs and nods and comments in would foreclose on the possibility of entering
agreement.) the intimacies of reperformance into the col­
You’re a strong person. lective memory and imagination of how we
might continue to make and remake histories
You decide to do whatever—
of change. In the next few pages, I’d like to
And then you found out that your offer any number of examples of how, to the
uncle contrary, performances conditioned by listen­
had evolved. ing out loud preserved the possibility of
So. histories of change.12 I’d like to describe
Melanie’s explosive improvisation on the
That’s it.
memories of a white elementary school teacher
nearing retirement whose passion could not be
(He raises both hands up in surrender, tears hidden under either her own or Melanie’s shy
welling.) demeanor. I’d like to tell about Kit’s inter­
I’m going to sit down. views with his distant aunt and her best friend,
both schoolteachers, who drew Kit into a taut
(Audience claps as Ed and Bob sit.) triangulation of gender, generation, and color.
I wish I could describe the steady force with
I’ve let Ed go on here much as he did after which Constance carefully folded and piled
the performance for any number of reasons, clean laundry, performing a kind of homage to
not the least of which is that it is important to her mother’s domestic labor while telling us
hear and to see how deeply rooted his praise what her mother had never before told her:
was in personal memory, collective memory, how class at least as much race kept her
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 97

isolated in the first years of integrated school­ hatred, or what she repeatedly called “ugliness.”
ing, and then kept her out of school, caring for Why bother?
her home and family under threat of an alco­ She proceeded nonetheless, discovering first
holic father. Each of these performances, like of all that the study of desegregation required
each of the others, was crossed through with as much a study of whiteness as of blackness.
what the student previously didn’t know, what Shannon’s assumption that we should all be
he or she might not have known, and awe­ talking with African Americans suggests that
ful/grateful recognition of how much yet then the history of desegregation was something
remains to be known. At the very moment of that happened to African Americans alone—
retelling, acquaintance, aunt, mother became that “they” were integrated into “our” world.
more intimate and more strange, the strange­ While well-intended, this assumption contin­
ness of each intimacy revolting against, above ues to black out the role of whites in both
all, the knowingness—angry, pious, naïve— enabling and inhibiting integration, sustains
that sustains closed narratives of integration the white myth of integration as a done deal,
and preempts ongoing inquiry into the nature and further distances whites from a history
of raced relations. to which they may be otherwise dedicated
Each performance opened up issues of racial by assigning “rights” and implicitly responsi­
politics that far exceeded the relatively narrow bilities elsewhere. Pivoting, however uncon­
thematics of desegregation. This was perhaps sciously, on the assumption that one person or
nowhere more clear than in Shannon Best’s group can own a historical narrative, Shannon
performance—the one to which Ed Caldwell initially, respectfully disowned this one, in
referred at the end of his comments when he effect saying: this is not my story.
said “Young lady/I cried the whole time you To the extent that Shannon identified with a
talked” and on which I will now focus, if only history of oppression, she also separated her­
as a direct complement to Ed’s strongly affec­ self from it by caricature and the performance
tive, although in no way simply “empathic,” of disgust.13 She not only knew but knew all
backward and forward spiral of remembering too well what fools her family members were
and reflection. and she wanted none of it. And yet returning to
As part of an early assignment that asked her family of origin, Shannon, like other white
students to reflect on the first time they students, found complexities that challenged
encountered color (the first time they recalled her segregated sense of herself—a sense that,
becoming race-conscious), Shannon revealed more often than not, depended on the same
her surprise as an eight-year-old watching TV us-them/high-low thinking for which these
and seeing her grandfather on the screen students blamed their father’s or mother’s or
dressed in the garb of a grand wizard of the Ku uncle’s or grandparents’ race hatred.
Klux Klan. A tough white girl, braced for any­ Shannon was an accomplished performer.
thing it seemed, Shannon went on to describe The course of this project can only be described
some of what you’ll read below: the course of as a gradual stripping away of her training,
her engagement to Eddie, the black guy she’d leaving her personally and professionally vul­
been dating for some time, her family’s bitter nerable, appearing somewhat less than spectac­
response, and her return dismissal of them. ular, even amateurish and unprepared. She
Shannon was at a loss as to whom to inter­ began working with the interview material
view for the course project. I encouraged her early in the semester, in one presentation stag­
to consider talking with members of her ing the whole scene of an emerging race riot at
family. She was dumbfounded, sure of what a high school in Greenville, North Carolina, at
she would find there: flat bigotry, toxic about a ten-foot remove from the audience,
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98 PERFORMING HISTORY

“acting out” the story, mimetically substituting first introduced him

a closed umbrella for the lug wrench pulled to them, three and half years ago. . . .
from the trunk of a car, and so on. When I sug­
gested that she return to the listening exercise (Shannon sits down as she speaks and looks
and restart by just telling the story of the inter­ directly at the audience. She pushes her hair
view, she replied, suddenly streaming tears: “I back behind her shoulders and leans into the
can’t. Please don’t make me. I can stage it. I can back of the chair, placing her hands with taut
block anything!” Shannon desperately wanted assurance on the armrests.)
to avoid the kind of vulnerability she knew a
less imitative approach would require. Their response was:
The performance she gave as part of the final “Well there goes your tuition.”
afternoon event was a complete surprise to me
They said they wouldn’t pay my
and to everyone else in class, including, it
tuition any more if I continued to
seemed, Shannon. I’d seen it coming—but not
see him.
this far. As spectacle, the performance failed
brilliantly. The appearance/text were out of Well,
rational(ized) control. Shannon began talking my response to that was,
too soon. She never managed to get her costume “I’m gonna continue to see him.”
straight; the jacket that was meant to resemble
They basically told me that no one in
her uncle’s remained awkwardly wrapped
my family was to know
around one shoulder. Her one attempt at using
props mimetically—smoking a cigarette the about what I was doing or who I was
way her uncle did—never got past the rhythmic seeing.
tamping down of the tobacco, a gesture that And that was the point where,
incidentally may have been more telling than I decided to find out a little about
any more realistic long drag that might have my family’s history.
followed. All smooth surfaces seemed to break
against a courageous, extemporaneous con­ [A contest of knowing begins. To the
frontation with her past and our present. extent that what Shannon told is sup­
Shannon began speaking before she’d fully posed to remain a family secret, it
risen from her seat in the audience. In a quick, becomes the basis for unearthing others.]
defiant voice edged with anxiety, she called
out as she strode toward the single chair wait­ And
ing for her at the front of the room: I found out that my grandfather was a
former ah grand wizard of the
My fiancé is black. KKK.
Does that shock anybody? And that,
[This is as much a confession as a my uncle was
dare. It is also a setup, positioning the a junior Klansman,
audience in the place her parents and was involved in a lot of racial
occupied in her story of their response fights the
to a similar confession.]
first year of integration—which was
Shocked my parents his sophomore year of high school.
when I And
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 99

I was angry, worked for, my, my grandfather

and I was upset, which was his father—
and, and he told me that,
I, these two black men they would, ah,
I wanted, I wanted they would come over to his house
outside work,
(She sits up tall and leans toward the audience. and his father would go outside and
Her hands seem to search the air for what she they would talk and laugh, and
“wanted” then and now.)
smoke and drink and just
to interview my uncle have a good time.
because I wanted to prove to myself And he said that he went over with his
how ignorant and closed minded father to their house one time,
and just and they sat out under the carport
uneducated my family was. and they,
I wanted to prove that to myself. they smoked and they,
laughed and they
[Shannon makes an initial reflexive
conversated,
shift beyond her insistent desire to jus­
tify her hurt and anger into desire to but they never went in each other’s
know what could possibly justify houses.
causing such hurt and anger. At the Because that’s the way things were.
very point of “proof,” her family is You didn’t go into someone of another
becoming less known, less familiar, race’s house.
more strange. She expands her inquiry
So—
to broader contexts of segregation.]
When I went to
But I also wanted to find out how interview my uncle,
someone’s color could bring out I went straight into the racial fights.
that amount of
I wanted to know all about the racial
hatred fights.
in a person
based primarily on (Shannon looks down, briefly trying to adjust
her jacket, one sleeve of which is turned inside
his
out. She abandons the jacket, looks up again,
race. and begins to speak now as her uncle, telling
And I knew that my uncle had only his story from his/her perspective. Her voice
known, takes on a low, wry tone.)
or had only associated with,
[This is now an explicitly hybrid per­
two black people before
formance. When Shannon begins
schools were integrated his sophomore speaking as her uncle, it is clear that
year of high school— she is both not herself and not exactly
and these two black men were, ah— him; she is not-not-him.]
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100 PERFORMING HISTORY

Oh, (she/he laughs) (Audience laughs.)

you talking about the day of the riot? And ahmmm,
Yeah.
I remember. (Shannon has taken out a pack of cigarettes.
She begins to tamp down the pack against the
It was all,
palm of her other hand, making a loud, rhyth­
it was all because this ah black kid, mic clapping noise as she speaks.)
walked in the school
I was on the ground,
and, ah,
and all these people were just walking
there was this dead raccoon, by,
hanging by a noose and I’m sitting there kicking and
on his locker. screaming.
And I remember: I was walking out of None of the white kids really wanted
school that day, to get involved in what was going on.
with this girl— But I had this one friend
and there were these twenty black guys that walked by.
who rushed in from another area. He was looking,
I didn’t know what was going on. and he was like, you know:
I found out later they had just beat up “What’s going on?” and “who’s under
this white kid there?”
across campus. And ahmmm,
And ahmmm,
(Shannon abandons trying to open the
(Shannon leans back and throws her right foot pack of cigarettes and yet continues bang­
across her left knee.) ing it against her palm. She continues to
they were almost inside the door, speak in her uncle Ken’s, plain, reportorial
and stopped. style.)

And one of them looked at me and he saw me kicking and screaming,

said, at the bottom of the pile,
said something like, and he looked at them and he said,
“What kind of shit you got to say?” “You black sons of bitches.”
And when he said that, Well that got them off me.
they all pretty much stopped. They jumped on him!
And I knew at this point,
I was getting my ass kicked. (Audience laughs.)
So, And we’re all scrambling around, on
I just basically looked at him, the, on the ground,
and I hit him. and these teachers walk out and
they’re all like,
And they commenced to do what I
pretty much thought they were “Y’all need to leave.”
going to do. And they are screaming.
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 101

And I see the National Guard pulling And I said “Oh, I’m, I’m Ken’s niece
up and I’m just looking for his partner.”
and all these police, so And he says, “You’re looking at him.”
we walk out to the parking lot. And
To my car. my face,
And I open the trunk. turned really red,
And right then,
I get out a lug wrench. and I held out my hand and
And, and I shook his hand—to cover up my
by this time, we pretty much know embarrassment—
it’s a full-fledged riot. and I’m thinking to myself, how,
At least seven hundred people by then. how can I assume that this is not his
partner,
(Shannon pauses briefly, uncrosses her legs
because he’s black?
and sits up straight. She begins to talk directly
to the audience as herself now. ) I mean what does that say about me?
I’m sitting here,
Well,
putting all this criticism on my
when I walked into family—
my uncle’s and I’m sitting here assuming the
place of business that day, same thing.
he told me that story,
[Shannon dis-disidentifies. Here is
and then he said he had a little bit of
the double negative at work, undoing
work to do on the computer so—
Shannon’s primary sense of herself.
“go back to the back” and introduce She is the one who is “shocked”
myself to his partner, now—although shocked less at the
Barry. fact of Barry’s skin color than at her
own resilient expectations about it.]
[Her voice still shaded by her uncle’s
dry/wry tone, Shannon now draws I was pretty confused at this point, so I
the immediacy of talking with us into go back into the room where my uncle is,
tight proximity with the immediacies and I look at him, and he just starts
of the interview scene itself. She con­ smiling at me,
joins the vulnerabilities of telling and
and he’s like, “I know what you’re
having been/being told.]
going to ask.”
So I walk back to the back, And ahmmm,
of the office,
(Shannon leans back in the chair. She breathes
and all I see is this black guy standing
in, looks up and begins speaking as her uncle
there,
again.)
and I walk by him, and he stops me
and is like, [Shannon relays her own silence, her
“Can I help you?” own not-knowing and even her
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102 PERFORMING HISTORY

uncle’s sly kindness in not making her (quietly) Barry was my hero.
“ask” what he suspects she will ask I am not around it any more.
in deference to Ken’s gentle voice. We
I do not allow anyone to use it in my
see and hear now two more expansive
house.
selves: Ken’s filled out by Barry’s and
Shannon’s filled out by Ken’s.] And, if I do,
come across the situation where slang
Barry, is being used, I separate myself from
Ah, Barry yeah, that situation.
he’s my friend. And that makes it hard when I get
around old friends.
He’ll change someone’s whole world,
Because for them it’s just
about, about the way they think about
race, an everyday thing.
about the way they think about the But ahmmm,
black race anyway. now, the way things are set up at my
I remember in 1985 office,
I put an ad in the newspaper something happened to me,
basically asking for money that I’m entrusting my children,

to start this business. and my wife,

I needed some help starting this and my family,

business. to Barry.
And he was the only one that He is the godfather of my children.
responded. Everything I have will go to him when
So I die.
I took him up on his offer, And ahmmm,

and we started this business. I don’t know,

And up until that point, Barry’s just,

just an amazing guy.
slang was used pretty regular around
my house.
(Shannon sits forward and shifts into speaking
It was ah, in her voice, now softened considerably by
basically, having passed through her Uncle Ken’s.)
‘n’ this or ‘n’ that Well,
or jokes about it, and it was just a after my interview with my uncle,
regular thing. I am sitting there
But it’s been at least nine or ten years realizing how stupid I am,
since that word has come out of my and how many years I’ve wasted not
mouth. getting to know this man that I am
He, related to,
he was, and what a wonderful person he is,
my hero. and at that moment,
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 103

my fiancé walks in the door looking turn her own displacement and reflecting on
for me, its meanings. This performance was something
and my heart pretty much drops to like a handshake with history: a start, a touch,
the ground, a call, an act of remembering and awakening,
a performative recollection of what Shannon
because nobody’s met,
didn’t know and may yet not know, all the
him, more tender and resplendent yet for not know­
in my family. ing what happens from here. Uncle Ken has
And I look at him and I look at my the last and what is in effect the first word—
uncle and I’m just speechless. spoken to Eddie and reported by Shannon, all
reaching tentatively across great racial divides:
[Shannon’s previous silence—con­ “Welcome to the family.”
veyed only by echoing witness to her A story is not a story until it changes.
uncle’s words—is now doubled. In Shannon’s performance, like others, slid from
the heightened context of reperform­ textual verity and containment to radical con­
ing the interview scene, she becomes tingency. It drew her into the vortex of disiden­
the humble(d) third party to a perfor­ tifying with a history she knew all too well.
mance of family/raced relations that Recreating that history meant recreating—
leaves us all on a threshold of hard- refashioning—her most basic sense of herself,
won but tremulous possibility.] allying with her uncle and with our guests and
her peers in a compact of cowitness.14 In so
I don’t know what to say. doing, she challenged the performative force of
And my uncle sticks out his hand and her prior expectations, even insofar as they col­
says, luded with her family’s racism in the delimita­
“It’s nice to meet you.” tion of precisely this kind of transformation
and change. Racism, Patricia Williams argues,
And my fiancé said, “My name’s
is a spectacular discipline:
Eddie, and I’m, I’m Shannon’s fiancé.”
And [my uncle] looks at him, [It] is a gaze that insists upon the power to
and he said, make others conform, to perform endlessly
in the prison of prior expectation, circling
“Welcome to the family.” repetitively back upon the expired utility of
the entirely known. Our rescue, our deliver­
Shannon registered change in the ongoing ance perhaps, lies in the possibility of listen­
changes in her own body, mind, heart, voice, ing across that great divide, of being
and story, change that was homely in appear­ surprised by the Unknown, by the unknow­
ance and magnificent in its homeliness. Her able.” (1997, p. 74)
story is frank, aching, confused. It is a story of
being caught out by and now caught in an In the end, the desegregation project and
unfolding history. Soliciting her uncle’s memo­ the listening out loud practices that fed it were
ries, she was as much remembered to them as about the great intimacies that may be achieved
she remembers them now like a second lan­ in small acts of listening across “that great
guage, a first maybe. A forgotten language of divide,” about keeping those intimacies “in
familial love and possibility, in whose gram­ revolt” against, especially, performativity as the
mars she is relieved of both spite and its pecu­ compulsive reiteration of raced expectations,15
liar clarity. Listening out loud, Shannon testifies and so about preserving—in fleeting moments
to her uncle’s transformation, witnessing in and clumsy gestures—the possibility of great
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104 PERFORMING HISTORY

acts. They were and are about embodying 11. Thanks to Laurie Lathem for helping
listening as an antidote to knowingness. They me to extend this formulation. See her essay,
“Bringing Old and Young People Together: An
were about feeling “so much more” and so
Interview Project,” in Pollock (2005).
remembering more, and so, finally, about pre­ 12. All performances quoted and discussed
serving histories of change as more: more feel­ with the students’ permission.
ing, more memory, more—and better—change. 13. See Sara Ahmed, “The Performativity of
Disgust,” (2004, pp. 82–100).
14. See Conquergood’s effort to answer
NOTES Johannes Fabian’s call for a turn “‘from informa­
tive to performative ethnography’” with “an
1. See Berlant (2004), Compassion, for cri­
ethnography of the ears and heart that reimagines
tique of the common sense politics of compassion
participant-observation as co-performative wit­
and empathy.
nessing” (2002, p. 149).
2. For a supplementary introduction and
15. Per Butler’s now-classic formulation of
complementary versions of oral history perfor­
“performativity” (1990).
mance, see Pollock (2005).
3. See Jacquelyn Hall’s definitive critique and
elaboration of the Brown history, “The Long Civil REFERENCES
Rights Movement,” in which she observes its fore­
shortening by accounts of both conclusive triumph Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion.
and decline (2005). New York: Routledge.
4. See Sam Schrager’s fundamental insight: Benjamin, W. (1969). The storyteller. Illuminations.
“What the oral historian does is to provide a new (H. Zohn, Trans.) New York: Schocken.
context for the telling of mainly preexistent narra­ (Original work published 1955)
tive” (1983, pp. 78–79). Berlant, L. (Ed.). (2004). Compassion: The culture
5. This early project is recounted in Pollock and politics of an emotion. New York:
(1990). Routledge.
6. Per Walter Benjamin’s now-infamous dec­ Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the
laration: “The storyteller takes what he tells from subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
experience—his own or that reported by others. Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the dis­
And he in turn makes it the experience of those cursive limits of “sex.” New York: Routledge.
who are listening to his tale” (1969, p. 87). Conquergood, D. (1998). Beyond the text: Toward
7. See Conquergood’s critique of text- a performative cultural politics. In S. J. Dailey
centrism in Dailey (1998). (Ed.), The future of performance studies:
8. Judith Butler argues, for instance, that Visions and revisions (pp. 25–36). Annandale,
“although the political discourses that mobilize VA: National Communication Association.
identity categories tend to cultivate identifications Conquergood, D. (2002). Performance studies:
in the service of a political goal, it may be that the Interventions and radical research. The Drama
persistence of disidentification is equally crucial Review, 46(2), 145–156.
to the rearticulation of democratic contestations” Dailey, S. J. (Ed.). (1998). The future of performance
(1993, p. 4). See also Muñoz (1999). studies: Visions and revisions Annandale, VA:
9. See Schechner (1985, pp. 111–115). National Communication Association.
10. At its best, oral history performance enacts Debord, G. (1983). Society of the spectacle. Detroit:
what Kelly Oliver calls “the response-ability in Black and Red. (Original work published 1977)
subjectivity” (2001, p. 139): the self as a respon­ Hall, J. D. (2005). The long civil rights movement
sive agent who speaks what she sees. This self is and the political uses of the past. Journal of
inextricable from “others.” It does not subsume American History, 91, 1233–1263.
or speak for others any more than it bespeaks an Kristeva, J. (2002). Intimate revolt: The powers and
inalienable distinction between self and other. For limits of psychoanalysis (J. Herman, Trans.).
Oliver, in the praxis of witnessing, “the other is no New York: Columbia University Press.
longer the other. There is no the other, but a mul­ (Original work published 1997)
titude of differences and other people on whom Muñoz, J. E. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers
my sense of myself as a subject and an agent of color and the performance of politics.
depends” (p. 223). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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Memory, Remembering, and Histories of Change 105

Oliver, K. (2001). Witnessing: Beyond recognition. Schrager, S. (1983). What is social in oral history? Inter­
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. national Journal of Oral History, 4(2), 76–98.
Pollock, D. (1990). Telling the told: Performing like Trinh, T. M. (1989). Woman, native, other:
a family. The Oral History Review, 18(2), 1–35. Writing postcoloniality and feminism.
Pollock, D. (Ed.). (2005). Remembering: Oral Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
history performance (New York: Palgrave/ Williams, P. J. (1997). Seeing a color-blind future:
St. Martin’s. The paradox of race. New York: Farrar,
Schechner, R. (1985). Between theater and anthro­ Strauss and Giroux.
pology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
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7
Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis
Mid-Nineteenth Century American
Women’s Performance Criticism

GAY GIBSON CIMA

Oh! would they but endeavour to realize the bitterness of such a lot [as slavery],
surely, surely, they would rush to the rescue of the thousands who are agonizing
beneath its endurance.
—Elizabeth Margaret Chandler (1836)

DEFINING PERFORMANCE HISTORY Writing about performance is, of necessity,

writing about events, behaviors, and gestures
“Performance history” may sound like an oxy­ that have escaped into the past, whether that
moron, a rhetorical linkage of two mismatched past has happened just moments prior or cen­
or even contradictory terms. What could turies ago. Historians, against all odds, try to
history—whether it is conceived of as a nego­ grasp what was “realized” through past per­
tiation with memory (Jacques Le Goff and formances, in order to shape the present and
Pierre Nora), as thick description (Clifford future. For example, through an investigation
Geertz), as a genealogy of cultural practices of the ways in which mid-nineteenth century
(Michel Foucault), or, more recently, as a black, white, and multiracial1 women staged
vexed and partial narrative—have to do with their antislavery and theatrical criticism, I hope
the ephemeral stuff of living performance? And to illuminate their overlapping performance
yet, performance scholars always reside at the strategies and prompt further reflection upon
intersection of these two terms, history and the relationship between women’s activism and
performance, whether they admit it or not. performance criticism.

106
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 107

Performance historians search for traces of He explains that it is Picquet’s performance

past events that remain in the present, some­ of herself, not her appearance, that affirms her
times as carefully preserved artifacts housed status as a slave:
in well-organized archives. These readily avail­
able bits of evidence remain crucial to histori­ A certain menial-like diffidence, her planta­
ans, but they must be approached from new tion expression and pronunciation, her
inability to read or write, together with her
directions. If they are not dislocated from their familiarity with and readiness in describing
overdetermined status and remapped in new plantation scenes and sorrows, all attest
coordinates, they will not yield new insights. the truthfulness of her declaration that
Furthermore, they do not suffice as a record she has been most of her life a slave.
of the past, because they often represent only (1861/1988, p. 5)
what the dominant culture has viewed as
worth saving and only what has, willy-nilly, Picquet was certainly aware of the precari­
survived the exigencies of time. Scholars, ousness of her situation. She knew that to
therefore, are always broadening the kinds of Mattison, her literacy would signal that she
archives that they investigate, searching for was not an authentic slave, and while whites
repositories outside of libraries and museums. routinely wrote fake slave narratives for cash,
Evidence may hide in private homes, churches, her ability to gain her mother’s freedom
banks, community centers, hospitals, military was dependent upon her “authenticity.”
headquarters, and other nontraditional perfor­ “Authentic” slaves, Mattison’s readers believed,
mance archives. were illiterate and compliant, so Picquet pre­
With performance studies as a heuristic tended illiteracy and performed deference. She
guide, historians may also use the archives in gave her interrogator enough of what he
new ways, angling for an understanding of desired—a “readiness in describing plantation
what is only partially recorded, or what is scenes”—to gain access to what she wanted: an
pointedly not there. Performance scholars audience to raise funds to free her mother.
learn to be receptive to the fragments, distor­ However, for a brief moment in her perfor­
tions, and silences in the evidentiary record. mance of illiteracy, she slipped. She began her
The gaps and messy contradictions in the interview safely enough, telling how a good
extant evidence can lead to a fuller grasp of a friend—conversant with the area of Texas
particular performance event or custom, pre­ where her mother lived—taught her how to
cisely because they name the forbidden zones send her mother a letter. She refused to allow
or the contested areas of cultural performance. Mattison to publish this secret means of com­
For example, since it was often imprudent and munication, for fear of having her letters inter­
even illegal for slaves to reveal their print liter­ cepted, but the effort she expended in
acy, their antislavery performance criticism is protecting her path of communication made
full of gaps and contradictory evidence. There her stumble. As Picquet continued the inter­
is a telling moment in an 1861 interview with view, Mattison interjected his comments [in
slave critic Louisa Picquet (b. 1828?), who the square brackets]:
agreed to talk with a smarmy abolitionist
named Reverend H. Mattison in order to raise Then he told us how to send a letter, and
money to purchase her mother’s freedom. where to mail it. [There is a kink about
mailing a letter, so as to have it reach a
Mattison represents her as an alluring and
slave, that we never before dreamed of; but
victimized “octoroon,” a slave with “African” Mrs. P. does not wish it published, for fear
blood, despite the fact that she looks like “an it will hinder her from getting her letters.]
accomplished white lady” (1861/1988, p. 5). Then I wrote a letter [got one written], and
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108 PERFORMING HISTORY

in three weeks I had a letter from my performance contexts; they reflect on fissures
mother. (1861/1988, pp. 29–30) and inconsistencies in the documentary record
to tease out an understanding of shifting per­
Straining to protect the only means through formance codes and forbidden memories.
which she was able to keep in touch with her Performance historians also notice how
mother, Picquet for a moment accidentally events have been framed within historical nar­
dropped her guard and said, simply, “Then I ratives, and think carefully about how they
wrote a letter.” This statement reveals that might be reevaluated as a part of a new narra­
indeed, she could write. Unable to recognize tive. In the present example, the new narrative
this as a slip, however, Mattison simply “cor­ grants Louisa Picquet a certain kind of power
rects” the information for his white readers, and undercuts the interrogator’s and readers’
translating it into “got one written.” What is authority. Whether historians are investigating
at stake here is our understanding of how how identity categories such as nationhood,
Louisa Picquet performed her sense of her- race, gender, and sexuality have been con­
self—the messy, contradictory tangle of an structed within an historical event, or whether
individual life—and also our grasp of how a they are examining the highly individualized,
slave critic in the mid-nineteenth century jumbled, and random nature of a given event,
might manipulate dominant interpretive lenses they are trying to frame something from the
to her own benefit. In the face of sparse infor­ past in the present to reshape the future. This
mation on slave literacy, at stake also is our is challenging when the evidentiary record is
notion of who owned language and power in partial, as it is for those investigating feminist
this type of interchange. and African American performers and perfor­
Curiously, misprisioned speech and silence mance critics operating within the racialized
may signal performance codes once so perva­ discourse of mid-nineteenth century America.
sive that they did not have to be stated. As But it is also crucial to our ability to grasp fully
historians investigate past performances, they the impact of our own theatre and perfor­
search for these agreed-upon codes that hide mance historiographies, to evaluate the stories
within an event, memories meant to be hon­ we have been telling ourselves about the past.
ored but held secret by members of a particu­ By examining the performance practices of
lar social group. For example, many northern abolitionists in the late 1820s and the 1830s,
antislavery readers read Picquet’s interview as I seek to reveal not only how they entered the
a sad, romantic, and risqué tale stimulating public sphere as cultural critics but also how
them toward further abolitionist activity, but they interacted with each other and with their
Southern readers—black, white, and multira­ audiences to shape notions of race, gender,
cial—may have assumed that as a cultivated sexuality, and nationhood at the outset of the
“house slave” Picquet was literate. As a result, reform era. Their appearances in print and
they may have read her performance in onstage, based on a practice they called “men­
the interview with Mattison as a minstrel act tal metempsychosis,” paved the way for women
for an abolitionist dupe. They may have theatre critics to try to link a relatively receptive
realized that she was performing a forbidden attitude toward slave culture with a receptivity
role, the role of the manipulator. Some to minstrelsy in the 1840s and 1850s.
may have championed Picquet’s efforts to free
her mother, but others would have been out­
WOMEN AS ANTISLAVERY CRITICS
raged by her deceit. Performance historians,
aware of their own positionality and activist In the 1820s, the number of women perfor­
goals, evaluate evidence based upon specific mance critics multiplied, primarily because of
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 109

their participation in the emerging antislavery societies, and female literary associations as
movement. Black, white, and multiracial well as the fiery rhetoric of individual critics
women wedged their way into public debates, like Scottish transplant Frances Wright
not only as abolitionist writers but also, for (1795–1852) and African American Maria
the first time, as antislavery lecturers. This was W. Miller Stewart (1803–1879).
a radical departure from the norm. During Antislavery churchwomen were puzzled by
the Revolutionary War era, women had pre­ the clergy’s criticism of their activism, because
sumed that they could hold individual opin­ they themselves viewed their abolitionism as an
ions on matters of national concern. They had extension of their work in charitable associa­
shared their opinions with others, sometimes tions. When the Boston Female Anti-Slavery
fundraising, boycotting, or petitioning the fed­ Society suffered a mob attack in 1835, for
eral government. As republican mothers dedi­ example, Maria Weston Chapman (1806–
cated to educating sons—and, in a different 1885) asked the editor of the Boston Courier,
way, daughters—for the republic (Kerber, “when before, in this city, have gentlemen of
1980), they had published poems, pamphlets, standing and influence, been incensed against
plays, propaganda, ballads, letters, catechisms, a benevolent association of ladies, for holding
novels, schoolbooks, dialogues, newsletters—a their annual meeting, inviting a lecturer to
plethora of pieces of performance criticism. address them, and requesting their friends to
Few, however, had performed their criticism attend, after the custom of benevolent
onstage in an attempt to rally others to their societies?” (Yellin and Van Horne, 1994, p. 1).
cause. Women “exhorters” had preached in Female antislavery societies were, however,
the streets and actress-playwrights had breaking new ground, sharpening women’s
appeared on the boards, despite social pro­ skills in molding political movements through
scriptions against such activity, but they risked performance, petitioning, lobbying, and build­
losing their respectability each time they ing coalitions in a newly public fashion.
spoke. The female antislavery lecturers who Women’s societies differed slightly from
stepped into parlors, pulpits, and podiums in men’s in terms of their stated ideologies. The
the 1830s risked physical violence as well as women in the New York Chatham Street
opprobrium. They were accused of performing Chapel society, for example, did not announce
“amalgamation” or racial mixing, which that they sought, as their male counterparts
many thought a threat to the very fabric of did, to “improve the minds, the character, or
American life. the morals of the free black population.” In
Consequently, they banded together to fact, they directly stated their desire not to
form societies in which they could safely per­ “join hypocrisy to persecution by dictating to
form their activism. From 1820 to 1865, many them how they are to improve their character
northern critics focused on abolition: female and their prospects”2 (Swerdlow, 1994, p. 33).
lecturers crisscrossed the East and Midwest Of course, there are many ways to encourage
to lobby for an end to auction block rituals. particular behaviors without “dictating” them,
Typically white antislavery critics were but the fact that women made a point of artic­
middle- to upper-class; black and multiracial ulating their goals differently from the men
critics were free elite and middle-class women, is significant. Female societies also differed
freed women, and slave refugees (Hansen, from one another on ideological and practical
1993). The female antislavery associations grounds, adopting different performance
that flourished in the 1830s and 1840s, and strategies and producing different kinds of
that fostered the woman critic as lecturer, critics, depending upon their locale. Some
grew out of church groups, benevolent societies were segregated, but many were not.
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110 PERFORMING HISTORY

In Philadelphia and even more strikingly in some, a homoerotic—space. Starting in the

Boston, they drew heavily on the rhetoric of 1830s, antislavery meetings provided women
American republicanism, while in New York— with a homosocial network of friendships and
where most members were white—they were alliances, which, for some, validated same-sex
more likely to emphasize religious logic. The relationships. In 1893 Jane Campbell, the edi­
members of the Philadelphia and Boston tor of a new women’s journal, published her
societies often complained of the provincialism inaugural article on Mary Grew as one of the
and racism of the New York associations. nineteenth century’s “Representative Women,”
Black women regularly led antislavery noting that her name was a “household word”
efforts. They founded the first female antislav­ in Philadelphia. Grew served as the corre­
ery society on February 22, 1832, in Salem, sponding secretary of the antislavery society
Massachusetts. The president of that organiza­ from 1836 to 1870 and as the president of the
tion, Clarissa C. Lawrence, later became an Pennsylvania Woman Suffrage Association for
officer of Salem’s integrated Female Anti- 23 years. She spoke from Unitarian pulpits
Slavery Society as well as a delegate to the 1839 and published frequently on abolition and
Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women women’s rights in news organs of the day.
(Sterling, 1984, p. 109). By October 1833, However, as Campbell closed her article, she
black and white women critics joined to estab­ admitted, “nothing has been said here of the
lish the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, private life of Mary Grew, beautiful in every
and two months later Philadelphians followed respect as it has been, for retiring by nature
suit. Women in New York state were slower to and inclination she has ever seemed to sink
take up the antislavery banner, and less likely herself in her work” (Campbell, 1893, p. 8).
to do so in integrated associations. For Mary Grew’s private life was kept private
instance, black women in Rochester initiated because of her long term relationship with
a female society in 1834, while white women Margaret Burleigh. When Burleigh died, Grew
there waited until 1837 to follow suit. Most answered a close friend’s sympathy note by
New Yorkers joined abolitionist ranks through confiding,
evangelical revivalism and emphasized, like the
women of the Chatham Street Chapel society, You comprehend and appreciate, as few
the sinfulness of slavery and “the principles persons do, the nature of the relation which
laid down by our blessed Savior Himself” existed, which exists, between her and
(Swerdlow, 1994, p. 36).Their black and white myself. Her only surviving niece, Miss Ella
Jones, also does. To me it seems to have
Boston counterparts, more motivated by poli­ been a closer union than that of most mar­
tics, opened their “Address of the Boston riages. We know there have been other such
Female Anti-Slavery Society to the Women of between two men and also between two
New England” with references to their respon­ women. And why should there not be.
sibilities as “the true descendants of the pil­ (Grew, 1892)
grims” and their commitment not to Christ but
to “Christian freedom.” They reminded read­ Grew justified her partnership with
ers of their interconnectedness, explaining Burleigh through language that reverberates in
that “while, under any pretense, one human corners of 1960s lesbian cultural feminist dis­
being is held in slavery in a nation of which course: “love is spiritual,” she wrote, “only
they form a part, their own freedom is in peril” passion is sexual.” She privately acknowl­
(1994, p. 36). edged her union with Burleigh, a union which
Antislavery advocates often staged their found its history as well as its emotional justi­
inchoate desire for a homosocial—and, for fication within the antislavery movement.
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 111

ANTISLAVERY BODIES the movement of free blacks, and by laws

AND CENSUS LABELS leading to the 1850 federal Fugitive Slave Act,
which dictated that northerners return slaves
Women’s antislavery activism emerged at a to their southern masters. By the 1850s, free
time when the 1820 U. S. census had divided northern blacks, including middle-class anti­
bodies into the following categories: free white, slavery critics, had to fear being kidnapped,
other free, persons not naturalized, colored, misidentified as the property of a purported
and slave. These categories had developed over master, and sent south as slaves. Black and
time: the 1790 census, for instance, had multiracial antislavery speakers risked their
counted only free whites, other free persons, lives in very precise ways by speaking out
and slaves, and had also yielded anecdotal against slavery in the mid-nineteenth century.
information about the numbers of “English That fact must be given due consideration
and Welsh,” the Scots, Irish, Dutch, French, in evaluating why they sometimes chose to
Germans, “Hebrews,” and “all other national­ disseminate their cultural criticism through
ities.” (University of Virginia, 2004). By 1820, a process that might be called “surrogate
these national affiliations were no longer activism”: they embedded their critiques
noted, and the racial category “colored” had within whites’ lectures and books.
emerged as a way of separating free black bod­ By 1850, however, the census listed new
ies from “other free” bodies. Race was displac­ racial categories: “white, native and foreign,”
ing nationality as a means of marking bodies, “free coloured,” and “slave.” The last two cat­
though nationality still mattered as a means of egories were broken down into “black” or
designating the degrees of American-ness: the “mulatto.”3 The process implicitly linking free­
category “persons not naturalized” separated dom with whiteness was completed, so the
new immigrants from old; and “free white” in qualifier “free” was deleted from the category
many regions became a shorthand for per­ “white,” but the effort to distinguish newcom­
ceived Anglo-American-ness, while “other ers from established Americans continued in
free” was applied variously, at the discretion the “native and foreign” designation attached
of individual census-takers, as a label for well- to “white.” By 1850, white meant free, and
established immigrants of various European persons of all nations except Africa were, in
nationalities and for any individuals who did terms of the census at least, regarded as white.
not appear “white” or “colored.” The opposition between “white” and “black”
Most of the prominent female antislavery bodies was recoded: not only were free “col­
lecturers in the 1830s were perceived as free oreds” no longer linked to European immi­
whites or “coloreds,” though their families’ grants, but they were also posed as the clear
various national origins doubtless lingered in opposite of whites. The delineation of a
the minds of audience members, as memories “mulatto” population, while acknowledging a
do, creating an implicit class hierarchy within middle ground between the seeming opposites
the overall racial category of “whiteness.” “black” and “white” and opening up new
Between 1820 and 1850, the free status of opportunities for some women critics to exper­
“colored” Americans was still ostensibly rec­ iment with notions of visibility, invisibility, and
ognized, but its power was offset by the new identity, also dangerously gestured toward the
racial boundaries that implicitly associated obvious and yet the unspoken: the forced and
free “colored” Americans with slaves instead unforced interracial sexual contact already
of free European immigrants. The racial embedded in the culture. These shifting census
boundaries made explicit in the 1820 census designations help reveal the context in which
were bolstered by state legislation restricting antislavery activists and theatre critics staged
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112 PERFORMING HISTORY

their work from the 1830s through the 1850s, creating a strictly “rational body” through
when both female antislavery societies and which to stage her antireligious, antislavery
minstrelsy flourished and fostered complex criticism. She presented herself as inhabiting
acts of surrogacy among women critics. a logical, pragmatic body, the obvious and
preferable alternative, in her view, to the hys­
terical evangelical bodies of women involved
IMAGINING BODIES
in the religious revival of the Second Great
AND BODIES OF CRITICISM
Awakening. Her tactic of occupying a rational
To deflect the charge that they were perform­ body, however, not only failed to inspire abo­
ing womanhood inappropriately, nineteenth litionist activity but also resulted in the further
century women critics adopted various bodily “blackening” of her reputation.
shields for their performances onstage and Other female antislavery critics, conse­
in print. They created rhetorical “bodies” quently, embraced what they felt was a more
through which they could safely speak by bor­ efficacious performative strategy—but it was
rowing phrases or gestures from the main­ also more problematic. They began to adopt
stream and combining them in new ways and the “surrogate bodies” of slaves onstage.
by imagining bodies to serve their ends. These Through a process that white critic Elizabeth
alternative “bodies” acted as shields of res­ Margaret Chandler (1807–1834) called “men­
pectability as well as sites of desire, fantasy, tal metempsychosis,” white, free black, and
feeling, learning, and solidarity. Women critics multiracial women critics imagined themselves
created a variety of bodies to inhabit as the entering into slave bodies wracked with pain,
female antislavery meetings of the 1830s performing thereby their own womanly sense
transformed into the ladies’ physiological and of violation as well as a tangled and contra­
literary societies of the 1840s and the women’s dictory web of desire and concern. They hoped
rights conventions of the 1850s. As abolition­ to generate in their audiences emotions so
ists, they imagined entering slave bodies to strong that they would trigger an immediate
“excite” themselves and each other into anti­ commitment to antislavery activism. Instead
slavery activism; sometimes they pointed to of arguing against the Christian rhetoric of the
actual slave narrators standing onstage beside Awakening, as Frances Wright did, these anti­
them. As medical lecturers, black and white slavery critics recycled the suffering Christian
women replaced these imaginary slave bodies body for activist purposes. Even as they staged
onstage with manikins and illustrations. Then, their idea of enslaved blackness, they rein­
as woman’s rights advocates, they fleshed out forced whiteness (as race and as class) through
those skeletons by speaking onstage, side by a minstrel surrogacy.
side, on their own behalf, covering over the Chandler, the first editor of the “Ladies’
memory of the slave bodies and the skeletons Repository” column in the antislavery
that ghosted their performances. Throughout, newspaper The Genius of Universal Emanci­
they imagined various kinds of Christian bod­ pation, pleaded with her readers as early as
ies as a shield. All of these bodies haunt the 1831 to empathize with slaves through mental
columns of nineteenth century black and white metempsychosis (Chandler, 1836, p. 171).
women theatre and performance critics. Metempsychosis is the process through which
a soul is understood to migrate, at death, into
another body. This is antithetical, of course, to
White Antislavery Critics:
the individualistic Christian notion that a soul
Empathy, Appropriation, and Desire
is born within a particular body and lives on
The first woman known to lecture onstage intact when that body dies. Plato, borrowing
in the United States, Frances Wright, tried from Hinduism and Buddhism, described
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 113

metempsychosis as a process through which her. Her performance was charged through
immortal souls worked toward purity, moving with sexuality, violence, and voyeurism, but
from body to body over time to reach perfec­ she saw it as an enactment of specifically
tion.4 These souls, detached from their indi­ Christian love. In an act of surrogate activism,
vidualistic character, travel bodiless through she borrowed the slave body and Christian
the realm of ideas. Upon occasion, they can be body to claim attention for antislavery as she
recollected as ideals. The souls are free to spoke:
move across bodily boundaries—they are
completely fluid—and yet, they also bind bod­ When I come to sit down in the cool of the
day, alone with none but God to hold com­
ies together ineluctably across time and space. munion with, and in the exercise of love to
The performative practice that Chandler him, become myself the slave—when at such
called “mental” metempsychosis, then, invited a moment I feel the fetters wearing away the
antislavery critics to leave the bodies they flesh and grating on my bare ankle bone,
occupied, imagine themselves dead, and envi­ when I feel the naked cords of my neck
shrinking away from the rough edge of the
sion themselves as part of an ancient, fluid
iron collar, when my flesh quivers beneath
soul searching for a body that would propel it the lash, till, in anguish, I feel portions of it
toward ideal connectedness. At a time when cut from my back; or when I see my aged
the U.S. Constitution recognized only the fig­ and feeble mother driven away and scourged,
ural (three-fifths) bodies of slaves, Chandler and then the brutish and drunken overseer
wanted her free white and “coloured” readers lay his ferocious grasp upon the person of
my sister and drag her to his den of pollu­
to “imagine themselves for a few moments in tions . . . when I see you and others standing
[the slave’s] very circumstances, to enter his by to witness it, what do I hear from your
feelings, comprehend all his wretchedness, lips? (Sterling, 1991, pp. 32–33)
transform themselves mentally into his very
self,” believing that then “they would not By publicly borrowing slave bodies, critics
surely long withhold their compassion” like Foster staged their own metaphorical
(1836, pp. 117–118). Chandler and her fellow deaths, their legal and civic nonexistence as
antislavery advocates first had to convey the well as the social deaths that abolitionist activ­
fact that slaves were not, rightly speaking, ity brought them. They leapt into a space Plato
property but rather humans. By adopting slave associated with the ideal, and Lynda Hart
bodies as surrogate bodies, antislavery work­ linked to “trauma”—that space between the
ers hoped to fuel empathy, prove that slaves stage and the stalls, the self and the void—as
were fully human, and spur activism on their they entered into the zone of what they
behalf. Slave refugees and narrators them­ regarded as a forbidden body. There they fan­
selves, I hasten to add, did not self-identify tasized female same-sex as well as heterosex­
as victims; their own narratives recount their ual desire, interracial lust, sadomasochistic
resistance, moral superiority, and determined scenes of domination and submission. There
self-authorization. they expressed their public outrage at male
Abby Kelley Foster (1810–1887), among domination and enacted their misguided sense
the earliest white female abolitionists to speak of a totally shared violation at the hands of
at a public lectern, practiced mental metempsy­ men, eliding the material differences between
chosis in front of audiences of blacks and their own middle-class lives and the lives of
whites, women and men. She imagined enter­ women and men in chattel slavery.
ing slave bodies in a tragic inversion of min­ Through mental metempsychosis, Foster
strelsy disguised as cultural criticism, and she and her fellow abolitionists appropriated slave
invited her audiences, packed into private par­ bodies, but they also made them matter by
lors, church sanctuaries, and town halls, to join making them visible, soulful, and inhabitable.
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114 PERFORMING HISTORY

They strove to make the overdetermined slave’s differences in the material conditions of
body, archived as property, verbally available women’s lives, but even those white critics
and fleshly present. As Elaine Scarry explains, who, after emancipation, placed race (in the
“given any two phenomena, the one that is form of black male suffrage) before gender (in
more visible will receive more attention,” but the form of women’s suffrage), drew on this
the abuses inherent in slavery were covered metaphor.6 Lydia Maria Child (1802–1880),
over with decades and decades of obfuscating in fact, foregrounded it on the title page of her
rhetoric (Scarry, 1985, p 12). The torture of history of women.
slaves was at the unspeakable, unrepresentable
heart of America, not only because pain is,
Black Antislavery Critics:
finally, unshareable and resistant to language,
Self-Love, Solidarity, and Fear
(p. 4) but also because the slave body was not
yet widely accepted as a fully human body. Free black critics—viewed as “free other”
Abolitionists performed the slave’s pain while in the 1820s and as “free coloured” (either
humanizing the body subject to that pain so “black” or “mulatto”) by the 1850s—also
that it could, in fact, be understood and felt by imagined black bodies in danger to spur them­
audiences to be pain. Only then, they believed, selves into action as antislavery advocates.
could sympathy function to prompt political They also practiced mental metempsychosis.
action. Foster attacked the silent witnesses in But the bodies they imagined at risk were more
her audience, whose failure to speak aligned palpably their own. As more and more laws
them with the unthinkable, unlivable body of were passed to restrict their interstate, social,
the slaveholder, also silent in the face of the and economic movement, and as the coloniza­
slave’s pain. “What do I hear from your lips?” tion or “Back to Africa” movement gained
she asked those who witnessed her act of men­ momentum, many pictured their possible fates
tal metempsychosis. In order to become them­ and articulated their sudden awareness that
selves fully human, antislavery audiences had their own bodies were linked in the cultural
to accept the humanity of slaves, sympathize imagination with slaves’ bodies. They per­
with them, and speak out about those feelings.5 formed this sense of connection in their stag­
The danger, as always when pain is at issue, ings of mental metempsychosis. Free black
was that the body in pain would be appropri­ antislavery advocates such as Sarah Douglass
ated by those describing the pain. (1806–1882) and Sarah Forten (1814–1883)
For white women abolitionists, interracial in Philadelphia and Susan Paul (1809–1841)
desire as well as moral and religious fervor in Boston, serving as officers within inte­
linked a sentimentalized investment in blacks grated antislavery societies or all-black literary
and black culture with an urge to cast slave societies, imagined entering slave bodies to
bodies as degraded tragic victims. White launch their political engagement. But they did
speakers sought to identify themselves with so differently from white critics. They paid
the romantic tales of slaves and the horror sto­ much closer attention to the material circum­
ries of free black women facing northern prej­ stances of the various bodies involved. Sarah
udice, simultaneously casting those black Douglass’s speech at a July 1832 meeting of
others as victims—and themselves, all too the all-black Female Literary Society of
often, not only as fellow “slaves” to men, but Philadelphia may serve here as an illustration.7
also as redeemers to the other women. The The Literary Society was composed of
most astute whites, like Sarah Moore Grimké about twenty black women who met in each
(1792–1873), stated at the outset the limits of others’ homes on Tuesday evenings “for the
the “woman as slave” metaphor, honoring purpose of moral and religious meditation,
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 115

conversation, reading and speaking, sympa­ mercy, words of peace; to stir up in the
thizing over the fate of the unhappy slaves, bosom of each, gratitude to God for his
increasing goodness, and feeling of deep
improving their own minds, &c. &c.” Feeling
sympathy for our brethren and sisters, who
for the slaves was matter-of-factly linked to are in this land of [C]hristian light and lib­
both moral and religious meditation and to erty held in bondage the most cruel and
self-improvement. The members of the Literary degrading—to make their cause our own!
Society performed their bodily connectedness (Douglass, 1832, p. 114)
with the slaves: for example, they consumed
refreshments designed to make them “feel for She quoted an “English writer” who
those who have nothing to refresh body and believed that “‘we must feel deeply before we
mind.” Sarah Douglass opened the July 1832 can act rightly; from that absorbing, heart­
meeting with her “wish that the reading and rending compassion for ourselves springs a
conversation should be altogether directed to deeper sympathy for others, and from a sense
the subject of slavery.” Then she proceeded to of our own weakness and our own upbraid­
give a speech. She explained how the changing ings arises a disposition to be indulgent, to for­
political climate for free blacks in Philadelphia bear, to forgive.’” This disposition led her to
had sharpened her awareness of slavery and a pragmatic forgiveness toward slaveholders
her determination to throw off “the lethargy that is often absent from white critics’ work.
which had covered [her] as a mantle for This passage also reveals the differences
years.” “One short year ago,” she confided, between the ways black and white antislavery
“how different were my feelings on the subject critics engaged in the performance of mental
of slavery!” As a member of the black elite, metempsychosis. While white critic Elizabeth
she “had formed a little world of [her] Chandler concentrated on imaginatively
own, and cared not to move beyond its inhabiting the slave body to empathize with
precincts,” but the colonization movement the slaves, black critic Sarah Douglass advised
had begun to gather steam, and the sympathy for oneself first, and through that
Pennsylvania legislature had begun to limit self-awareness, an acknowledgment of the
the rights of free blacks and to strengthen body that she shared with the slave, with her
fugitive slave laws (Rigley, 1991, p. 116). By “wronged and neglected race.” Douglass was
January 1838 Pennsylvania’s free blacks, in more clearheaded about both her separateness
fact, were disenfranchised (Lerner, 1967, from and her connectedness with the slave
p. 250). Responding to the emerging threats body.
against her freedom in 1832, Douglass con­ The Bible reading for the meeting, Isaiah
fided, “how was the scene changed when I 54, reveals Douglass’s conception of the black
beheld the oppressor lurking on the border of womanly body, figured not as a sexualized
my own peaceful home!” She performed an object of voyeurism but as a pure Christian
act of mental metempsychosis. She reported, woman whose “Maker is [her] husband” (Is
“I saw [the oppressor’s] iron hand stretched 54:5). The biblical passage exhorts widows
forth to seize me as his prey, and the cause of and women without children to celebrate their
the slave became my own.” As Douglass real­ good fortune and to “enlarge the place of
ized her own status as an embodied target, she [their] tent” or the sphere of their activities, as
linked her body to the slave’s. She asked her God speaks to them: for “behold, I have cre­
listeners to reflect on the slaves, ated the smith that bloweth the coals in the
fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for
to hold a feast, to feed our never-dying his work,” and “no weapon that is formed
minds, to excite each other to deeds of against thee shall prosper” (Is 54:1–2, 16–17).
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116 PERFORMING HISTORY

Black antislavery critics like Douglass among all black women: those designated in
represented themselves as benevolent, strong, the 1820s as “other free” and “slave,” and by
invincible brides of Christ, gathering peoples the 1850s as “free coloured” and “slave.” And
from the Diaspora to forge a new transnational, when they appeared before integrated anti­
transmigrating community of souls. They slavery societies, they sometimes used white
believed that “no weapon” could stop them. elite bodies as surrogate bodies for their
Like Sarah Douglass of Philadelphia, antiracism, establishing a tentative political
Boston’s Susan Paul—the daughter of a promi­ alliance with selected white women.
nent black minister—linked antiracism with Black and white women abolitionists, and
antislavery, imagining that emancipation those multiracial abolitionists whose racial
would mean, in effect, an end to racist attacks identity was equivocal—like the “slightly col­
on free blacks. In an 1834 letter published in ored” Ball sisters of the Boston Female Anti-
The Liberator, she related an incident of the Slavery Society who eventually, it is rumored,
racism and “cruel prejudice which deprives us passed as white—negotiated their bodies into
of every privilege whereby we might elevate the public sphere through a complex web of
ourselves—and then absurdly condemns us surrogations (Fall River Female Anti-Slavery
because we are not more refined and intelli­ Society, 1838, p. 6). Just as minstrelsy helped
gent.” “But this is no time for despair,” she to create “a self-consciously white working
concluded, for “the rapid progress of the cause class” (Lott, 1993, p. 8), female abolitionist
which you so successfully advocate will, ere meetings, in their tragic inversion of minstrel
long, annihilate the present corrupt state of performances, helped create a self-consciously
things, and substitute liberty and its concomi­ white middle- and elite-class feminism, as well
tant blessings.”8 Paul certainly had reason for as a more radical cross-class black feminism.
hope, based not only on the widespread and It is crucial to note also the small seed of a
organized efforts of the abolitionist move­ feminism based on the intersection of race and
ment, but also on the individual efforts of such gender: Abolitionist Angelina Emily Grimké
pioneers as Prudence Crandall (1803–1890), Weld (1805–1879), Sarah Grimké’s sister,
a white schoolmistress who desegregated her believed that the two were so intertwined
school and whose Boston visit was noted in that she was “far from keeping different
the same column in which Paul’s letter moral reformations entirely distinct”; she
appeared. But like her republican predecessors believed “no such attempt can ever be success­
who naively believed freedom was just around ful. They are bound together in a circle like the
the corner, she could not anticipate that sciences; they blend with each other like the
Crandall’s school would be burnt to the colors of the rainbow” (Barnes & Dumond,
ground and that emancipation would not 1934, vol. I, p. 431).
bring an end to racism, but in some ways an In antislavery meetings, the figure of the
intensification of it. slave indeed ambiguously held center stage.
Black female antislavery speakers, newly While, as Lott explains, white minstrels appro­
attuned to the ways in which their own status priated certain kinds of masculinity through
was linked to the status of slaves, revealed an blackface, white, multiracial, and black female
intraracial, cross-class desire in their perfor­ abolitionists appropriated certain kinds of
mances, even as they staged their class differ­ femininity through their staging of slave sto­
ence from the slaves. When they appeared in ries and antiracism narratives (Lott, 1993,
front of each other in all-black literary p. 52). They staged their sense of violation at
societies, they attempted to evoke slave bodies the hands of men, their anger at sexual oppres­
to establish and perform a sisterly bond sion in all its forms—from rape, within or
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 117

outside of marriage, to the curtailment of their woman’s critique through a white woman’s
movement in public spaces. text to activate audiences.
Both white and black antislavery advo­ Sarah Douglass participated in a complex
cates performed their class difference from chain of surrogacy, a chain which eventually
the slaves. While Chandler used mental prompted a white English woman to publish
metempsychosis to teach white women to feel Douglass’s indictment of Quaker racism.
the pain of slavery, Douglass felt the fear William Bassett, an antislavery advocate eager
engendered by racism, and likened herself to to stimulate antiracism as well as antislavery
the slave. But Douglass, unlike Chandler, actu­ activity within the Quaker movement, req­
ally was in jeopardy. Both women focused uested in 1837 that Sarah Douglass provide
on feelings as they envisioned a benevolent him with an account of race prejudice within
Christian body of women critics, but Chandler the Arch Street meeting house where she wor­
concentrated on empathy and imaginatively shipped as a youth, and where her mother still
inhabiting the slave body, while Douglass attended Quaker services. She wrote a very use­
advised sympathy for oneself first, and ful critique of the racist custom of establish­
through that self-awareness, an acknowledg­ ing a “Negro pew.” When English Quaker
ment of the “body” that she shared with the Elizabeth Pease later asked Sarah Grimké
slave. about American Quaker practices, Grimké,
like Bassett, turned to Douglass for informa­
tion. She asked Douglass to think about
Black Antislavery Critics
whether or not she wanted to attach her name
and Surrogate Activism
to the critique (Barnes & Dumond, 1934, vol. II,
Free black antislavery lecturers protected p. 744). Douglass confided that the Arch Street
their bodies in a variety of ways. Aware of Quakers “despise us for our color,” and pro­
the racist limitations of whites in their audi­ vided Grimké with a copy of her Bassett letter,
ences—of their tendency to conflate enslaved which Grimké forwarded to Pease (Barnes
bodies with free and refugee bodies through a & Dumond, 1934, vol. II, pp. 829–832). As the
misguided visual shorthand—they sometimes sister of the first Quaker member of the British
sidestepped the negative effects of this racism Parliament, Pease was more insulated from the
by prompting white surrogates to articulate American cultural anxieties attendant upon the
their viewpoints in public settings. They used publication of such a critique. With Douglass’s
“white” bodies to do necessary work. Some blessing, Pease incorporated Douglass’s anony­
multiracial critics, like Paul and Ellen Craft mous critique into her 1840 volume, Society of
(1826–1891), were just as fair-skinned as the Friends in the United States: Their Views of the
Anglo-American speakers, and either (inadver­ Anti-Slavery Question, and Treatment of the
tently or on purpose) passed as white, or, like People of Colour. Sarah Douglass sent her cul­
Paul, were read as “white” by the black com­ tural criticism, then, through three different
munity and “black” by the white community.9 hands before finding publication in England.
Some, like Craft, used their “whiteness” to She protected herself from becoming visible in
launch unbidden attacks on racism. the public sphere by publishing her critique
Sarah Douglass’s critique of racism within anonymously within a white woman’s text. All
Quaker meeting houses may serve here as of the individuals in this chain of surrogate
an example of another type of “surrogate activism were mindful of their surrogacy and
activism”: not the donning of slave bodies focused on joint activist goals.
through mental metempsychosis to spur Another free black critic, Sarah Forten, sim­
activism, but the dissemination of a black ilarly disseminated her critique of racism and
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118 PERFORMING HISTORY

slavery through a letter solicited by Angelina during the 1850s. Sometimes they inadver­
Grimké, anticipating that Grimké would tently or intentionally passed as white, or, like
speak her critique from abolitionist stages educator Susan Paul, were read variously. But
across the Northeast. In muted language, Craft’s Massachusetts audiences were unac­
Forten explained that prejudice “originates customed to considering the possibility that an
from dislike to the color of the skin, as much escaped Southern slave could look and sound
as from the degradation of Slavery” (Barnes & like Ellen Craft, who so closely resembled
Dumond, 1934, vol. I, p. 379). Colonization, them: “An expression of astonishment arose”
she argued, revealed whites’ feeling that “this when Ellen stood to be acknowledged at the
is not your Country,” a prejudiced separatism end of her antislavery programs (Sterling,
that could be seen in segregated churches, 1988, p. 25). By her very visible ladylike per­
lectures, and schools (Barnes & Dumond, 1934, formance, Craft forced audiences to rethink
vol. II, p. 380). Instead of herself becoming an their understanding of race and gender. If race
antislavery lecturer, speaking visibly onstage was not manifest in the skin, then what was
against racism and colonization, Sarah Forten race?
explained her viewpoint to Grimké, who Eventually Craft began to speak, offering
incorporated it into her speeches in a complex a “very particular account of [her] escape”
act of surrogate activism. Antislavery women (Sterling, 1988, p. 25). Her safety, however,
critics, in various ways, moved through one was precarious, and when the Fugitive Slave
another’s bodies, and often through slave bodies, Law passed in 1850, she fled with her husband
to achieve their goals. and William Brown to London. There, they
continued their appearances and Ellen devel­
oped a strategy of using her everyday perfor­
Female Slave Refugees as Speakers:
mance of herself as cultural criticism. With the
Performativity and Resistance
help of British abolitionists, she also planned
By the 1840s female slave refugees began a high-culture activist performance in what
to tell their own stories onstage. Twenty-two­ Marvin Carlson calls a “place of perfor­
year-old Ellen Craft escaped from Georgia by mance” (1989) and Joseph Roach calls a
posing as a sickly white boy, with her husband “vortice of behavior” (1996).
William posing as her slave. She was among She strode into the Crystal Palace of the
the first female refugee speakers. She and her 1851 London Great Exhibition, with its
husband joined well-known slave refugee and crowds of white visitors. As part of an interra­
abolitionist William Wells Brown (1815–1884) cial, international abolitionist delegation, she
on a tour of Massachusetts in 1848. Typically, was escorted by a white member of the English
Brown and William Craft both spoke at meet­ National Reform Association. With fellow
ings, and then “‘the fugitive couple’” of the abolitionists, she walked right up to the most
Crafts was ushered “to the front of the plat­ popular sculpture at the fair, indeed “the most
form . . . ‘so that all present might have the popular American sculpture of the nineteenth
pleasure of seeing them’” (Sterling, 1988, century”: Hiram Powers’s “The Greek Slave”
p. 24). At first Ellen did not speak. According (1841–1843) (Bank, 1997, p. 178; Yellin, 1989,
to Brown “so near white that she [could] pass pp. 100, 122). A gleaming white marble statue
without suspicion for a white woman,” she of a nude female slave in chains, this sculpture
simply sat onstage until she was presented at evoked and eroticized white woman’s
the end of the program (Brown, 1849, p. 7). metaphorical enslavement as well as blacks’ lit­
Black women critics, slave and free, were eral enslavement. Powers carved a slave figure
keenly conscious of the performativity of race permanently resigned to her fate, at a time
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 119

when refugees like Craft refused to succumb. Transcript from 1842 to 1847, routinely
Ellen Craft, a shifting “mulatto”/“white”/ wrote reviews of minstrel shows. White
“black” soul figure who had very publicly women theatre and performance critics are
and visibly refused to enact the enslaved role inextricably and problematically linked to
represented by this sculpture, performed her what Lott calls “the desire to put moderate
resistance. She moved around the curtained racial attitudes and minstrel shows together”
statue and contested its statement. She tried in the nineteenth century (Lott, 1993, p 16).
to provoke fellow museum-goers, particularly They began writing reviews professionally in
Americans, into a discussion about the sculp­ the 1840s. Jane Croly wrote the minstrel
ture and its relation to American antislavery review during her stint as a theatre critic and
resistance. American passers-by refused her fashion commentator for Charles Dana’s
invitation to an exchange of ideas, registering Tribune in 1855.12
their contempt for the spectacle of Craft’s del­ In the mid-1840s, white theatre critic
egation. This, however, gave the protesters an Cornelia Wells Walter edited the Boston
opportunity to record the museum-goers’ prej­ Evening Transcript, and—like her New York
udice in The Liberator. Museums and theatres colleagues Fuller and Croly—she celebrated
were active sites of negotiation, where women minstrelsy while trying to validate black cul­
critics tested out their own theories of race and ture. She praised white minstrel T. D. Rice as
gender. “the inimitable delineator of Negro character”
and “the original Jim Crow” (Walter, 1842,
p. 2, and 1845, p. 2). However, she also
White and Black Theatre Critics:
published articles that depicted the origins of
Minstrelsy or God’s Handiwork?
minstrelsy in a much more complicated way.
Eric Lott opens his book on minstrelsy with In an 1844 essay, for example, she depicted
an anonymous 1855 New York Tribune Northerners humming “a fashionable [min­
review that hails Jim Crow minstrelsy as “a strel] air” during their travels in the South,
species of insanity, though of a gentle and prompting a complex chain of events:
pleasing kind” (1993, p. 3). He links this com­
ment, and the blackface minstrel shows that In an instant all the negroes within hearing
will start and seem delighted. Parts of the
prompted it, to a performance genealogy in
tune, no matter how trifling will be remem­
which “white male writers have been obsessed bered, and in the evening when their daily
with white male-dark male dyads.”10 Lott toils are over, you will hear the old Banjo
explains that white male playwrights and crit­ player hard at work fixing the strings of his
ics expressed their homosocial desire and instrument until he makes a something of
enacted cultural theft through “black” min­ what the white man sang, which he christens
with a name of his own selection. Thus orig­
strel bodies in a complex nineteenth century inated “old Dan Tucker” and many more of
interchange. But the Tribune review, and the the melodies now sung with such rapturous
tradition of which it is a part, cannot simply be applause at Amory Hall. (Walter, 1844, p. 2)
viewed as the province of white male writers.
In fact, a white female critic by the name of The process described here is tortured by
Jane Cunningham Croly (1829–1901) wrote circularity and contradiction. Southern blacks
Lott’s representative review, and Margaret hear and “remember” minstrel songs with
Fuller (1810–1850), another well-known melodies presumed to be lifted from slave cul­
Tribune critic, published his secondary ture, but they do not then sing the “original”
example.11 Cornelia Wells Walter (1813– songs that inspired the minstrel tunes. Instead,
1898), the editor of the Boston Evening they “make a something” out of the northern
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120 PERFORMING HISTORY

minstrel song (based on the slave song) and minstrels, and elocutionists as well as vocalists
call it by a new name. It is through this new and instrumentalists across the country, giving
and original riff that “Dan Tucker” and other her readers a sense of the breadth and depth of
minstrel songs find their way onto the stage. black theatrical activity. She documented black
White women theatre critics’ sympathetic women’s playwriting for the nineteenth century
attitude toward black performance as well stage: she noted in a typical column, for
as blackface performance emerged in part instance, that “a three-act comedy drama enti­
from the complex web of interracial desires tled ‘An Autograph Letter,’ by Esther B.
articulated within female antislavery meetings Tiffany, was presented to the citizens of
designed to appropriate blacks’ bodies. The Hannibal, Mo.” (Thomas, 1892, p. 4). Thomas
reports of these meetings were circulated reported on black women elocutionists and lec­
widely in the early 1840s when Margaret turers as well as playwrights and actors, and her
Fuller and Cornelia Wells Walter, in particu­ columns prove that by the turn of the century,
lar, began writing about minstrelsy. The min­ black women were engaged in virtually every
strel show mirrored in a comic fashion the aspect of theatre, criss-crossing the Northeast
mental metempsychosis practiced by the and Midwest, in particular. Her columns also
female antislavery critics, and white women reveal that at a time when white-dominated
theatre critics responded by trying to locate in audiences increasingly looked toward New
minstrelsy the traces of the “original” slave York as the vanguard, new developments in
culture that prompted blackface’s “web of nineteenth century black theatre were not per­
envy as well as repulsion, sympathetic identifi­ ceived, or perhaps for safety’s sake simply not
cation as well as fear” (Lott, 1993, p. 8). The advertised, as limited to one site: black artists,
tension between claiming black culture as the Christians all, were present everywhere. Thomas
creation of white actors and validating black emphasized women’s commonalities, envision­
authorship and embodied culture is palpable ing united Christian women walking side by
in Cornelia Wells Walter’s coverage of min­ side as a means of lobbying for African
strelsy. She wanted, like her contemporaries, Americans’ rights. In “this, a day of great possi­
the white antislavery critics, to acknowledge bilities,” she wrote, “the feminine heart yearns
blacks’ humanity while keeping the currency for broader paths wherein to walk, an intellec­
of “soul” moving as she claimed the healthy tual highway whereon all nations or sex may
“white” body of the true woman. walk abreast” (Majors, 1893/1971, p. 207).
Black performance critics, in contrast,
moved beyond the antislavery strategy of
CONCLUSION
mental metempsychosis to stake their claim on
American-ness through a universal Christian Black, white, and multiracial women perfor­
body. This strategy emerged in the early eigh­ mance critics in the middle of the nineteenth
teenth century and reverberates as late as the century were struggling to find a body—or a
1890s, when Lillian Parker Thomas emerged as set of bodies—through which they could enter
the first black woman to act as a professional the public sphere, either in print or onstage. At
theatre critic. Thomas, a prominent African first they practiced mental metempsychosis,
American elocutionist, reviewer, and editor of using the slave body to create sentient bodies
the New York Freeman, combined her “Stage” for themselves, each other, and the slaves, con­
and “Church” columns to create a vision of a necting themselves in a tangled, thorny array
black Christian arts community whose original­ of contradictory impulses and activist hopes.
ity and talent authorized black culture and its Then they imagined, in disparate ways, healthy
claim on America. She tracked black actors, bodies: black medical lecturers staged universal
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Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis 121

Christian bodies through carefully sketched in original Constitution. Swerdlow provides an

illustrations, while whites introduced ivory excellent analysis of the local context of the female
antislavery societies.
bones and charged them with racial “purity.”
3. In 1870, census-takers also counted
As the woman’s rights movement emerged, “Chinese” and “Indian” residents. It was not until
these performance traditions, of claiming the 1900 that the category “mulatto” was struck from
abstract Christian body and of borrowing the census form and “Japanese” was added to the
bodies and bones, continued to prove useful, list of “foreigners” who were not included in the
not only to those actively engaged in the suf­ “white” category.
4. Cf. Plato’s Phaedrus.
frage movement, but also to women profes­
5. Jean Fagan Yellin discusses this phenome­
sionals such as theatre critics. Female theatre non with regard to Chandler’s first poem,
critics, like their contemporaries in the anti­ ”Kneeling Slave,” which asks if the “lady” will
slavery movement, tackled the question of ignore her “sister,” or “has thy heart grown self­
how to enter the racialized public sphere by ish in its bliss / That thou shouldst view unmoved
a fate like this?” “What is problematic here,”
borrowing various bodies or by claiming a
Yellin points out, “is [Chandler’s] reader’s human­
universal, abstract Christian body. Both of ity,” not the slave’s (1989, p. 14).
these strategies proved problematic: the first, 6. Among white critics, Lydia Maria Child
with its reliance on invisibility and the fluidity tended not to collapse the “woman” into the
of identity, denied the material differences of “slave”: she wrote that she “did not perceive
those bodies involved in the borrowings, and . . . that the doctrine of Women’s Rights, as it is
called, has a more immediate connection with
the second worked only for fellow Christians,
anti-slavery, than several other subjects” (quoted
within what bell hooks now calls a community in Yellin, 1989, p. 60). She is known for creating,
of faith. Unless we can acknowledge the bod­ through such publications as her 1847 collection
ies of these critics who have preceded us, and of short stories, Fact and Fiction, and her 1867
for whom we act, in part, as surrogates, we novel A Romance of the Republic, the figure of the
tragic mulatta, aligning that figure with the true
cannot fully perceive the positionality of our
womanhood that she herself rejected (1989,
own bodies and the challenges inherent within pp. 73–76). However, when Child, who wrote
our “bodies of discourse.” on women’s issues but who did not actively join in
the meetings, learned of the 1869 split within
NOTES the movement over whether to focus directly
on women’s suffrage (as Susan B. Anthony
1. In the early twenty-first century, the term and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and their wing did),
multiracial indicates an individual who either self- or to concentrate on black male suffrage as a first
identifies with, or is perceived as being identified step toward universal suffrage (as Lucy Stone
with, more than one racial designation. Within the and her wing did), Child sided with Stone and
context of this essay, it stands in for a variety of nine­ most African American women. She published
teenth century terms, including the term mulatto, to an article titled “Concerning Women” in the
indicate a nineteenth century individual who is per­ National Anti-Slavery Standard, explaining that
ceived as being identified with both black and “few things connected with public affairs have
white “races.” Most multiracial antislavery critics given me so much pain and mortification as to
self-identified as “black” or “Afric-American,” though observe occasional indications that some women
there were important exceptions. I am defining the were willing to set aside the freedmen’s right to
term critic broadly in this essay, to include women vote, thinking thereby to hasten the acknowledg­
who reshaped the cultural performances of their ment of their own. . . . That there is one woman
day by circulating either performance-based who would gain freedom for herself by violating
criticism (such as interviews or lectures) or print- principles of freedom with regard to other human
based criticism (such as journalistic articles or beings indicates a latent disease against which it
reviews). behooves us to take warning in time” (1869,
2. Quotations in this paragraph and the next October 30, National Anti-Slavery Standard, (53)
are from Swerdlow, 1994, pp. 36 and 33. Italics cols. 1–2, p. 1.
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122 PERFORMING HISTORY

7. C. Peter Rigley, editor of The Black payment for an alternative home, her sister died
Abolitionist Papers, dates this meeting in “late and the sister’s four children became her depen­
June or early July 1832.” “Mental Feasts,” the dents. As a result of a cold she caught after being
article reporting on the meeting, appears in The chased out of the ladies’ cabin and onto the deck
Liberator, II(29), on July 21, 1832, pp. 114–115. of a steamboat, she died of tuberculosis at age 32.
Unless otherwise noted, the passages that immedi­ 10. From Lott (1993, p. 5), discussing “Leslie
ately follow are all from that article, which was Fiedler’s Thesis in Love and Death in the American
sent to the newspaper by “a lady who was invited Novel (1960).”
to attend the meeting.” The article evidently pro­ 11. See Downs, R. B., & Downs, J. B. (1991),
vides the full text of the speech which Sarah Journalists of the United States: Biographical
Douglass delivered to open the meeting. Sketches of Print and Broadcast News Shapers from
8. Letter signed “S. Paul,” and dated the Late 17th Century to the Present, p. 99; Paneth,
“Boston, April 1, 1834,” in The Liberator, IV(14), D. (1983), The Encyclopedia of American
April 5, 1834, p. 55. From time to time, Susan Paul Journalism, p. 105; Schlesinger, E. B. (1971) “Croly,
published examples of how her schoolchildren, or Jane Cunningham,” in E. T. James (Ed.), Notable
others’ interaction with them, exemplified the basic American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical
tenets of antiracism and antislavery: see, for Dictionary (Vol. I), pp. 409–411; “Jennie June”
example, The Liberator, V(31), 1835, August 1, (1904), in Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly,
p. 122, for her critique of racism within the Baptist p. 6; and “Mrs. Jennie June Croly” (1900, March
Sabbath School Society; The Liberator, VI(33), 11), The New York Times, p. 17.
1836, August 13, p. 130, for her applause for the 12. Internal stylistic evidence also supports
antiracism of the Amesbury and Salisbury Sabbath Croly’s authorship of this particular column.
school children; and “Temptation Resisted,” in the The Tribune theatre reviews from time to time are
American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1837, 1(2) p. displaced by Croly’s dress reform columns. Cf., for
42, for her story of a black child’s honesty, which example, “Women’s Gear” (1855, May 25), p. 5;
she weaves into a critique of slavery. and “A Word on the Theatre and Its Audiences”
9. To serve as their delegates to the first (1855, September 24), p. 5. By the time of her death
national female antislavery convention in 1837, in 1901, Croly was hailed as the “best-known
the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society selected woman journalist in America” (New York Times,
four delegates: Mary Parker, Martha Ball, Susan 1901, December 24, pp. 3–4).
Paul, and Julia Williams. Parker was white. Ball
was described as “slightly coloured” and is REFERENCES
rumored to have passed as white. Anne Weston
explained that Paul was chosen “‘because she was Bank, R. K. (1997). Theatre culture in America,
a favorable specimen of the coloured race, Julia 1825–1860. England: Cambridge University
Williams because the coloured people regard her Press.
as one of themselves, a light in which they do not Barnes, G. H., & Dumond, D. L. (Eds.). (1934).
regard Susan Paul’” (Hansen, 1993, p. 19). Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina
Weston’s comment about Susan Paul’s equivocal Grimké Weld and Sarah Grimké, 1822–1844
position in the community is telling: whites (Vols. I–II). New York: D. Appleton–Century.
regarded her as black, while many blacks regarded Brown, W. W. (1849). Singular escape. Letter dated
her as white. She clearly self-identified as black. 4 January 1849. The Liberator, XIX(2), 7.
Dorothy Sterling reported that Paul was “the most Campbell, J. (1893). Representative women.
respected black woman in Boston. She ran her Woman’s Progress in Literature, Science, Arts,
own school, directed the Garrison Junior Choir, Education and Politics, 1, 8.
which gave benefit concerts for the abolitionist Carlson, M. (1989). Places of performance: The
movement, and was active in the Female Anti- semiotics of theatre architecture. Ithaca, NY:
Slavery Society. ‘She was educated and intelligent Cornell University Press.
and abolitionists associated with her and invited Chandler, E. M. (1836). Essays philanthropic and
her to their homes as a friend,’ a white woman moral by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, princi­
wrote” (Sterling, 1984, p. 184). And yet, she lived pally relating to the abolition of slavery in
a tenuous existence. A series of misfortunes America. Philadelphia: L. Howell. Douglass, F.
quickly impoverished Paul: her father died, a (1832, July 21). Mental feasts. The Liberator,
storm hit her home, her corenters defaulted on the 11, 114.
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Douglass, F. (1832, July 21). Mental feasts. The Nora, P. (1996). Realms of memory: Rethinking
Liberator, 11, 114. the French past (L. D. Kritzman, Ed.;
Fall River Female Anti-Slavery Society. (1838). Report A. Goldhammer, Trans., under the direction
of a delegate to the anti-slavery convention of of P. Nora). New York: Columbia University
American women, held in Philadelphia, May, Press. (Original work published 1981–1992)
1838, including an account of other meetings Rigley, C. P. (Ed.) (1991). The black abolitionist
held in Pennsylvania hall, and of the riot. papers (Vol. III: The United States, 1830–
Addressed to the Fall River female anti-slavery 1846). Chapel Hill: The University of North
society, and published by its request. Boston: Carolina Press.
Isaiah Knapp. Roach, J. (1996). Cities of the dead: Circum-
Foucault, M. (1972). The archaeology of knowl­ Atlantic performance. New York: Columbia
edge. (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). University Press.
New York: Harper & Row. (Original work Scarry, E. (1985). The body in pain: The making
published 1969) and unmaking of the world. New York:
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Oxford University Press.
Selected essays. New York: Basic Books. Sterling, D. (Ed.). (1984). We are your sisters: Black
Grew, M. (1892, April 27). Letter to Miss Isabel women in the nineteenth century. New York:
Howland. In Sophia Smith Collection, Smith W. W. Norton.
College, Northampton, MA. Sterling, D. (1988). Black foremothers: Three lives
Hansen, D. G. (1993). Strained sisterhood: Gender (2nd ed.). New York: City University of
and class in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery New York.
Society. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Sterling, D. (1991). Ahead of her time: Abby Kelley
Press. and the politics of antislavery. New York:
Hart, L. (1998). Between the body and the flesh: W. W. Norton.
Performing sadomasochism. New York: Swerdlow, A. (1994). Abolition’s conservative
Columbia University Press. sisters: The ladies’ New York City anti-slavery
hooks, b., & West, C. (1991). Breaking bread: societies, 1834–1840. In J. Fagan Yellin &
Insurgent black intellectual life. Boston: South J. C. Van Horne (Eds.), The abolitionist sister­
End Press. hood: Women’s political culture in antebellum
Kerber, L. (1980). Women of the republic: Intellect America (pp. 31–44). Ithaca, NY: Cornell
and ideology in revolutionary America. Chapel University Press.
Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Thomas, L. P. (1892, December). Stage. The
Le Goff, J. (1992). History and memory. (S. Rendall [Indianapolis] Freeman (Holiday ed.), p. 4.
& E. Claman, Trans.). New York: Columbia University of Virginia, Geospatial and Statistical
University Press. (Original work published Data Center. (2004). Historical census browser.
1977) Retrieved July 1, 2004, from http://fisher
Lerner, G. (1967). The Grimké sisters from South .lib.virginia.edu/collections/stats/histcensus/
Carolina: Rebels against slavery. Boston: index.html/
Houghton Mifflin. Walter, C. W. (1842, September 20). Rice. Boston
Lott, E. (1993). Love and theft: Blackface min­ Evening Transcript, p. 2.
strelsy and the American working class. Walter, C. W. (1844, February 29). Origin of Dan
New York: Oxford University Press. Tucker. Boston Evening Transcript, p. 2.
Majors, M. A. (1971). Noted negro women: Their Walter, C. W. (1845, November 3). National
triumphs and activities. Chicago: Freeport, theatre. Boston Evening Transcript, p. 2.
NY: Books for Libraries Press. (Original work Yellin, J. F. (1989). Women & sisters: The antislav­
published 1893) ery feminists in American culture. New Haven,
Mattison, H. (1988). Louisa Picquet, the octoroon: CT: Yale University Press.
A tale of southern slave life. In G. Barthelemy Yellin, J. F., & Van Horne, J. C. (1994). The aboli­
(Ed.), Collected black women’s narratives tionist sisterhood: Women’s political culture
(pp. 5–30). New York: Oxford University in antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell
Press. (Original work published 1861) University Press.
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8
What to Do When
Nuclear War Breaks Out
TRACY C. DAVIS

I n Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler, first pub­

lished in 1890, an historian scandalizes
and amazes the other characters when he
Tesman: With the future! But ye gods, we
don’t know anything about that!
Lövborg: No. But there are one or two things
reveals the topic of his second book, still in to be said about it, all the same.1
manuscript.

Apparently continuing the narrative of his

Lövborg: (smiles, puts down his hat and pulls forthcoming book, Ejlert Lövborg’s next work
a packet wrapped in paper from his will be a history of the future course of civi­
coat pocket.) [. . . ] lization. Hedda Gabler highlights how futures
Tesman: What’s this one about? are discursively signaled within texts: in the
one case Lövborg’s book, and in the other
Lövborg: It’s the continuation. [. . . ] Of the Ibsen’s own text. Performance historians
book. might be less impressed by Lövborg’s feat
Tesman: The new one? of intellectual audacity than late-nineteenth
century Norwegian social historians such as
Lövborg: Of course.
Jörgen Tesman, for we habitually engage with
Tesman: Yes but, my dear Ejlert . . . it carries the multitemporality and intertemporality
on right to the present day! inherent in scripts and the implications of a
Lövborg: That is so. And this one deals with text documenting the past and outlining
the future. potential future events. This is the basis of our

124
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 125

Waiting for the parade at Trekfest 2004, Riverside, Iowa.

Photo courtesy of Max K. Shapey

faith that a published drama in any way bears not replicating the version patented by
on a performance that occurred in the past, Paramount Pictures—“recalls” that in the year
as well as the basis of a script’s power to call 2233, James Tiberius Kirk, future captain of the
a new event into being in an as-yet-to-occur starship Enterprise, will be born here. No Kirks
performance. live in Riverside yet, though the seniors’ center
The duality of this temporal relationship is invites everyone to “Come in and dine with the
not limited to the textual remnants of drama. ancestors of our own Captn. James Kirk,” pre­
Performance itself teeters between temporali­ sumably from the distaff side of the family. On
ties, fluidly representing past or future, and the last weekend in June, every year since 1984,
sometimes both, whether in a theatre setting or Star Trek fans gather in Riverside to commem­
social transactions. For example, a modern site orate the founding of a television dynasty and
of pilgrimage was created when the councilors to postulate a future of space exploration. They
of Riverside, Iowa, secured Gene Roddenberry’s perform their allegiances to Star Trek and its
blessing to dub their town the place “where spin-off series in costume, parading through the
the Trek begins.” In an episode of Star Trek, main street and interacting as if Roddenberry’s
Captain Kirk mentions that he was born in a scripts—already accomplished in performance—
small town in Iowa, and Riverside (pop. 928) document a future.
will become—or actually, with Roddenberry’s The conceit of Riverside being “where the
consent—has become that town. In Riverside, a Trek begins” is that it commemorates a birth
15-foot model of a spaceship—resembling but that will happen there, based on a throwaway
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126 PERFORMING HISTORY

line in a science fiction series. Logic tells us The major case study for this chapter con­
that a birth cannot be predicted centuries in cerns scripts that were written to be broadcast
advance, nor can the course that such a life will at the outbreak of global nuclear war. Like the
take be known; furthermore, this is the birth of United Federation of Planets and Lövborg’s
a character who is merely fictive, however much book, postulations of global nuclear war have
he may be admired and have an active fan base. inspired artists and stimulated the imagina­
Science fiction (or speculative fiction), by defin­ tions of the public in many contexts. For most
ition, postulates a future. Commemoration, of the Cold War, the prospect of massive
by definition, recalls a past. One performance nuclear attack was a significant influence on
event from the past (the line uttered in Star the social imaginary, the constellation of
Trek’s dialogue) and another from the future preparatory and remedial actions to be under­
(Kirk’s birth) reciprocally take up elements of taken by the public coming under the rubric
each other’s temporality without putting the of “civil defense” in a fashion similar to how
chronology in question. Thus, not only drama the George W. Bush administration, since
exists as events-in-potential, but performance September 11, 2001, attempts to mobilize gov­
also operates in this manner, though rarely with ernment, the civil sector, and the public under
a claim to a future as concrete as Riverside’s. the rubric of “homeland security.” Civil
Even without the narratologically creative defense authorities in three close NATO
fan culture surrounding Star Trek, scripts are allies—the United States, Canada, and the
events-in-potential,2 cleaving as well as uniting United Kingdom—constructed dialogic and
temporalities, making the past and future monologic scripts for the occasion of nuclear
coterminous in a present moment. As artifacts war, and held them in readiness, pending
of writers’ imaginations, scripts are tangible authorization from their governments for
products of labor while, at the same time, also broadcast. Significantly, these Cold War texts
events-in-potential. Riverside’s claim—and of instruction whose performance was to coin­
monument—to Captain Kirk’s birth demon­ cide with imminent war and the immediate
strates the public’s willingness to suspend dis­ aftermath of nuclear Armageddon have the
belief not only in science fiction, but also in conditional status of scripts in-potential as
sequential logic and in the idea that a script is well as the historical status of rehearsed
contained either by its performative or its tem­ scripts, for they were tried and practiced in
poral frames. In fact, theatre historians intent case their performance “for real” was ever
on demonstrating the social relevance of necessitated. As scripts instructing citizens in
performance rely explicitly on this form of the essential steps for self-preservation in the
lunacy, which stated in other words would be event of global nuclear war, they challenge the
something like this: performance scripts are relationship between knowing and theorizing
not entirely contained by their performance. the past and the future as linked phenomena
They are simultaneously archives and events­ by proposing objects for performance history’s
in-waiting. Dramatic scripts, unique amongst analysis that represent events that have never
literary forms, exist in tension with their to-be­ happened, before audiences that have never
performed–ness, and complicate the idea that been constituted, and yet versions closely
a performative utterance calls something into resembling them are known and were
being, for they muddle conventional ideas rehearsed, sometimes before enormous audi­
about what is an historical event, when a doc­ ences. This case study highlights how histori­
ument is a document of a finite occurrence, ans exercise agency to not only document
and how the conditionality of performance a past through discursive reconstruction
prefigures responses. but also signal the creation of a future act
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 127

embedded in the evidentiary potentials and communicate a warning. Once this has been
conditionality of scripts, whether delivered in given, communication must continue. . . . The
rehearsal or as “the real thing”: nuclear war.3 guidance, reassurance and social cohesion
provided by good communication can prevent
the disorientation and confusion that leads to
REHEARSAL
impulsive, irrational behaviour on the part
A RAND Corporation report of 1949, com­ of individuals and groups.”7 Communication
missioned to help civil defense authorities was crucial to maintaining civil order. Media
understand how people were likely to behave theorists observe that “media influence the
in the event of an attack with atomic bombs, political agenda and public opinion not neces­
predicts that there will be a huge population sarily in terms of what to think but rather
who “will be extremely disturbed by the what to think about. That is, the media have
appalling sights about them, by the fear that the capacity to ‘prime’ audiences.”8 Assuming
they have been exposed to lethal amounts of that the public would be on the move to
radiation, and by the intense suspense of not assembly points and shelter, often in cars,
knowing the fate of their families and their radio was the preferred medium of communi­
friends.” They will likely show disorganized cation during an impending nuclear attack
and maladaptive behaviors. They may not and in the period immediately following it.
help others. They may not take obviously Battery-powered radios, and particularly the
needed precautions. This can be somewhat popularity of transistor radios after 1954,
avoided by training the population prior to the made it feasible to tune in almost anywhere
event, though there is a distinct danger that en route to shelter and then once again inside
their training may be forgotten in the throes of domestic or public facilities.9
emotionality resulting from actual war. In the United States, civil defense authori­
“Perhaps the most effective device would be a ties broadcast on CONELRAD stations (640
calm, familiar, authoritative voice giving both and 1240 AM), banning all other simultane­
reassurance and directions as to what should ous commercial transmission in order to avoid
be done,” for example through public address giving enemy aircraft the opportunity to dis­
systems, an underground communication sys­ cern their location from local call signs.10 But
tem that could withstand the bomb damage, by the mid-1960s, Americans had replaced
or mobile radio broadcasting units.4 Various CONELRAD with the Emergency Broadcast
versions of these communications were tried System, yet still had no national plan on a par
in the next decade, for example a “Warning with the U.K.’s or Canada’s.11 In Britain and
Voice From the Sky” over Cape Elizabeth, Canada, the BBC and CBC national radio net­
Maine, consisting of a civil defense official in a works were used for broadcasting instructions
light aircraft who used a megaphone to spread to the public. With Canada’s thinly dispersed
the word about impending attack to those population, the radio was a more effective means
who were out of range of air raid sirens.5 than sirens to disseminate warnings, as well
British authorities used public address systems as specific information.12 Until March 1968,
mounted in terrestrial vehicles, and roved Canada maintained 24-hour-a-day broadcast­
around neighborhoods instructing people ing capacity at 32 radio stations across the
when it was safe to emerge from their fallout country; stations remained under contract for
shelters.6 operation and maintenance of emergency
A paper from the Canadian Medical broadcasting equipment for this purpose until
Association Journal urged in 1957 that May 16, 1991.13 Every station had a collection
“Previous to disaster . . . it is not enough to of recordings to play in case they received
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128 PERFORMING HISTORY

CBC broadcasting studio at Canada’s federal emergency government headquarters.

Photo courtesy of the Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum

word from the Emergency Measures Public Information Service and nine for the
Organization and Department of National Emergency Broadcasting System.15 The pub­
Defense that missiles were incoming. In an lic’s need for information would also be served
emergency, commercial AM, FM, and televi­ by CBC broadcast booths in the six federal
sion stations would be alerted (except bunkers located across the country.
Frobisher Bay, subsequently known as Iqaluit, Similarly, the British planned to station
in the eastern Arctic), they would cease normal BBC personnel in each regional seat of gov­
programming, and CBC radio would begin ernment. Despite this, for two days postattack
emergency broadcasting within three to five they anticipated that most areas would be
minutes. About fifteen minutes would remain without broadcast capacity.16 This was exten­
before ICBMs arrived in southern Canada.14 sively gamed in CIVLOG 64, a NATO exer­
The continuity of the nation would be ensured cise designed to test civil defense preparation
by government relocation and broadcast of amongst civil servants.17 Another British exer­
information through the auspices of the fed­ cise, Phoenix Five from 1967, asserts,
eral government from its blast-proof location
in the “Diefenbunker” (Carp, Ontario) where
The ability to broadcast, personally, would
the CBC maintained a special studio for this constitute one of the most powerful instru­
purpose and where, in an emergency, ten civil­ ments in the hands of the Regional
ians would relocate to staff the Emergency Commissioner. . . . In the very early stages
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 129

after attack the morale of the public would

inevitably be at a very low ebb; they would
need reassurance from the highest level.
Through the medium of broadcasting the
Regional Commissioner would be able,
personally, to introduce himself and to let
it be known that a pre-planned system of
emergency administration was in existence.
Through this medium, too, news of national
importance would be promulgated, together
with details of any special measures of
importance that it might be necessary to
introduce in the interests of the community.
It would provide, too, by far the best means
of advising the public as a whole on matters
concerning fall-out.18

But, as civil defense officials frequently

noted, plans were not worth anything unless
they stood up to testing.
Relying on commercial stations, and thus
having to be much more public about its
plans, the United States tested its system regu­
Radio broadcast for Civil Defense Day, December
larly from 1954 through 1961 in a series of
7, 1960, the anniversary of the Japanese attack on
exercises called Operation Alert. In 1955, a
Pearl Harbor.
five-minute program was broadcast coinci­
Photo courtesy of National Archives and Records
dent with the simulated attack warning, and
Administration RG 397-MA Box 14 folder 8-R.
another five-minute program was broadcast
coincident with the simulated stages when an
attack was imminent, including running news
accounts of the simulated evacuation.19 Media leaving the air and remaining silent unless
executives recommended that President they were part of the National Defense
Eisenhower make a broadcast early in the Emergency program, in which case they
exercise to demonstrate that he was alive and switched to broadcasting on 640 or 1240
working, that democracy was preserved and kilocycles at 3:10 PM (EST). All citizens were
government went on.20 Up to a quarter of the requested to monitor their radios for the next
U.S. population tuned in. In 1956, it was 15 minutes.
assumed that following the simulated attack, Testing communications and broadcasting
only 35 percent of the country—mostly in the to the public was a regular part of nuclear civil
southeast—could be covered by radio; within defense exercises from the late 1950s through
four hours, 90 percent of coverage would be mid-1960s. A 90-minute coast-to-coast-to­
restored, and 100 percent within 24 hours coast broadcast hosted by CBC personality
provided that stations could get electrical Byng Whitteker during Exercise TOCSIN B
power. These would be addressed from in 1961 specified what the public would hear
Highpoint (the presidential bunker in the Blue at each stage of an emergency, and included
Ridge Mountains) and signals relayed station­ a 3-minute broadcast by Prime Minister
to-station.21 During the drills to practice Diefenbaker and taped messages (broadcast
communications, all AM, FM, and televi­ regionally) from provincial premiers and terri­
sion stations were mandated to participate by torial commissioners.22
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130 PERFORMING HISTORY

TAPE: BEEP WARNING Whitteker: I have just been informed that

Whitteker: We rejoin the national network exercise missiles have exploded
now at the Emergency Headquar­ in Canada in the general area
ters of the Federal Government of Courtney, B.C., Edmonton,
for Exercise Tocsin, and for the Alberta, North Bay, Ontario,
next three minutes I am going to Chatham, New Brunswick, and
describe to you some of the activ­ South West Newfoundland. We
ities in this centre. (AD LIB now take you to Regional
DESCRIPTION FOR THREE MIN­ Headquarters at Camp Shilo,
UTES, BASED ON PREVIOUS Manitoba, for the First report.
BRIEFING) Now, I have with me
(NAMES TWO CABINET MINIS­ TAPE: BEEP WARNING
TERS AND THEIR POSITIONS) 7:36 Shilo: I have just been handed an Army
Mr._____________________, could report of an exercise nuclear deto­
you tell the Canadian people of nation in Alberta. It reads as fol­
the reasons for sounding National lows: “A nuclear weapon exploded
Take Cover just 12 minutes after in the Edmonton, Alberta area at
the Alert Warning? I have under­ 5:35 P.M. Edmonton time.”
stood that we would have two
hours’ warning of attack by air­ TAPE: BEEP WARNING
craft and that the Take Cover
would be sounded in each Whitteker: “Everyone within 20 miles of
regional [sic] separately when Edmonton take shelter against
aircraft approach a major city. the fallout which will start to
come down in that area within 30
Minister: That’s what would happen in an
minutes.”
attack involving only manned air­
craft. However, in this exercise
TAPE: BEEP WARNING
the assumed enemy is also using
missiles, and these have been Whitteker: “A much larger area will eventu­
identified by the BMEWS system. ally be affected as the upper
Whitteker: BMEWS—That’s the Ballistic winds will cause the fallout to
Missile Early Warning System. drift southeast from Edmonton
toward Saskatoon at about 22
Minister: Yes, the one that has been set up miles per hour.”
in the North for the detection of
missiles. For purposes of this exer­
TAPE: BEEP WARNING
cise, apparently enough missiles
have already been launched Whitteker: “The estimated times at which fall­
against North America to justify out will reach localities Southeast
warning people in all of our likely of Edmonton will be broadcast in
target areas to take cover. a few minutes. The situation will
be easier to follow if you have a
road map at hand.”
This was followed by reports from each
regional emergency control center until
Whitteker was interrupted by a report from Federal Exercise Headquarters then
the army. reported additional detonations, followed by
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 131

instructions about how to equip emergency stations broadcasting on CONELRAD, but

shelters and cope during fallout. On-the-spot this left a lot susceptible to being misled by
interviews are held with a prescient man in other sources,25 such as the mobile radio sta­
Esquimalt, British Columbia, who has built tions that simulated broadcasting clandes­
a shelter in his home, and a farmer in tinely from Manitoba, Canada, and Coahuila,
Alexandria, Ontario, who has made accom­ Mexico, beaming psychological warfare pro­
modation for his livestock as well as his paganda into the United States “urging revolt
family. As the 90-minute broadcast script against authority and surrender.”26 In at least
concludes, the lesson is drawn: one British scenario, the tracking down and
closing of such illegal broadcasting stations is
detailed.27 Cross-border cooperation would be
Whitteker: If this were a real attack we would, crucial, not only to avoid subversive broad­
of course, be staying on the air till casting, but in order to coordinate public
the immediate danger was over action.
and the All-Clear Message was A joint exercise in 1965 illustrates the prob­
issued; and there is no doubt that lem: nuclear strikes are reported 25 miles
many thousands of Canadians, southwest of Regina with fallout headed
roused by reality, would be rush­ toward South Dakota, and 25 miles east of
ing to make preparations for the Minot with fallout headed toward Minnesota
next attack. and Manitoba. People are moving toward
shelter, but they still have some time before
danger strikes. What should they do? Should
Whitteker then outlines the advice in the people in North Dakota and Minnesota know
government’s standard booklet “11 Steps to of Saskatchewan’s strike? Will Minot’s strike
Survival.”23 Regional correspondents also be made known to residents of Saskatchewan
sign off. and Manitoba, and if so by what means? The
The centralization of broadcast informa­ CBC’s signal could be picked up across the
tion and regular exercises including public border, but for whom, exactly, is the CBC
broadcasting had several purposes: by habitu­ broadcasting? Do stations broadcast predic­
ating the public to tune to these stations, they tions of fallout trajectories and instructions as
could be better controlled through informa­ to what all people in fallout paths must do?
tion. Otherwise, as was gamed in Chicago in Who is responsible for instructing them? What
1956, eight days after the attack “incipient if instructions for border regions conflict? Do
panic” arose “due to erroneous and alarming the two governments agree on what people
information being broadcast over radio” as should do at this point?28
news reporters relayed information from In 1959, 38 pages of sample scripts were
numerous arms of the federal government— produced for broadcast during the annual
Army, Red Cross, and Department of Operation Alert drill.29 All four radio networks
Agriculture—instead of the official versions in the United States (ABC, CBS, NBC, and the
passed through the civil defense public infor­ Mutual Broadcasting System) linked up to carry
mation office. Saboteurs, it was thought, could civil defense director Leo Hoegh’s address from
take advantage of this confused situation.24 In Highpoint for broadcast by 1,200 stations.30
Operation Alert 1959, all commercial broad­ Like all the Operation Alert broadcasts, this
casting and telecasting ceased while a quarter was punctuated with reminders that this is just
of the U.S. population listened to 1,200 a drill and there is no attack.
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132 PERFORMING HISTORY

Lowpoint (in Battle Creek, Michigan, the civil

ANNOUNCER: This is a CONELRAD drill. defense agency’s headquarters and crossroads
. . . We cannot close our eyes to the possibility of information between the military, regional
of attack. That is why the radio and television authorities, and federal government) looked
industry has given up valuable time to help like.
make this exercise successful. . . . With
CONELRAD broadcasts you would know that
the information you were hearing was not only
the latest information, but official information. ANNOUNCER: #2 This is _____________
reporting from one of the secret relocation
centers of your government. . . . away from
Washington. During an actual attack your
Listeners heard descriptions of the typical government would operate from places like
kinds of information that would be broadcast this. We are in the operations room. . . .
in the event of nuclear war: shelter supplies, Young ladies on step-ladders are working at
evacuation procedures, warning times, the mili­ the enormous map of the United States. . . .
tary’s detection system for early warning, how They are plotting attack information on the
the United States is striking back at enemy map with colored plastic markers attached to
forces, and the function of NORAD. Fallout tiny magnets . . . the markers indicate which
and shielding principles were explained, along places are being evacuated. Later they will
with procedures for taking shelter and essential show which have been hit . . . which spared.
Across the room is a smaller map covered
materials for stocking. The attack alert and take
with clear plastic. A weatherman charts the
cover signals were described, and actions that
predicted movement of fallout across the
should be taken upon hearing them reiterated. nation . . . historic decisions for the United
States . . . and the world . . . will depend on
the information reaching this room . . . for the
ANNOUNCER: As you leave the city, your men sitting around me here today . . . in a
government officials will be moving to reloca­ training exercise . . . are the men who would
tion centers outside the target area in order make the decision . . . in case of attack. The
to maintain government operation and leader­ information with which they work comes
ship. Under national emergency conditions, over a gigantic emergency communications
local governments will have an immense system . . . from the military and from civil
responsibility. It is here that the attack will first defense installations which relay reports from
strike—it is here that plans for survival of cities . . . states . . . and territories . . . and
the people will have to be executed. . . . The from other secret government headquarters
threat of nuclear weapons does not end with similar to this one. . . . Man cannot handle
the explosion of the bombs. this tremendous flow of information fast
enough . . . so there are great banks of elec­
tronic equipment . . . the brains of the com­
The pretext was simultaneously that all was puter . . . ready for use by the men who must
make the decisions for survival. . . . This room
functioning well at the point of the broadcast’s
is the core of Operation Survival. . . . In many
origin, and that the situation was dire enough
other rooms at this hidden headquarters . . .
that Newspoint—a journalists’ enclave located hundreds of experts keep track of . . . how
in rural Virginia, remote from Highpoint but many Americans would have died if this
directly in touch with it—was staffed and attack were real . . . how many injured . . .
reporting official information. Another how much is left in stockpiled food . . . fuel
announcer drew a verbal picture of what . . . clothing . . . medical supplies . . . blood.
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 133

Transportation experts get reports on which

railroads can operate and how many locomo­ ANNOUNCER: This is the B.B.C. Regional
tives and cars they have . . . the number of Service for the Counties of AYSHIRE,
buses . . . trucks . . . aircraft and other vehi­ BEESHIRE, CEESHIRE and the West Riding of
cles available for the recovery effort . . . med­ DEESHIRE. Alvan Fiddell reporting. Between
ical men get reports on the number of doctors one o’clock and three o’clock this morning a
and nurses who survived . . . they also are number of attacks were made on this country
told how many hospital beds are available by nuclear weapons. The main attack has
and where they are . . . how much medicine been directed against London and the Home
is left and where it is . . . the condition of the Counties but this Region has been subjected
nearly two thousand emergency hospitals to attacks on West Middlepoole, Nottington
civil defense has spotted strategically around and Darlingham. Serious fires are raging in
the nation . . . all of this information . . . and these places and there are very many casual­
much more . . . is fed into the Operations ties. Civil Defence and other rescue services
Room. . . . 31 are doing everything they can to rescue
survivors. Immediate retaliatory measures
were taken by our own forces and there
have been no further attacks since 3 o’clock.
Exhortations on cooperation and the
Radioactive fall-out already affects part of our
need for public involvement in civil defense region and will affect other areas later. If you
followed. have not already been warned to go to your
The National Damage Assessment Center, refuge room, listen for the public warnings.
part of Highpoint, received data on simulated As soon as you hear maroons [loud explosive
defense conditions, warning times, aircraft devices, used in areas unequipped with
tracks, submarine locations, and missile sirens] or are instructed by your Civil Defence
reports which in turn were translated into warden or police go at once to your refuge
public warnings. After a simulated attack, the room and remain there until you are told you
National Damage Assessment Center was fed can come out. This station is now closing
data on areas of heavy destruction, radiation down. A further transmission will be made at
7 o’clock.
intensities, and protective action which in turn
was translated into information for dissemina­
tion to the public. CONELRAD could then
Twenty-four hours into the simulated
give instructions on nuclear, bacteriological,
nuclear attack, Alvan Fiddell broadcast again:
and chemical attacks, personal care, the evac­
uation situation, and radiation.32 In a real war,
they anticipated relaying this information to
Lowpoint which would in turn give press ANNOUNCER: Rescue work is proceeding in
releases on meteorological and radiological the towns of West Middlepoole, Nottington
information to Newspoint. and Darlingham and many casualties have
been removed to hospital. Many fires have
Canada and Britain had similar, though
been brought under control and reinforce­
more centralized, systems. In Exercise Dust-
ments of rescue services are on their way to
bath, November 7–8, 1964, fallout programs these areas. Apart from the very north of
were simulated for the BBC. Broadcasts were AYSHIRE radioactive fallout covers almost the
short, and telegraphically informational, not whole region. It is particularly heavy in the
unlike the daily shipping forecasts in style. At areas around LIVERTON, SOUTHSHORE,
H+4 (four hours after commencement of sim­ STOCKPORT AND NORTHCAPE, and along
ulated nuclear war), an announcer read, the REED VALLEY. Do not leave your refuge
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134 PERFORMING HISTORY

room. The civil defence authorities are aware one week to the next. I could be
of the situation and are keeping a constant anywhere, Bob. Supermarket, visiting
check on it. Your warden will tell you when the doctor, having coffee across the
you can come out but it may not be for some street. Anywhere.
considerable time. There will a further news
bulletin in one hour. Switch off your radio
to conserve the battery and tune in again at
Given the logistical problems and the
3 o’clock.33
urgency of an evacuation, it is less important
to gather families together than to indepen­
dently get out of harm’s way by whatever
This is meant to resemble a news broadcast, means possible. Later, families may find
not a play: it is informational and nondialogic. themselves scattered in every direction, not
The fake yet plausible place names unequivo­ knowing where the others are. Bob, an emer­
cally designate this as an exercise text. Yet this gency planner, has designed the forms that
does not alter its status as a dramatic script. would be needed to reunite families via local
It is precisely because it is part of a speculative registries and the postage-paid postcards that
exercise that it is more, not less, like drama, could be sent to relatives in distant areas to
for it superimposes one pretext (blatantly inform them that families are all right.
untrue) over another (manifestly true) reality. Stockpiles of the cards are ready and waiting
The real time and the real radiological situa­ at post offices.
tion that the broadcaster exists in is in tension
with but does not negate the unreal time and
reported radiological situation of the postnu­ JACK: Say, you have got the angles figured
clear war scenario. Jack. This is pretty urgent business. It’s
In the late 1950s, the Canadian Department the family unit which holds the com­
of Health and Welfare produced six dialogic munity together. Break those up and
radio scripts on civil defense topics. These [the] whole community’s in trouble,
posit “what-ifs,” not within an emergency the whole nation.34
situation like Exercise Dustbath but within
everyday life which can be spent preparing for
the exigencies of catastrophe. They fall into This is not great drama—it is corny,
the category of public service broadcasts and contrived, and didactic—yet not dissimilar to
many cover basic skills of preparedness adapt­ much programming from the period. Other
able to various kinds of emergency. Operation programs in the series cover the provision of
Get-Together, for example, calls attention to clothing, food, and shelter for disaster victims
the difficulty of knowing where one’s family and the value of maintaining an emergency
members are in case of emergency. Bob asks seven-day food pack.
his brother-in-law, Jack, where his wife would The exercise scripts call into being hypo­
be while he is at work and whether he should thetical futures within the performative tem­
assume he could contact her in an emergency: porality of the present moment. In order for
the scripts to be efficacious, people would
either practice behaviors—embodying what
they should do in a real emergency, such as
JACK: (smugly) Why she’d be at home of proceeding toward shelter—or learn to con­
course. nect their everyday behaviors to be adaptively
ELLA: Honestly, to hear you talk you’d think alert to potential problems. Operation Get-
I never went out of the house from Together portrays the latter, and calls into
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 135

Storage locker for CBC emergency messages at the regional emergency government headquarters,
Valcartier, Quebec.
Photo courtesy of the Diefenbunker, Canada’s Cold War Museum

being an Everyman sensibility about current survival”—in other words the preservation
actions implicating future consequences. of life and property—would be supported
through second-tier objectives such as conti­
nuity of government and broadcasting of
THE REAL THING
fallout information, and third-tier objectives
Equally intriguing are the related texts—some­ including the conservation of resources, stabi­
times prerecorded, sometimes held on deposit lization of the economy, and resumption of
in typescript form—that were cached in case governmental peacetime programs.35 The
nuclear war broke out. These have not been media would prime listeners to be prepared
broadcast—yet—but like all scripts have the for certain actions, and in the United States
status of events-in-potential, postulated futures CONELRAD preattack broadcasts would
capable of making the transformation to typically focus on informing the public about
something transacting in time. In this case, it supplies for shelter, evacuation procedures,
would be an apocalyptic time. Their temporal warning times, the military’s detection system
referentiality, therefore, is entirely dependent for early warning, NORAD, and the capacity
upon the act of performance. to strike back.36
In Canada, most postwar objectives To distinguish these exercises—rehearsals
would be enhanced through communications: for nuclear war—from the real thing, authenti­
the highest priority, “public education on self- cating scripts were devised. An emergency mes­
help in first aid, firefighting, and personal sage from the president, whether broadcast
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136 PERFORMING HISTORY

from the White House or Highpoint, would be • Take your battery radio with you, or turn up
preceded by two minutes “talk up”: the house radio so that you can hear it while
under cover.
• Stay away from windows.
• Lie down and protect yourself from falling
ANNOUNCER: A Presidential message will debris.
be heard in ___________ minutes and • Shut your eyes and shield them from the flash
____________ seconds from NOW. of an explosion.
• If you are away from home, at school or work,
take cover where you are.
• If you are in a car, truck or bus, stop and take
This would be repeated until the President cover in a building, culvert or ditch.
• If you are only a few minutes from a known
came on the air. The closing cue for Presidential
safer destination proceed and take cover as
messages would be: quickly as possible.38

ANNOUNCER: THIS CONCLUDES THE A set of ten draft typescripts from 1962 indi­
PRESIDENTIAL MESSAGE.37 cates the content of the taped messages that
were issued regionally. The scripts relate to
the stages of attack warning, warnings to take
When neither a presidential message nor a cover, instructions for those whose areas come
national program pertinent to the emergency under attack, fallout reports, evacuation plan­
was being broadcast, a constant tone would ning, and emergence from shelter.39 These were
be transmitted to verify the continuity of the developed by a working group with input from
circuits. the CBC, Army, Emergency Health Services,
In the event of an attack warning, regional Emergency Supply Planning Branch, and
CBC stations would repeatedly broadcast the Emergency Measures Organization officials
following text, interrupted only by a speech by (a branch of the prime minister’s office), revis­
the prime minister or acting prime minister. ing scripts used for the exercise TOCSIN B
in November 1961. Attack warning messages
were printed on pink paper and kept on file
SOUND EFFECT (Undulating sound of sirens until at least the mid-1980s.40 To avoid playing
for a few seconds.) messages pertaining to the survival period in
the wrong order, they were combined on a sin­
ANNOUNCER: This is_______________ (well
gle tape.41 Purely educational and instructional
known announcer) speaking. The Canadian
Government has declared a national emer­ material about sheltering and mitigating the
gency. An enemy attack on North America effects of fallout, which would be broadcast
has been detected. This is a real emergency. prior to an attack if time allows, were pro­
Sirens are now sounding or have sounded the duced on video and also stockpiled at sta­
“ATTACK WARNING”. . . . Take cover imme­ tions,42 though the CBC also retained
diately in the best available protection against typescripts for live broadcast with details on
blast and heat, do NOT worry about fallout personal decontamination, water, food han­
now. Here are some instructions: dling, disposal of garbage and human waste,
disease prevention, and first aid.43
• If you are at home go to the strongest part of
your house or building which offers the best The British government also produced
protection against flying objects such as glass, video and audio recordings intended to be
wood or bricks. broadcast in the precrisis period: the Protect
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 137

and Survive series.44 Twenty-four-hour-a-day Resemblance to the Exercise Dustbath

broadcasting would be devoted to the 20 scripts is notable. Regional seats of govern­
videotapes lasting a total of 47 minutes and ment would also broadcast international,
audiotapes lasting 37 minutes.45 Once war national, or regional situation summaries; the
broke out, there would be a single BBC sound end of the nuclear exchange; forecasts of when
program, and no television. The public would broad areas were likely to emerge from cover;
be urged to tune in continuously for the first specific instructions for emergence applicable
24 hours, then—to conserve battery life—tune to smaller areas; instructions to the public that
in only at specified times or when they heard they would be transported to other regions;
sirens or maroons. Proposed texts read, instructions that those with transport should
travel, along with specific instructions on des­
tination and routes; instructions about rations,
food stocks within fallout zones, and local
ANNOUNCER: The following areas are under food, including contamination dangers;
Fall-out Warning Black. This means that instructions on how to use their time in the
radioactive fall-out is imminent, or has already open, especially for specific categories such
arrived, in the area(s). You must therefore take
as nurses, public utility maintenance men,
cover immediately and remain under cover
slaughtermen, farmers, etc.; medical advice on
until you receive further instructions. This
broadcast may not include all areas where caring for radiation victims; and advice on
there is danger of fall-out and you should decontamination.47
therefore act immediately on any warning As archival objects, these scripts demon­
which has been or will be given by maroon or strate the ideologies and tactics of civil defense
whistle which you may hear, whether or not programs during the height of the Cold War.
your area is included in this broadcast. Does their nature change if we think of them
in the light of their real utility, to instruct
people at the outbreak of nuclear war, a per­
formance coincident with the cessation of life
Alternately, for regional broadcasts, pro­ for hundreds of millions of people? If indeed
posed texts read, the exercise scripts are dramatic because they
superimpose the real-time referent (the exer­
cise) over imagined-time referents (the fiction
ANNOUNCER This is a broadcast to (South- of war), would the same script being broadcast
Eastern) Region. Radioactive fall-out is now to millions in the midst of crisis cease to be
affecting the whole of the counties of A, B dramatic?48 What does this reveal about
and C and the following areas in county D as threshold events and the standard form of evi­
well as parts of adjoining Regions. Stay under dence for history, ritual, and theatre history?
cover, and if you have a refuge room, stay in
Can performance supersede and even elimi­
it as much as possible. Do not come out until
nate drama when the event-in-potential of
you receive further instructions. Keep your
radio tuned to this station. This broadcast may a script no longer references a future but
not include all areas where there is danger of describes a present reality?
fall-out and you should therefore act immedi­ Anne Ubersfeld argues that every perfor­
ately on any warning which has been or will mance references three domains: the dramatic
be given by maroon or whistle which you text, the performance itself (reflexively), and
may hear, whether or not your area is the natural world.49 In the case of the civil
included in this broadcast.46 defense scripts stored in-potential for broad­
cast during nuclear hostilities, the relationship
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138 PERFORMING HISTORY

of these domains to each other becomes of transitivity, but the purpose in peace is to
particularly interesting. Both the rehearsal habituate auditors’ responses, rehearsing a
texts and the “real thing” texts stimulate reaction until it can become realistic in war.52
behaviors in social life, however in the former As long as the world’s first thermonuclear war
case the performance’s self-reflexivity inscribes was merely anticipated, broadcasts of the
the fictiveness or the simulation, whereas scripts could only be realistic, not reality. Only
in the latter case self-reflexivity would over­ if they were broadcast without the exercise
come the realism of a dramatic text in favor of caveat did they forfeit realism. After the
the reality of disaster. Scripts are dramatic bombs hit, well-habituated citizens listening to
because they superimpose real-time referents their radios in places of relative safety would,
(the exercise) over imagined-time referents (the it was thought, seek reliable news in order to
fiction of war), but the same script being stem off the negative effects that would incur
broadcast to millions in the midst of crisis from unreliable information. They would seek
ceases to be dramatic.50 If, for example, a to correlate their experiences to local and
radio station broadcast the following text, it world events, integrating themselves into a
signaled a rehearsal of a possible future: broader narrative. Under these circumstances,
according to the British Psychological Society,
“monitoring the news serves as an attempt to
ANNOUNCER: We interrupt our normal reconstruct a comprehensible set of explana­
program to cooperate in security and civil tions, and to reduce the uncertainty brought
defense measures as requested by the United about by uncontrollability,” which was not
States Government. This is a CONELRAD only socially adaptive but psychologically
Radio Alert. Normal broadcasting will now be healthy.53 The Eisenhower administration
discontinued for an indefinite period. . . . In believed the two most important instruments
the interest of national security, radio silence of social planning for a postdisaster period
may be prolonged. If this happens, don’t use were maintaining the supply of food and other
your telephone. Be patient. Official informa­ essential items, and communications (prefer­
tion will be broadcast as soon as possible.51 ably two-way) between the government and
the people. This would emphasize national
solidarity and facilitate long-term recovery
If, however, this was not an exercise alert and rebuilding.54
but a wartime alert, the performance would During the initial radio broadcast of Orson
become an apocalyptic script describing the Welles’ War of the Worlds, panic ensued
present. What does this reveal about threshold despite repeated insistence that there was no
events and the standard form of evidence for invasion from Mars. In the event of nuclear
history, ritual, and performance? These texts war, the disclaimers of truth would be
raise questions about the circumstances under replaced with disclaimers of falsity, so that
which the domains of reflexive performance “This is not a test; radar stations have
and the natural world abut in order to elimi­ detected incoming Soviet missiles; take cover
nate the domain of a dramatic text. immediately” would be as true in the script as
What, precisely, is the difference in terms of in the world. Whereas the peacetime exercise
performance theory? As dramatic scripts, civil relies on auditors to accept the alienation of
defense instructions compress narrative, stim­ an illusion broken, wartime auditors would
ulate unconscious drives, and call a mise-en­ need to not be estranged, and instead to
scène into being. In other words, they deploy be absorbed.55 Lack of a Verfremdungseffekt
realism. Their reflexivity may take on degrees (roughly, “alienation-effect”) points to a
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 139

distinction between realism and reality in Abbreviations

these scripts, or rather in the reflexivity of NAC: National Archives of Canada (Ottawa)
their performance. A change in the world
NARA: National Archives and Records
beyond the script (namely, the failure of Administration (College Park, MD)
diplomacy to preserve peace) changes the PRO: Public Records Office (London)
status of their performance. The difference
RG: Record Group
would be signaled not by a substitution of
HO: Home Office
the whole text but merely a change of dis­
claimer—from “this is false” to “this is
true”—yet it is the status of the “this is true” NOTES AND REFERENCES
while it is still false that makes the conceit so
recognizable to performance historians. 1. Ibsen, H. (1966). Hedda Gabler (J. Arup,
In its commemoration of James Kirk’s Trans.). In J. W. McFarlane (Ed.), Ibsen (Vol. VII).
birth, the town of Riverside uses dramatic time London: Oxford University Press. p. 216.
playfully, commemorating scripts’ propensity 2. Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers:
Television fans and participatory culture. London:
to create futures, erecting a monument to this, Routledge.
and hosting an annual pilgrimage to it. 3. Because, in retrospect, many civil defense
Likewise, in nuclear drills the public was urged measures seem inadequate, and perhaps even ludi­
to take shelter: the same shelter they would crous, and because of the attempt to disseminate
take if the attack were real. They were urged information about them through popular media,
populist tactics, and populism, the historiogra­
to listen to their radios: the same stations they
phy of this movement is characterized by kitsch
would listen to if the attack were real. The history, emphasizing the union between pop cul­
context was serious, though the enactment ture iconography and dismissive reductionism of
was fundamentally playful: an “as if” of what was, at the time, often experienced as the
nuclear war, with the radio repeating this terrifying immanence of death. Kitsch history,
epitomized in the United States by the “duck
essential fact. But closing the shelter door,
and cover” campaign of Bert the Turtle, displaces
though the same gesture, might not always attention from the causes of civil defense, namely
have the same reflexive relationship to the nat­ an arms race of unprecedented destructive power,
ural world. huge investment in the military-industrial com­
Does the evolution of these Cold War plex, and technologies of paranoia propagated by
artifacts from exercise scripts to scripts-in­ the ideological opponents. In my work, I attempt
to relate the causes to the effects of civil defense
potential for Armageddon to evidence of civil
and, as a pacifist, to respect the artifacts of history
defense in a bygone era foreclose their status and note our “refusal of coevality” with them,
as events-in-potential? Do we assume, as per­ while remembering why these programs arose in
formance historians, that a script (a blueprint the first place. Through estrangement, there is too
for a performance event) ever becomes obso­ powerful a temptation to forget the cause while
dismissing the effect. See Phillips, M. S. (2003).
lete, defunct, or undramatic? Is this relative?
“Relocating Inwardness: Historical Distance and
Is it as applicable to performatives as scripts? the Transition from Enlightenment to Romantic
What is it about historical context and con­ Historiography,” PMLA, 118(3), 436–449.
temporaneousness that is (and is not) impor­ 4. Janis, I. L. (1949). Psychological aspects
tant to the status of a document? What of vulnerability of atomic bomb attacks. Santa
transforms a dramatic document’s relation­ Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. p. 38.
5. This was not an isolated incident. During
ship to time from one of hermeneutics (inter­
Operation Alert 58, two State Emergency Infor­
pretation) to ontology (being)? Are there mation staff broadcast loud speaker warnings of
precedents to help us understand this unusual impending fallout from a private plane over
case study? Readfield, Maine. See NARA RG 396 Entry
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140 PERFORMING HISTORY

1029 650 42/0 5/05 Box 4, “State and Local villages, and that isolated communities outside
Participation in OPAL 58. Presentation to the audible range of warning device will be able to
N.A.S.T.D. Conference, Colorado Springs, receive attack warning messages broadcast by the
November 10, 1958,” DRAFT, 3 November B.B.C. Consideration is being given to the possi­
1958, p. 4. bility of broadcasting fall-out warnings by the
6. PRO HO 322/185, Exercises “Review” B.B.C. which would cover isolated communities,
and “Zeta”: Public Control, Establishing Zonal but many practical difficulties have yet to be
Boundaries, Clearance of Z-Zones, 1954-1957. overcome.” PRO HO 322/192, Staff College
7. Tyhurst, J. S. (1957). Psychological and Exercises and Studies: Central Exercise Staff
social aspects of civilian disaster. Canadian (CES): Coordination and Administration of
Medical Association Journal, 76, 390. Central Government and Regional Exercises.
8. Krajnc, A. (2000). The art of green learn­ 1958–1967, “Central Exercise Staff Bulletin
ing from protest songs to media mind bombs. January 1963.”
International Politics, 37(1), 25. Italics added. 13. Emergency Preparedness Canada. (1991).
9. Transistor radios were first marketed in the Wartime public protection in the 1980s. Final
United States in 1954 (the Regency TR1); by 1959, report of the task force on war planning and con­
half of the 10 million U.S. radios made annually cepts of operations, 1985. Ottawa: Author. See
were transistor radios. Transistors were far from a also Emergency Preparedness Canada (1991).
panacea for civil defense: “Transistor sets function Public Protection Measures. Ottawa: Author.
adequately within buildings, except where they are 14. Diefenbunker Archive, F. P. Johnson,
screened from broadcast signals by metal screening Director of Special Projects Canadian Broadcasting
and no external aerial is connected; this could Corporation, Letter to J. F. Wallace, Director
cause difficulties in, e.g., basements in buildings National Civil Emergency Measure Program,
with frames of steel or reinforced concrete. The 1 July 1969.
audience is clearly large enough to make the broad­ 15. Diefenbunker Archive, “The Evolution of
casting of fall-out information worth while.” PRO the Civil Situation Monitoring and Briefing
HO 322/336, Working Party on Broadcasting Fall- Capability at the Central Emergency Government
Out Information: Meetings and Interim Report, Headquarters, Canadian Forces Stations Carp (the
1964–1965. Diefenbunker) from 1961 to 1992,” 1992. Broad­
10. CONELRAD stands for CONtrol of cast studios were also maintained at regional head­
ELectromagnetic RADiation. Such techniques quarters. See also Diefenbunker Archive, “Readiness
were used by each side in World War II. A mis­ Status Summary [RGHQ Nanaimo],” 1988.
sile’s homing instruments could be adjusted to 16. PRO HO 322/336, Working Party on
guide it down the path of a broadcast toward a Broadcasting Fall-Out Information, “Interim
radio transmitter. The only effective countermea­ Report for Period To D+5,” February 1965.
sure is to cease broadcasting altogether or not dif­ 17. PRO HO 322/336, “Working Party on
ferentiate broadcast frequencies. NARA RG 396 Broadcasting of Fall-out Information. Exercise
Entry 1013 650 41/32/07 Box 1, “FCDA-OCDM CIVLOG Attack Pattern: Immediate Effects Upon
Special Liaison Files of L. C. Frankling [Canada- Regional Broadcasting. Paper by A.1 Division,”
U.S. Joint Committee], Meeting 7–8 January 1953. July 1964.
11. NARA RG 397 Entry 39 650 42/26/06-07 18. PRO HO 322/351, Phoenix Five
Box 1, JRCC D/34-65, “Report on Working Hydrogen Bomb Exercise, 1967.
Group on Emergency Public Information,” [1965]. 19. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05
The United States instituted an emergency broad­ Box 2, Brig. Gen. Don E. Carleton, “A Report
cast system with approximately 300 participating of Participation by the City of Milwaukee in the
stations in 1964. By 1971, it could reach only nine National Civil Defense Test Exercise of June
percent of the population. U.S. Department of 15–16, Operation Alert 1955,” 1955. p. 6.
Defense, Office of Civil Defense, New Dimensions. 20. Oakes, G. (1994). The imaginary war:
Ninth Annual Report of the Office of Civil Defense Civil defense and American Cold War culture.
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1970, 1971, p. 18. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 88–89.
12. “Present plans provide for the rapid dis­ 21. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05
semination of attack and fall-out warnings to Box 2, FCDA Emergency Control Division,
all centres of population down to the smallest Emergency Operations Office, “Intra-Agency
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What to Do When Nuclear War Breaks Out 141

Report on Operation Alert 1956,” 12 September 37. Eisenhower Library, White House Office
1956. pp. 29–30. Papers, Office of the Staff Secretary Records
22. NAC RG24, Department of National of Paul T. Carroll, Andrew J. Goodpaster,
Defence, Series C-1, Acc. 1983-84/215, Box 252, L. Arthur Minnich, and Christopher H. Russell,
Files S-2001-91/T19 pt. 1, Canadian Broadcasting 1952–1961, Emergency Action Series,” Federal
Corporation “Radio Script Exercise TOCSIN B Communication Commission, “Plan for the
1961 7:00–8:30pm EST November 13th, 1961. Control of Electromagnetic Radiation (CONEL­
All Canadian Stations,” Executive Producer Thom RAD) Pursuant to Executive Order No. 10312
Benson, Producer Norman McBain. Technical Arrangements to Insure Nationwide
23. Canada Emergency Measures Organization Continuity of the Emergency Broadcast System
and Department of National Defence. (1980). 11 During CONELRAD and the Period Following
steps to survival. Blueprint for survival no. 4. Issuance of the CONELRAD Radio All Clear,” 29
Ottawa: Author. (Originally published 1961). July 1960.
24. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05 38. Diefenbunker Archive, “Emergency
Box 2. Broadcast—Attack Warning,” 1967. This closely
25. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05 resembles a contemporaneous publication:
Box 6. Diefenbunker Archive, Public Works Collection,
26. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 Deputy Chief Reserves, Civil Emergency
42/05/05 Box 2. See also Office of Civil Defense Operations—War. Militia Training Material
Mobilization, Executive Office of the President, and Guidelines, 1968: Annex C, Part 2, Sec 1.
Annual Report of the Office of Civil and pp. 36–37. This further corresponds with NAC
Defense Mobilization for Fiscal Year 1959, R06059, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
1960. p. 12. and Emergency Measures Organization, Nuclear
27. Campbell, D. (1982). War plan UK: The Attack Clips. Public Service Radio Announce­
truth about civil defence in Britain London: ments, circa 1964.
Burnett. pp. 76–77. 39. Diefenbunker Archive, “Emergency
28. NARA RG 397 Entry 39 650 42/26/06-07 Broadcasts No. 1-10 (Draft),” 1962.
Box 1, “U.S./Canada Cross-Border Seminar 40. Steed, J. (1985, July 20). Getting ready for
Exercise January 27–28, Minneapolis,” [1965]. doomsday. The Globe and Mail (Toronto).
29. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05 41. Diefenbunker Archive, Emergency
Box 6. Measures Organization, “EMO Working Group
30. NARA RG 396 Entry 1063 650 42/13/01 on Emergency Broadcasts for the Public Second
Box 1, “[Operation Alert 1959] Test Exercise Progress Report,” 1962.
Study Files,” 1959. 42. Emergency Planning Canada. (1979). A
31. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05 guide to civil emergency planning for municipali­
Box 6. ties. Ottawa: Author. p. 4.
32. Diefenbunker Archive, Office of Civil and 43. Diefenbunker Archive, “Health Mainte­
Defense Mobilization, “Draft Plan for Operations nance Survival Instructions for the Public” [type­
at the Classified Location,” 1960. script]. 1962.
33. PRO HO 322/336, Working Party on 44. Central Office of Information. (2000).
Broadcasting Fall-Out Information, “Broadcasting Protect and Survive. Reissued by DD Video,
of Fallout Information. Report by South-West North Harrow, England. (Original work pro­
Region,” [Dec. 1964]. duced 1971).
34. Brown, S. S. (Producer), & Tolowin, D. 45. Crossley, G. (1982). Civil defence in
(Writer). (circa 1958). Your health, your welfare: Britain: Peace studies papers (No. 7). London:
Operation get-together [Radio script]. Ottawa: Housmans and University of Bradford School of
Canadian Department of National Health and Peace Studies. pp. 85–86.
Welfare. pp. 7, 12. 46. PRO HO 322/336, Working Party
35. Diefenbunker Archive, Public Works on Broadcasting Fall-Out Information, “Interim
Collection, Emergency Measures Organization, Report for Period to D+5,” February 1965.
Canada Survival Plan,1966. pp. 3–4. 47. PRO HO 322/336, Working Party on
36. NARA RG 396 Entry 1029 650 42/05/05 Broadcasting Fall-Out Information, “Interim
Box 6. Report for Period to D+5,” February 1965.
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142 PERFORMING HISTORY

48. Pfister, M. (1991). The theory and analy­ 53. Thompson, J. (1985). Psychological aspects
sis of drama (J. Halliday, Trans.) England: of nuclear war. Chichester, England: British Psycho­
Cambridge University Press. pp. 246–247. logical Society and John Wiley & Sons. p. 14.
49. Ubersfeld, A. (1999). Reading theatre. 54. Eisenhower Library, White House Office
Foreword by Collins, F., Perron, P., & Debèche, P. Papers, Cabinet Secretary, Box 22, CI-55, “Human
Ontario: University of Toronto Press, p. xvi. Behavior in Disaster,” Cabinet Paper, 22 April
50. Pfister, M. (1991). The theory and analy­ 1958. p. 4.
sis of drama (J. Halliday, Trans.) England: 55. Messinger, S. L., Sampson, H., & Towne,
Cambridge University Press. pp. 246–247. R. D. (1975). Life as theatre: Some notes on
51. Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization. the dramaturgic approach to social reality. In
(1961). Conelrad (L-6 ed.). Washington, DC: D. Brissett & C. Edgley (Eds.), Life as theater:
Department of Defense. a dramaturgical sourcebook (pp. 32–42).
52. The central point about transitivity and New York: Aldine de Gruyter. p. 38. (Original
intransitivity is drawn from discussion of mimetic work published in 1962, Sociometry 35, 98–110).
fiction and poetry in Lane, C. (2003). The poverty
of context: Historicism and nonmimetic fiction.
PMLA, 118(3), 450–69.
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PART III
Performance of and
Beyond Literature
PAUL EDWARDS

Interpretation is an excellent way of studying literature because it demands that the

student perceive. . . . The silent reader, skimming and skipping and scavenging often
only for particular ideas or images, frequently does not really assimilate whole
pieces of literature. . . . But the interpreter cannot so read. He must bring the whole
poem close to himself. . . . The act of oral reading before an audience (though that
audience may be a single listener—or, indeed, only the reader himself) is . . . a kind
of final act of criticism. . . .
—Wallace Bacon, The Art of Interpretation (1966, pp. 6, 8–9)

When I choose texts, they’re random in a way. I feel I could use any text. That was
something that started very early with Spalding [Gray]. I could pick anything in this
room. . . . I could take three props here: the printing on the back of that picture, this
book, and whatever’s in this pile of papers, and make something that would mean
as much, no more nor less, than what I’ve constructed in the performance space
downstairs. . . . Finally, it’s not about that text. . . . I take [some] chance occurrence
and say, that is the sine qua non, that is the beginning, that is the text. I cannot stray
from that text. As someone else would use the lines of a playwright, I use that action
as the baseline.
—Elizabeth LeCompte (quoted in Savran, 1988, pp. 50–51)

W hy “literature”? In the monograph

Unstoried: Teaching Literature in the
Age of Performance Studies (1999) I briefly
study that began in eighteenth century
England as “elocution,” and flourished in late-
nineteenth century America (during the heyday
trace the rise and fall of “interpretation”: the of oratorical culture) under names as quaint

143
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144 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

sounding as “expression” and “speech arts.”1 raving on hustings, imitating the “action” of
Employing a range of examples from parallel eighteenth century stage star David Garrick
histories, I wrote Unstoried to suggest to from a pulpit or school podium, or standing at
an expanding field of “performance studies” a table in a coffeehouse to read a newspaper
scholars, arriving from many disciplines, how out loud—was the laptop-extended or televisu­
a number of literature professors once got alized body of its day.
involved. Elocutionary training attained its greatest
Having begun my academic career in respectability in American colleges and univer­
the now-vanished category of “interpretation sities with the founding in 1914 of the National
teacher,” I suppose that I suffered “the misfor­ Association of Academic Teachers of Public
tune of teaching literature,” as Jonathan Brody Speaking—known since 1997 as the National
Kramnick (1998) terms it, “in a moment when Communication Association (NCA). Most of
its founding rationale has been called into rad­ the association’s members, at the time of
ical doubt” (p. 244). English elocution came its first convention in 1915, were school
into existence alongside “the appearance of the teachers whose platform oratory embraced
category of ‘literature’ in the later eighteenth both public speaking and literary recitation.
century” (Guillory, 1993, p. 213). The age that Yet as “academically oriented” performers
gave us the English-language “classic” gave us (Rarig & Greaves, 1954, p. 499) they were
as well a use-value for literature, a form of eager to distance themselves from the “rub­
“cultural capital” (Guillory, 1993): the rise of bish” of popular platform entertainment with
“literature” helped to shape the public sphere which the label “elocution” had come to be
and its protocols of communication. So did the associated during the late-nineteenth century
performance of literature, which for two cen­ (see Cohen, 1994; Edwards, 1999, pp. 3–4,
turies (under various names) capitalized on the 16–43, 63–78, 121; Weaver, 1989). As the
trained performing body as a communication association grew and diversified, its Interpreta­
medium. From its beginnings, elocution’s tion Division became the national gathering
market-driven goals were divided and some­ place for teachers and scholars of performance-
times self-contradictory. Did elocution belong based literary study who worked outside the
in universities or in trade schools? One of its institutional boundaries of “English” and “the­
audiences sought enrichment from belles lettres atre.” The interests of these educators were
through embodied performance, while another diverse enough to permit continual transfor­
(sometimes overlapping) audience sought mations of collective identity. In 1991, the
training in the persuasive delivery of any text, group received approval to rename itself a
as a tool for activism or professional advance­ Performance Studies Division, thereby cultivat­
ment. The manuals on elocutionary delivery ing what appears to be the first national asso­
that became popular in Georgian England con­ ciation of “performance studies” scholars out
tained training drills on shaping meaningful of its deep roots in literary study, speech arts,
sounds and exhibiting through gesture the and elocutionary training. By contrast, the
signs of deep feeling. “Passion for Dummies”: I organization Performance Studies international
find it hard to read these books and not com­ (PSi), which held its first conference in 1995,
pare them to present-day computer manuals, arose from the very different institutional iden­
designed to help us with everything from tity of the graduate program in Performance
simply turning on the “machine” to making us Studies at New York University (NYU) and
appear expressive for the widest possible audi­ sought to promote interdisciplinary perfor­
ence. The oratorically extended body of the mance scholarship unburdened by association
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—whether with a history of literary study.2
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Performance of and Beyond Literature 145

With the rise of performance studies associa­ of literature. It seeks, rather, to identify the
tions from contrasting traditions, scholars academic study of interpretation as one of the
like Richard Schechner (2002) have begun many streams that flowed unpredictably into
to speak of a two-brand model of performance the current of performance studies, as it began
studies pedagogy in American universities: with to take shape in the last quarter of the twenti­
literature, as exemplified by the academic eth century. Jackson (2001, 2004) has argued
department at Northwestern University, and that a deconstruction of institutional blind
without, as exemplified by the NYU depart­ spots requires a genealogical rather than
ment (pp. 16–19; see also Carlson, 1996, narrowly ideological approach: a patient will­
pp. 19–25; Jackson, 2004, pp. 8–11; Jacobson, ingness to trace the often playful, all-too­
1994, p. 20; Phelan, 1998, pp. 3–7). Such human reaccentuations of ideas that eventually
myths of institutional origin are unlikely to harden into the discourses of academic disci­
have any long-term influence on whether per­ plines (2001, p. 85). This was my argument in
formance studies curricula, during the first Unstoried: a genealogical approach incalcula­
decades of the twenty-first century, will succeed bly enriches the reading of archival materials
in inscribing their borders on the departmental when we try to make sense of unlikely parallel
terrain of colleges and universities. While com­ lives (elocutionists Thomas Sheridan and James
mentators on the late-twentieth century scene of Burgh in eighteenth century London), emulous
performance studies have had fun with the two- candidacies for leadership (Genevieve Stebbins
brand or two-school model (see, for example, and S. S. Curry in American “expression” train­
McKenzie, 2001, pp. 46–47), Shannon Jackson ing), or negotiations of disciplinary direction in
(2004) helpfully reminds us that the “two insti­ twentieth century “speech” education.
tutional narratives” do not arise fancifully: each A question that remains is this. As interpre­
suggests a complicated genealogy. The spread tation vanished from American academic life,
of interpretation and later performance studies why did so many of its practitioners adopt
through the member institutions of the NCA performance studies (rather than a better-
(including Northwestern University) produces a established discipline like theatre or English) as
very different “origin” story than the one asso­ the appropriate setting to reinvent the pedagog­
ciated with the founding of the Performance ical practices that first had drawn them to
Studies Department at NYU, yet each story literary study? Within the present-day Perfor­
“obscures central figures and deliberative mance Studies Division of the NCA (a unit of
societies in other parts of the United States” about 350 members within an association of
than New York and Illinois (p. 10). My own over 7,000) are rich examples of “the historical
sense of institutional histories filled with unsto­ entanglements of the already-was and thus still­
ried figures has grounded my research into the kind-of-is” (Jackson, 2001, p. 92; see Jackson,
exclusionary, as well as selectively inclusionary, 2004, p. 78).
practices that drive the formation and self-defi­ What happened, then, to transform the
nition of academic disciplines and scholarly study of interpretation into an “already-was”
associations. and “still-kind-of-is” phenomenon? Across
“Institutional history,” Jackson (2001) the twentieth century, the market value of
observes, “suggests that there are several maps Victorian-era elocution’s two hottest proper-
operating simultaneously” (p. 92). My own ties—the performing body as communication
mapping of what I have called an “NCA tradi­ technology, and the conceptualization of liter­
tion” (1999, p. 3) does not seek to demonstrate acy based on and sustained by literature—
that performance studies derives from the would steadily drop. Long before Internet
pedagogy of academically oriented performers culture, the technologies of film, radio, and
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146 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

television would change our concepts of not critics most likely would not be persuaded by
only what we read but how we read. Within the claims of many interpretation teachers,
the twentieth century university, the “rhetoric­ who argued the performing body’s radical
and-oratory professor” and the literary “gener­ potential to make the literature classroom a
alist” became figures of suspicion and even scene of advocacy and even activism. Jill Taft-
derision among a growing field of specialists; Kaufman (1985) has summarized these claims,
by mid-century, teachers of interpretation in her astute review of interpretation pedagogy
began to abandon oratory’s claims of relevance at the very moment when it was fading from
and use-value to the “professional-managerial the scene of colleges and universities. As
class” (see Guillory, 1993, pp. x-xii; Jackson, advanced by performance theorist Mary S.
2004, pp. 53–54). When influential teachers Strine (1992) such claims provoked a dubious
began to talk about embodied performance as response from Robert Scholes (1992). He
a mode of literary appreciation that could be found himself “less optimistic” than Strine
practiced in private—as seen, for example, in that performed poetry could “forge ‘an effec­
the epigraph drawn from a well-known inter­ tive social force’ to deal with immediate prob­
pretation textbook by Wallace Bacon, first lems,” even though he remained generally
published in 1966—they were refusing to read optimistic about the value of poetry
aloud the writing that was on the wall of major
research universities and trade schools alike. to help keep human decency alive through
Such a withdrawal from the public sphere periods of barbaric self-interest. . . . Auden,
after a decade of lost political causes, wrote
consigns literary study to a deferred value: as that “poetry makes nothing happen.” He
James Anderson Winn (1998) expresses this, was wrong. It just makes things happen
to the cultivation of “lifelong readers, intelli­ more slowly than we short-lived and impa­
gent appreciators of the arts, people capable of tient beings could wish. (p. 77)
being thrilled by an idea” (p. 128). In The Pale
of Words, Winn reflects hopefully upon the Far too many of my generation of teachers
survival of his subject, English literature, in a hungered to see their classroom work change
university reshaped by a commitment to both the world at a greater speed. Part of the “plu­
interdisciplinarity and performance—and, ralist euphoria” that Judith Hamera (1998)
more specifically, by the use of performance- describes in the nascent performance studies
based pedagogy in humanities classrooms tra­ movement—what she calls a “prison break”
ditionally not associated with performance. toward “anything but literature” (p. 273)—is
But Winn writes without a sense of how such a break toward the political, the desire of
pedagogy has been practiced in American Scholes’s “impatient beings” for a more effica­
higher education for over a century (even at cious social praxis than the study of literature
the University of Michigan, where he directed has ever seemed to produce.
the Institute for the Humanities at the time he In Unstoried, I had the unfortunate tendency
published The Pale of Words). More skeptical to speak of performance “after” literature—by
cultural critics, maintaining that “the category which I intended to signify the ebbing of litera­
of literature has come to seem institutionally ture as a shaping force in what John Guillory
dysfunctional” at the dawn of the twenty-first (1993) calls the “pedagogic imaginary.” But lit­
century (Guillory, 1993, p. x), might accuse erature (even viewed tartly as a “dysfunctional”
Winn of defending the teaching of books and institutional category) is not going anywhere
bookishness (with or without performance anytime soon. At Northwestern, across depart­
methods) “in the most banal sense of appreci­ ments, the Shakespeare courses are more popu­
ation” (Kramnick, 1998, p. 244). And such lar than ever. The Borders and Barnes and
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Performance of and Beyond Literature 147

Noble stores keeping late hours in so many disciplinary systems advertised in the old
urban and suburban neighborhoods are elocution periodicals claimed to cure stammer­
remarkable developments of postmodern simu­ ing. Although Bacon retired from Northwest­
lation. On display nightly, from the WiFi ern’s Interpretation Department in 1979, after
hotspot in the Starbucks franchise (coffeehouse serving as its chair for over three decades, he
of the new public sphere) to the display racks of remained active in professional associations
Lord of the Rings DVDs, is an excavation of the (notably the NCA) until close to the time of his
layered technologies of words, words, words death in 2001. He lived long enough, in other
as we have come to know them since Thomas words, to see the kind of reading he once
Sheridan wrote his pronouncing dictionary in regarded as undergraduate hastiness, or cur­
the age of Dr. Johnson. In many of these stores, able disorder, elevated to respectability as a
we find the equivalent of what elocutionists theoretical and philosophical stance, a mode
once meant by “the platform”: spaces desig­ of resistance and transgression.
nated for public readings, which agents and Celebrated avant-garde director Elizabeth
publicists regularly supply with authors eager to LeCompte, in the second epigraph, strikes me
both vocalize and inscribe their products. It has as emblematic of a later view when she posi­
fallen to performance theory, perhaps, to read tions herself against interpretation. In another
such institutions of “literacy beyond literature” interview with David Savran, she clarifies that
as phenomena of interest outside merely the her work with a Flaubert text (staged not long
history of commerce. after Arthur Miller’s notorious attempt to pre­
The ludic, punning work of Jon McKenzie vent the Wooster Group’s use of his play The
effectively charts how far we have traveled Crucible) is “not illustrative.”3 It is closer to
(even arriving at a modest frontier trading post “paraphrasing” (a tactic also deployed in
like the neighborhood Borders) from the response to Miller’s attorneys) than to inter­
quasi-monastic image of a library where preting or even “stealing”: “that hooks up
people sat quietly at carrels and read books with my feelings about texts, about the object-
from beginning to end. The student of inter­ ness of the written word and its inherent
pretation performed the unity of a fictional lifelessness without the intervention of an
world that could be contained within the cov­ interpretive or outside consciousness” (quoted
ers of a book. But “what’s historically specific in Savran, 1986, p. 40). Even in context,
about the age of global performance is its fla­ LeCompte sounds more than a little like
grant anachronisms, its glaring mix of forms Thomas Sheridan (1762/1798) in his famous
and traditions from past and present” elocutionary Lectures, seeking to restore life to
(McKenzie, 2001, p. 249). The birth of per­ the “dead letter” of the book (p. xvi). But
formance spelled not the death of the book, LeCompte is no elocutionist. (Neither am I,
but what we might call its disclosure or un­ for all my fascination with them.) LeCompte’s
covering, its decentering and dispersal. position is so much a measure of where per­
McKenzie’s Perform or Else (2001) bears formance has been for at least the past quarter-
a subtitle, From Discipline to Performance, century, that it is “now a part of the grain” it
that connects the dots between my two once went against. So, at least, suggests
epigraphs. To Wallace Bacon, the preemi­ Schechner about the state of the “avant-garde”
nent American teacher of interpretation in in late-Clintonian America (quoted in Harding,
the postwar decades, an embodied interpreta­ 2000, p. 214).
tion “demands” perception of “the whole Performance training transformed me, as a
poem.” Regular practice can cure “skimming university student over three decades ago, from
and skipping and scavenging,” just as the one of Bacon’s “skippers” and “scavengers”
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148 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

into a dedicated close reader. I became one of personal narrative performance constructs
Winn’s “lifelong” reader-appreciators, thrilled and deconstructs both culture and the life of
by ideas and the words that expressed them. the subject in culture. The essay articulates a
And I continue to bring literary texts into per­ sophisticated theoretical framework for ana­
formance classrooms: not as examples of the lyzing personal narrative performance in both
“dysfunctional category” that Guillory cri­ everyday and formal artistic settings. Langellier
tiques, but as “selected works” whose value I and Peterson, who teach in the Department
advocate to new readers. My heart’s ease for of Communication and Journalism at the
the past several decades has been the excite­ University of Maine, Orono, are the authors
ment of my students as they adapt literature for of Storytelling in Daily Life: Performing
stage performance. But the excitement of these Narrative (2004).
students is not reverential. It arises in large part Lynn Miller and Jacqueline Taylor, editors
from the freedom to reinvent the classics they (with M. Heather Carver) of Voices Made
study, by questioning through the medium Flesh: Performing Women’s Autobiography
of their own bodies the very limits of textual (2003), employ the examples of contemporary
authority. As I have come to realize, my public performers to illustrate two modes or
students arrive in class ready to take perfor­ categories of autobiographical performance.
mance beyond literature. My divided loyalties Both push beyond traditional literary concep­
between the book and the performing body tions of the nonfiction genre: “auto/biograph­
exemplify for me the “historical entangle­ ical” performances (in which performers stake
ments” of which Jackson speaks, as I continue their own bodies and life-stories in the self-
to teach literature in the age of performance reflexive act of staging historical figures) and
studies. “staged personal narratives” (which draw
Other contributors to this section are simi­ upon and construct the performer/creator’s
larly “entangled.” They launched their careers own life experience). Through a series of case
as interpretation students in American schools, studies, Miller and Taylor document the work
but later shifted the direction of their research of public performers whose very “platform”
and teaching. None has abandoned or rejected requires the dynamic of audience response;
literature, even in moving away from it. Some each performance they examine constructs its
have moved further than others. But each of audience, and is constructed by its audience,
us has reaccentuated the influence of literary in different ways. Miller teaches in the
study in performance classrooms. In the differ­ Department of Theatre at the University of
ent ways described below, we are beyond lit­ Texas, and Taylor in the Department of
erature in that sense. We all locate our work Communication at DePaul University.
among the various topics and categories repre­ Bruce Henderson employs techniques of
sented throughout the present volume: history, personal narrative in his rereading of an
pedagogy, theory, politics, and ethnography, instructional tradition. He revisits a painful
not merely literature. incident in his university training, when a
Kristin M. Langellier and Eric E. Peterson teacher insensitively critiqued his choices in
argue that, in the paradigm shift to “perfor­ a literary performance as “autistic” (a term
mance studies” at the beginning of the twenty- which, clearly, the teacher barely understood).
first century, personal narrative displaces In midcareer, Henderson has returned to grad­
literary study as a privileged site of perfor­ uate school, to pursue a second doctorate in
mance. Viewed as a transgressive and radically Disability Studies. His recent study of autism
contextualized practice, within an expanded encourages him to employ the term as
and more inclusive pedagogical context, metaphor: in reflecting upon the history of
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Performance of and Beyond Literature 149

performance pedagogy, he examines the in the Speech Communication Department at

uncommunicativeness of communication Louisiana State University.
teachers concerning aspects of the work they The view that performers cocreate or recre­
do. Henderson, who teaches in Ithaca College’s ate the texts they bring before the public sug­
Department of Speech Communication, is gests a “paradoxical” approach to traditional
coauthor (with Carol Simpson Stern) of performance training. My contribution to the
Performance: Texts and Contexts (1993). section examines this paradox in the art of
Ruth Laurion Bowman and Michael S. several practitioners of “adaptation,” all of
Bowman set off from the invitation they whom began or shifted their careers in a
find in contemporary theory to “think irrever­ specific local context: the intersection of
ently,” not only about performance but about Northwestern University’s performance train­
the ways in which we write about perfor­ ing and the Chicago theatre community.
mance. They employ techniques of “performa­ The essay considers the work of such adapter/
tive” or “performance” writing to address directors as David Schwimmer, Njoki
the challenge of documenting a rehearsed McElroy, Mary Zimmerman, and Frank Galati.
live event: Ruth Bowman’s adaptation of
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale
Romance, as staged by her at Louisiana State
NOTES
University in November 2003. Exploring alter­
natives to the conventional production record, 1. Earlier versions of several passages in the
present essay appear in Unstoried (Edwards,
the authors attempt their own version of what
1999). I am grateful to The Theatre Annual: A
Jean-Luc Godard (1972) has called “research Journal of Performance Studies, published by the
in the form of a spectacle” (p. 181). With the College of William and Mary in Virginia, for per­
abruptness of cuts in an experimental film, or mission to include a selection of unmarked quota­
the switching of television channels, the essay tions; and to Nathan Stucky, then the journal’s
juxtaposes strips of text: passages from Ruth editor, for generous, thoughtful encouragement to
develop the monograph.
Bowman’s script, quotations from historical
2. McKenzie (2001, p. 47) traces the origins
research for the script (on topics ranging from of PSi to an NYU graduate-student association
mesmerism to labor conditions), narratives and that began to meet in 1990; see also Phelan
syntheses of this research, and reflections (or (1998, p. 3).
better, one frequently interrupted reflection) on 3. The Wooster Group’s production of L.S.D.
(. . . Just the High Points . . .) took shape over sev­
the history of the academic discipline in which
eral years. A 1983 work in progress combined
the research took place. The scholarly “narra­ a 45-minute reduction of Arthur Miller’s The
tive” that emerges has been shaped as much by Crucible with the playing of a record album by
“electracy”—Gregory Ulmer’s term for “cine­ Timothy Leary. In October 1984, Miller’s attor­
matic/electronic thinking”—as by “literacy” neys issued a “cease and desist” order to the
(see Ulmer, 2003). But it also evokes the old- Wooster Group when it attempted to perform a
more fully developed version of L.S.D. Miller
fashioned stitching of the Seamstress in Ruth
feared that L.S.D. presented “a blatant parody” of
Bowman’s Blithedale script. (In saying even so his famous work: “I don’t want my play pro­
much, I betray the authors’ intention, inspired duced,” he declared, “except in total agreement
by the writings of Benjamin, “to communicate with the way I wrote it” (quoted in Savran, 1988,
without initial conceptualizations.”) Michael p. 193). The ensuing confrontation between Miller
and the Wooster Group and the subsequent revi­
Bowman currently edits Text and Performance
sion of the production have been occasions for
Quarterly. Ruth Bowman is the 2003 recipient much commentary by theatre and performance
of the NCA’s Leslie Irene Coger Award for life­ scholars. A detailed account appears in Savran
time achievement in performance. Both teach (1988, pp. 169–220).
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150 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

REFERENCES women’s autobiography. Madison: University

of Wisconsin Press.
Bacon, W. A. (1966). The art of interpretation. Phelan, P. (1998). Introduction: The ends of perfor­
New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. mance. In P. Phelan & J. Lane (Eds.), The ends
Carlson, M. (1996). Performance: A critical intro­ of performance (pp. 1–19). New York:
duction. London: Routledge. New York University Press.
Cohen, H. (1994). The history of speech communi­ Rarig, F. M., & Greaves, H. S. (1954). National
cation: The emergence of a discipline, 1914– speech organizations and speech education. In
1945. Annandale, VA: Speech Communication K. R. Wallace (Ed.), History of speech education
Association. in America: Background studies (pp. 490–517).
Edwards, P. (1999). Unstoried: Teaching literature New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
in the age of performance studies. Theatre Savran, D. (1986). Adaptation as clairvoyance: The
Annual, 52, 1–147. Wooster Group’s Saint Anthony. Theater,
Godard, J. L. (1972). Godard on Godard 18(1), 36–41.
(T. Milne, Trans.). New York: Viking Press. Savran, D. (1988). Breaking the rules: The Wooster
Guillory, J. (1993). Cultural capital: The problem Group. New York: Theatre Communications
of literary canon formation. Chicago: Group.
University of Chicago Press. Schechner, R. (2002). Performance studies: An
Hamera, J. (1998). Debts: In memory of Lilla introduction. New York: Routledge.
Heston. In S. J. Dailey (Ed.), The future of Scholes, R. (1992). Response to “Reading Robert
performance studies: Visions and revisions Scholes: A symposium.” Text and Performance
(pp. 272–275). Annandale, VA: National Quarterly, 12, 75–78.
Communication Association. Sheridan, T. (1798). A course of lectures on elocu­
Harding, J. M. (2000). An interview with Richard tion. . . . A new edition. London: James
Schechner. In J. M. Harding (Ed.), Contours Dodsley. (Original work published 1762)
of the theatrical avant-garde: Performance Stern, C. S., & Henderson, B. (1993). Performance:
and textuality (pp. 202–214). Ann Arbor: Texts and contexts. New York: Longman.
University of Michigan Press. Strine, M. S. (1992). Protocols of power: Perfor­
Jackson, S. (2001). Professing performance: mance, pleasure, and the textual economy. Text
Disciplinary genealogies. The Drama Review, and Performance Quarterly, 12, 61–67.
45, 84–95. Taft-Kaufman, J. (1985). Oral interpretation:
Jackson, S. (2004). Professing performance: Twentieth-century theory and practice. In T. W.
Theatre in the academy from philology to per­ Benson (Ed.), Speech communication in the
formativity. Cambridge, England: Cambridge 20th century (pp. 157–183). Carbondale:
University Press. Southern Illinois University Press.
Jacobson, L. (1994, January). What is performance Ulmer, G. L. (2003). Internet invention: From liter­
studies? NYU and Northwestern define an acy to electracy. New York: Longman-Pearson
elusive field. American Theatre, pp. 20–22. Education.
Kramnick, J. B. (1998). Making the English canon: Weaver, A. T. (1989). Seventeen who made history:
Print-capitalism and the cultural past, The founders of the association. In W. Work
1700–1770. Cambridge, England: Cambridge & R. C. Jeffrey (Eds.), The past is prologue:
University Press. A 75th anniversary publication of the Speech
Langellier, K. M., & Peterson, E. E. (2004). Communication Association (pp. 13–17).
Storytelling in daily life: Performing narrative. Annandale, VA: Speech Communication
Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Association.
McKenzie, J. (2001). Perform or else: From disci­ Winn, J. A. (1998). The pale of words: Reflections
pline to performance. New York: Routledge. on the humanities and performance. New
Miller, L. C., Taylor, J., & Carver, M. H. (Eds.). Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
(2003). Voices made flesh: Performing
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9
Shifting Contexts in
Personal Narrative Performance
KRISTIN M. LANGELLIER AND ERIC E. PETERSON 1

I first learned about performing literature in

grade school and high school speech con­
tests, and then later in a graduate classroom,
joined him in storytelling during the bustle of
suppertime, over card games of euchre and
500, or after a humid summer evening’s soft­
after three years of teaching high school ball game as we passed pop and popcorn
English. As performer and audience, my sure, among hands slick with butter. Personal nar­
pure favorite was oral interpretation of prose rative is performed everywhere: in conversa­
in its incarnations as solo performance and as tion, in print, on radio, television, and stage,
chamber theatre, the ensemble staging of short and over the Internet. As an elemental, ubiqui­
stories and novels. The kaleidoscopic varia­ tous, and consequential part of daily life, its
tions of narrators, stories, and audience cre­ pleasures and power reach far and deeply into
ated an event that never failed to captivate me, our lives.
although my tendencies to be swept away by This brief personal narrative about per­
the rhetoric of fiction were tempered as I forming narrative recapitulates a larger disci­
learned about such nuances as unreliable nar­ plinary contingency: the shift from oral
rators and how to flesh out analytically and interpretation of literature to the more inclu­
onstage the strategic intricacies of telling sto­ sive tradition now called performance studies.
ries. About the same time, I came to recognize Performance studies names a shift from study­
storytellers all around me, creating stories ing literature in performance to performing
about ordinary and extraordinary experience texts of culture, identity, and experience. Texts
as their lives unfold. As I look back and tell are sites where work gets done, where the
part of my life story, I credit my father, now exchange of pleasure and power becomes visi­
deceased, with piquing my curiosity about per­ ble, where the structures that enable and con­
forming narrative in daily life as he recounted strain who we are, how we can act, and what
episodes, characters, and images from his we can think become palpable (Scholes, 1985).
childhood and ours; and as we listened and Michael Bowman (1998) puts the contextual
151
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152 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

shift to performance studies in narrative terms: called an “interview society” which solicits,
“Oral interpretation’s story was how perfor­ consumes, and studies stories of personal
mance will make you a better reader of litera­ experience (Atkinson & Silverman, 1997), a
ture, of texts. . . . Performance studies’ [story] “recited society” which continually performs
is about what happens to us, individually and (cites and recites) stories (de Certeau, 1974/1984),
collectively, when culture is constructed or and a “remission society” of storytelling about
deconstructed, affirmed or challenged, rein­ illness, trauma, and survival (Frank, 1995).
forced or altered by means of performance” A defining condition of postmodernity, per­
(p. 191). As part of that cultural activity, per­ sonal narrative has also been suggested as a
sonal narrative has arguably become a privi­ key site in the future of performance studies
leged site of performance at the beginning of (Dailey, 1998).
the twenty-first century, witnessed by its pres­ If personal narrative is a means to get a life,
ence and placement in this volume. Performing and if performance studies is enjoying some
personal narrative reclaims and proclaims new disciplinary life in part through this sto­
both body and voice: the personal gives a body rytelling, scholars can ask, “What kind of a
to narrative, and narrative gives voice to expe­ life are we getting?” This chapter discusses
rience (Langellier, 1998, p. 207). The embodi­ some responses to that question by drawing on
ment of personal narrative makes textual and insights from theories of performance and per­
performative power—to select or suppress cer­ formativity. Our emphasis is on how the shift
tain aspects of human experiences, to prefer or to comprehend personal narrative within the
downplay certain meanings, to give voice and inclusiveness of performance studies raises
body to certain identities—not only visible, questions, issues, and challenges different from
audible, and palpable but also discussable. those raised by the paradigm of studying oral
The rise of personal narrative in perfor­ interpretation of literature, which generated
mance studies reflects historical changes that theory to comprehend narrative as a text per­
are more broadly cultural as well as discipli­ formed in a classroom or on a stage. Briefly
nary (see Strine, 1998). In the efficacious put, performing personal narrative is radically
words of Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson contextualized. By “radical” we intend its ety­
(1996), we “get a life” by making, performing, mological sense of “to the roots.” By “contex­
and listening to personal narrative: “In post- tualized” we refer to the ways text and context
modern American we are culturally obsessed are inextricably coarticulated in performance.
with getting a life—and not just getting it, but Performing personal narrative is radically con­
sharing it with and advertising it to others. We textualized: embodied in participants who tell
are, as well, obsessed with consuming the lives personal stories of experience, situated in the
of others” (p. 3). Performing personal narra­ interactional and material constraints of the
tive is fueled by several broader cultural con­ performance event, and embedded within dis­
tingencies burgeoning after World War II cursive forces that shape experience, narrative,
in the United States, among them the memoir/ and selves. The chapter develops this argu­
autobiography boom in writing; the new iden­ ment first by tracing a series of shifts or break­
tity movements organized around civil rights, throughs in defining personal narrative as/in
gender, sexuality, age, and ability; the thera­ performance. The next sections develop the
peutic cultures of illness, trauma, and self- senses of personal narrative performance as
help; and the many self-performance practices radically contextualized in bodies, situations,
of performance art, popular culture, and elec­ and discourse. The argument is illustrated by
tronic media. The turn to technologies of per­ corresponding examples of family storytelling,
forming the self contributes to what has been staged performance, and illness narrative.
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 153

A final section discusses the politics of (Langellier, 1989) and as liminal (Langellier,
performing personal narrative: how its plea­ 1999), suspended as it is between art and life,
sures can both legitimate and critique relations fact and fiction, self and other, natural and
of power. Understood as radically contextual­ stylized performance, the public and the pri­
ized, personal narrative is a normative and vate. Here we suggest how personal narrative
transgressive practice in art and daily life, a morphs across disciplines, each of which has a
performative struggle for agency that is always stake in its study and performance—as autobi­
ambiguous and contingent. ography in literary studies, as evidence in oral
history, as verbal art in folklore, as life story
in psychology, as accounts in sociology, as
BREAKTHROUGHS INTO PERSONAL
conversational storytelling in communication
NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE
and linguistics, or as public moral argument
It was easier to study and perform literature in rhetoric—each of which uses liminality
when, before the contextual shifts broadly to guarantee personal narrative’s authenticity
called postmodernity, we were more certain or to invite its dismissal as anecdote. Add
about what literature is and is not. The con­ to these all varieties of autoperformance—
testing of the literary canon is mirrored by performance art, autoethnography, performa­
challenges to what is or is not performed or tive writing, mystory, “and whatever we will
performable. A fundamental tenet of perfor­ have called it tomorrow or the next day”
mance studies asserts that no fixed canon (Gingrich-Philbrook, 2000, p. 376; see Bow­
defines or delimits performance. Performance man, 2000). One way to read this new context
studies is a moving focus within a horizon of for personal narrative is as a series of break­
practices, events, and behaviors arrayed in a throughs into performance.
broad spectrum variously called an umbrella, Sociolinguists William Labov and Joshua
tent, caravan, or carnival. Aesthetics and daily Waletzky are credited with the breakthrough
life inhabit a shared realm of practices and pol­ into personal narrative in 1967. Their remark­
itics. The term performance studies mediates ably heuristic essay on “oral versions of
between the inclination in literary and theatre personal experience” launched decades of
studies for high-culture forms, and the prefer­ research and performance. Its reprinting in the
ence in cultural studies for popular culture 1997 special issue of the Journal of Narrative
and media (Roach, 2002). The antidisciplinary and Life History (now Narrative Inquiry) is
impulse of performance studies is comple­ not simply a retrospective of the original essay
mented by its proclivity for interdisciplinary but a demonstration that personal narrative
borrowings (Schechner, 2002). The formula­ continues to generate intense interest across
tion of performance as an essentially contested numerous disciplines in the humanities and
concept (Carlson, 1996; Hopkins, Long, & social sciences. Oral versions of personal expe­
Strine, 1990) gestures to the antiessentialism of rience tell “what happened to me.” Labov and
poststructuralist theories. In similar fashion, Waletzky define personal narrative in formal
personal narrative eludes definition, blurs gen­ linguistic terms. Fixed referential clauses reca­
res, and bleeds across boundaries. pitulate “what happened” in temporal order
The attempt to fix disciplinary boundaries and yield narrative as the enhancement of
produces two consequences: a preoccupation experience. Free evaluative clauses answer “so
with what is in and what is out, and a neglect what?” to convey the personal, that is, the
of what falls in the cracks. Personal narrative significance of the event “to me.” Evaluation
has suffered both. In earlier work, I referred to modifies narrative as personal, and it distin­
personal narrative as a boundary phenomenon guishes narrative or story from non-narrative,
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154 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

or a report. Labov (1972) also offered a A second model focuses less on reference
structural model of the fully formed narrative: and more on textualization, the narrative
an abstract (what, in a nutshell, is this story strategies through which texts achieve coher­
about?), an orientation (who, what, when, ence and structure to make meaning. This
where?), complicating action (and then what model is more invested in the evaluative func­
happened?), evaluation (so what’s the point?), tion of personal narrative, more interested
resolution (what finally happened?), and coda, in “the telling,” and more hermeneutic—the
which returns from the past to the present project of literary scholars, linguists, and some
and turns speaking over to others (Garrison historians. With only the text available for
Keillor’s “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon interpretation, temporal ordering of “the
where all the women are strong, all the men told” is but one among other strategies for
are good-looking, and all the children above ordering narrative. In performance studies,
average”). the interest in textualization is perhaps best
In performance terms, the Labovian model represented by autobiographical performance
textualizes experience in referential clauses and performative writing (e.g., Bowman &
that presume a real event prior to narration. Bowman, 2002; Carver, Miller, & Taylor,
Evaluative clauses feature narrative attitude, 2003; Pollock, 1998b). Analytic attention to
that is, a storyteller with a personal point of the strategies of telling and to the aestheticiz­
view. The Labovian model broke through to ing of experience evokes performance possi­
performance in everyday life along with all bilities of textual poetics, the conventions of
sorts of other self-presentational behaviors. voice, form, style, subjectivity, and authority
Situated within the “narrative turn,” personal as variable aspects of making personal experi­
narrative appealed to both social science and ence meaningful, coherent, and aesthetic.
humanities scholars. Elliot Mishler’s (1995) Poetic and aesthetic strategies appeal to per­
proposed typology of narrative analysis use­ formance interests about what is particularly
fully maps three models of inquiry into per­ memorable and performable.
sonal narrative. A first model, prevalent A third model takes the functions of narra­
among social scientists, takes reference as its tive—the “work” they do in the social world—
central problem: “the told” and “the telling” as its central problem. This model crosses
as a correspondence between a sequence of disciplines and is frequently drawn upon in
actual events and their ordering in the text. performance studies where it may include ther­
Collected in interviews and ethnographies, apeutic functions of narrative (e.g., Park-Fuller,
personal narrative gives access to the range of 2000), ritual uses by cultural groups to enact
lived experiences as a problem of representing self-definitions (e.g., Madison, 1993), story­
experience (Riessman, 1993). Performance telling in interactional and institutional con­
holds some place in issues about reference, but texts (e.g., Schely-Newman, 2002) and the
Labov from the outset and Anna Deavere performative power of personal narrative to
Smith (2000) more recently recognized that tell unheard stories, resist domination, and
interviews do not necessarily yield “good,” rewrite history (e.g., Corey, 2003; Pollock,
that is, vividly enacted and performable sto­ 1999). When the functions of personal narra­
ries. To Labov’s “Have you ever come close to tive are emphasized, reference and textualiza­
death?” question, Smith adds “Do you know tion are subordinated to the dynamics and
the circumstances of your birth?” and “Have pragmatics of putting narrative into action.
you ever been accused of something you did Storytelling performance as doing something
not do?” in order to evoke more dramatic and as something done in particular bodies,
performance in interviews. situations, and contexts assumes priority.
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 155

Hence, the breakthrough in personal narra­ is audience to her or his own experience and
tive breaks through into performance (Hymes, turns back to signify this lived world with and
1996). Performance highlights the way in for an audience. The storyteller narrates turn­
which communication is carried out “above ing points in re-turning to experience; perfor­
and beyond its referential content” (Bauman, mance is a doing and a re-doing that allows
1986, p. 3). The storyteller assumes responsi­ scrutiny of experience, self, and world. As
bility for a display of communicative skill, Dwight Conquergood (1998) has noted, the
and the audience assumes responsibility for verbal artistry of folkloric texts tends to be
evaluating its effectivity. From a focus on the conservative, a re-presentation of forms and
referential aspects of a narrative text, special conventions that stabilize norms. However,
attention is directed to the expressive act of the and third, performance has the potential of
storyteller within the performance event. What emergence, that is, in re-doing something one
we can learn in no other way than through per­ may do it differently. Emergence may refer
formance is that the “special nature of narra­ to new text structures, event structures, and
tive is to be doubly anchored in human events” social structures, that is, to new stories, new
(Bauman, 1986, p. 2). In the oft-quoted words storytelling events, and new identities.
of Walter Benjamin, “The storyteller takes Conquergood conceptualizes emergence not
what he [sic] tells from experience—his own or as transcendence to a higher plane but as trans­
that reported by others. And he in turn makes gression: “that force which crashes and breaks
it the experience of those who are listening through sedimented meanings and normative
to his tale” (1936/1969, p. 87). In Richard traditions and plunges us back into the vortices
Bauman’s terms, the storyteller takes from of political struggle” (p. 32). The special atten­
experience—the narrated event—and makes it tion on antistructural emergence as transgres­
the experience of others—the narrative event. sive cultural activity defines performance as
This double-anchor is not a linear sequence of a political act. Performance as a political act
moving an experience through space in the acts emphasizes performer creativity to ground
of “taking” and “making” but their radical possibilities for action, agency, and resistance
interdependence in time within the situated in the liminality of performance as it suspends,
event of performance in participation with questions, plays with, and transforms social
others. The breakthrough into performing per­ and cultural norms. Personal narrative offers
sonal narrative is variable, ranging from an especially promising candidate for emer­
prominent, public cultural events by accom­ gence, embedded as it is in the uniqueness of
plished performers to the fleeting, mobile, pri­ the performer’s body narrating a personal
vate storytelling of ordinary people. experience to construct a self-text for audience
Performance is distinguished by three qual­ evaluation in a particular performance event.
ities that specify text-context relations: it is The emergence of a self-text different in each
framed, reflexive, and emergent. First, a break­ body and each performance foments social
through to performance is framed, that is, change. Performance incorporates the feminist
marked off from surrounding discourse and slogan that “the personal [narrative] is politi­
keyed by performance conventions of particu­ cal” as a way to break through sedimented
lar speech communities. The performance meanings, normative traditions, and master
frame strikes a contract of mutual risk-taking narratives.
and responsibility between performer and Finally, personal narrative breaks through
audience to “take this communication in a into performativity: the citing of self and expe­
special way”: as a storytelling event. Second, rience as repetition, a re-doing. Granted there is
performance is reflexive because the performer no performativity without performance—until
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156 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

someone’s body materializes the norms of performativity. He asks, has the valorization of
embodiment, until someone’s experience transgressivity itself become normative in per­
embodies the conventions of narrative. Perfor­ formance studies? The theoretical claim that
mativity, however, underscores the theoretical embodied activity transgresses, challenges, and
and methodological move to the constitutive changes text, event, and social structures cre­
nature of performance because a performative ates a liminal norm. Consider, for example, the
speech act does what it says, and it produces claims that personal narrative performance
that to which it refers. Performativity concep­ politicizes the personal, gives voice to margin­
tualizes nonessentialized identities. Hence, alized identities, and thwarts master narratives.
storytelling as a performative speech act consti­ McKenzie argues that in revisions of her earlier
tutes self and experience: “I (performer) will work, Judith Butler usefully theorizes both per-
tell you (audience) a story about what hap­ formative transgression and the normativity
pened to me” (experience). Personal narrative of performance. Butler’s revisions invite us to
produces experience and the “I” and the “you” bear in mind the citationality of performance
in a symbiosis of performed story and the and to correct the misreading of performativity
social relations in which identities are materi­ as theatrical performance. She resignifies both
ally embedded: sex, class, race, ethnicity, reli­ performativity and performance: “performa­
gion, age, geography, and so on. Identities and tivity now refers to a discursive compulsion to
experience are recited according to discourse repeat norms of gender, sexuality, and race,
practices “whose regulatory force is made clear while performance refers to an embodied the­
as a kind of productive power, the power to atricality that conceals its citational aspect
produce—demarcate, circulate, differentiate— under a dissimulating presence” (McKenzie,
the bodies it controls” (Butler, 1993, p. 1). The 1998, p. 227).
breakthrough to performativity is a way to The breakthroughs into performance and
explicitly theorize relations of power and the performativity theorize both the transgressive
normative ordering of events, context, experi­ and normalizing potential of performing per­
ence, and identity beyond the stage and class­ sonal narrative. If both performance and per­
room. In this way, the breakthrough to formativity are a re-doing, repeated acts and
performativity becomes the daily practice of stylized actions, then the question of how
doing what’s done (Pollock, 1998a), of reciting we know what’s done in performance cannot
identity and experience in performing personal rest on identifying—outside the layerings of
narrative. context—any particular genre, for example,
The everydayness of performing personal personal narrative, or any performer, for
narrative, the seeming naturalness of “doing example, a black lesbian, or any event, for
what’s done,” may mask it as a stylized act of example, performance art, to guarantee a
repetition, as a re-doing and citation of norms liberatory politics. Subversive genres such as
and forms. At the same time, the embodied personal narrative can be normative, and
presence and immediacy of performing per­ normative practices, such as the classroom
sonal narrative where storyteller, narrator, performance of prose, can be subversive.
character, and audience coincide—my experi­ Furthermore, performing personal narrative
ence, my story, my telling of it in this event— may entail a compulsory routine, a discipli­
may conceal the thing done, that is, how nary ritual, or punitive consequences “if you
experience and identity are constituted in don’t perform your story right.” And, finally,
discourse. For this reason, Jon McKenzie discerning the difference between normative
(1998) calls for retaining but troubling the the­ and transgressive citational performances will
oretical distinction between performance and always be deceptive, elusive, tricky. How does
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 157

one distinguish between personal narrative experience and telling stories to others.
performance that reproduces social and aes­ Storytelling is an activity embodied by a per­
thetic norms, and performance that produces former(s), with others, and within other activi­
new possibilities for identity, experience, and ties of daily life and ways of speaking.
performance? As Della Pollock (1998a) writes, In performance terms, personal narrative
“performance is the trick” using a trick-text forms a system of relationships among story­
that turns inside out and against itself, multi­ tellers, audiences, narrators, and characters.
plying duplicities and contradictions. Put The speech act, “I will tell you a story about
another way, performing is always implicated something that happened to me” situates the
in that which it opposes, and power turns performer (“I will”) in a relationship with a
against itself, turning itself inside out, over and listener in a particular setting (“tell you”) with
over in time and space. The “conning” tricks a larger audience of potential listeners beyond
of performance call for its con-textualizing, the immediate context (the “us” implied by
the “dynamic reconceptualization of [personal performer and listener and a more general or
narrative] texts as inseparable from processes public “you”). Simultaneously, the speech act
by which they are made, understood, and positions the narrator in relationship with
deployed” (p. 38). We consider some of these him- or herself as a character (“something that
contextualizations of personal narrative per­ happened to me”) and with other characters in
formance next. the story. Performing personal narrative is a
site of interpersonal contact because it brings
listeners together in such a way that stories
EMBODYING PERSONAL NARRATIVE
emerge; and performing personal narrative
Somebody performs personal narrative. Some is a site of intrapersonal contact because the
body performs a story; somebody voices expe­ storyteller narrates herself as a character.
rience through the body. Embodiment makes As Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1960/1964) writes,
all performance possible, but even more explic­ “this subject which experiences itself as consti­
itly so for personal narrative when voice and tuted at the moment it functions as constitut­
body coincide in performance. Embodying ing is my body” (p. 94). The body that touches
personal narrative involves two different but itself touching makes possible the representa­
related conceptions. One is captured by the tion of past experience by occasioning it for
term identity’s body because the text emanates a particular audience in a present situation.
from a performer marked by experience and Performing personal narrative depends upon
the discursive forces of sex, race, class, age, ill­ bodily participation in the system of relations
ness, and so on. A second sense highlights the that shift fluidly among storyteller, audience,
bodily participation of hearing and voicing, narrator, and character.
gesturing, seeing and being seen, feeling and Family storytelling illustrates the embodied
being touched, upon which any storytelling context of performing narrative. Elinor Ochs
depends. Participation in a field of bodily and Lisa Capps (2001) state that “active nar­
and discursive activities begins in audiencing rative involvement defines what it means to
one’s own and others’ experience. To revisit participate in mainstream American family”
Benjamin’s storyteller, one “takes,” or per­ (p. 8). Bodily participation in family orders
ceives, from experience and “makes,” or experience, past and present, to make family
expresses, it as a way of turning back on the stories. Family storytelling arises among other
world to resignify it, to move voices and bod­ bodily activities for doing family and may be
ies in space and time. Embodying personal told in more extended narrative events such
narrative involves listening to others’ stories of as birthday parties, anniversaries, funerals,
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158 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

reunions, or in fragmentary, fleeting acts In the generation between, Madeline prepared

around daily interactions and chores—when­ lunches as a member of the sewing circle. If
ever talk turns to family experience. What Gerald and Madeline did not know about
will become a family story emerges from the Alain’s daddy sandwiches, Gerald and Alain
embodied participation in particular perfor­ may not know about making “lilies.” The
mance events. For example, a story about memory signaled by Madeline’s “ooh ooh”
“sewing sandwiches” emerged in the kitchen is developed as she leaves her work at the
of Gerald and his wife Madeline, with kitchen sink to join us and describe in sensual
Gerald’s cousin Alain, all in their 70s, while I detail and with vivid, iconic gestures how her
was present conducting research. Gerald was mother-in-law made this special sewing circle
telling about the Monday night sewing circles dessert. Her information suggests that the
of the family, but both Alain and Madeline experience “taken” to narrate is not just gen­
chime in with details as relations among story­ erational but also gendered. She recalls the
tellers and listeners rapidly shift. All three time and effort of making sewing circle
have experience, their own and others’, of lunches whereas Gerald and Alain recall the
sewing circles, and so each performs as narra­ fun and food to eat.
tor and character, depending upon their angle Gerald, Alain, and Madeline are not reciting
of experience: but making stories: remembering, innovating,
sedimenting, changing “what happened.” The
Alain: and of course all the kids we couldn’t shared experience of sewing sandwiches is
wait until everybody left fleshed out and differentiated in the partici­
pation occasioned by my presence and each
cause we got the leftovers
other’s contributions. Family stories are taken
and sewing sandwiches from experience and made possible by the bod­
and in my family my immediate ily participation that embraces gesture and
family my kids voice, and by the bodily capability to shift
among performer, audience, narrator, and
I started making those at home
character. Family storytelling is a retrospective
and my kids started calling them and an ongoing performance rather than a
daddy sandwiches repository of stories. More a practice than a
Madeline: ooh ooh text or canon of stories, family storytelling
both narrates the past and “narratizes” ongo­
Alain: but there were the sewing circle’s ing daily life (Allison, 1994; Park-Fuller, 1995).
sandwiches
The sense of embodiment as identity’s body
Madeline: his [Gerald’s] mother used to make can also be suggested through this brief
lilies example. Family is neither simply remembered
Gerald: lilies from experience nor entirely invented from
whole cloth but rather pieced together by par­
Madeline: for dessert ticipants from remnants, resources, genres, and
genealogies. As Gerald, Alain, and Madeline
This brief narrative segment shows that perform from personal experience, they take
sewing sandwiches moved through three gen­ and make not only stories but also their mean­
erations, from sewing circles as site of ings and sensibilities for family. Storytelling
women’s activity in an extended family gath­ about family gatherings, French language,
ering to the “daddy sandwiches” of a father and food orders their group identity as Franco
and his nuclear family two generations later. American. Such meanings are neither only
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 159

personal nor only ethnic but also shaped by because the storyteller depends on the quality
generation, gender, and other discursive of audience members’ participation; and an
resources and constraints. As performance, sto­ audience facilitates storytelling because the sto­
rytelling embodies family relations; and, as per­ ryteller can draw on and mobilize shared lan­
formativity, it produces family bodies. Identity’s guage, history, culture, and narrative resources
body is always re-cited and re-newed, both in order to tell a story. Performing personal
transmitted and transformed in performance. narrative depends upon but is not determined
Performing personal narrative is “doing by its material conditions. The ground rules
what’s done” in daily life with and through for performing personal narrative include con­
bodies as participants take and make stories. straints on who tells stories and who listens;
That some body performs narrative contains typical kinds of stories to tell; conventional
a significant ambiguity and multiplicity. The story openings, closings, and telling strategies;
performing body may be one person who performance norms; habitual forms of interac­
shifts among the relations of storyteller, tion; and so on.
audience-to-self, narrator, and character, for Forms of interaction differ across settings
example, when one writes a personal story. Or and situations such as the classroom, the
it may be a few persons who shift among these coffee shop, the stage. Consider for example,
relationships, for example, a family or group staged performance of personal narrative as a
of friends telling stories about work around form of habitual interaction practiced within
coffee or over drinks. Or it may be many performance studies. A ground rule of such
people gathered in a public setting to hear and staged performance is the compact between
discuss someone’s story, for example, a staged performer and audience by which the story­
performance of an illness narrative. Or groups teller assumes responsibility for an expressive
of people might collect to celebrate their cul­ act which the audience evaluates. The compact
ture, such as the Retrouvailles (reunion) in involves mutual risk-taking and responsibility.
1994 that brought Acadians from the world It “promises the production of mutually antic­
diaspora to Atlantic Canada. Situating per­ ipated effects, but the stipulations of the
sonal narrative in its material conditions compact are often subject to negotiation,
further explicates how it is radically con­ adjustment, and even transformation”
textualized in performance events. (Roach, 1996, p. 219). Performer and audi­
ence roles may shift rapidly and fluidly as they
do in family storytelling, but in staged perfor­
SITUATING PERSONAL NARRATIVE
mance they are conventionally distributed
The embodied context confers the possibility to more unevenly as the performer takes a long
perform personal narrative, but only some of speaking turn while the audience listens. The
these possibilities are realized in any perfor­ compact confers the storyteller’s power and
mance when someone’s body materializes the pleasure to “have the floor.” The power and
norms of experience and narrative. Personal pleasure are contradictory and vulnerable,
narrative is always situated, rooted in its setting however, because of the audience’s scrutiny
and circumstances, always subject to ground and evaluation of the “so what?” of perform­
rules of narrative and performance—in a word, ing personal narrative. In terms of personal
constrained. The term constraint in its sense of narrative, one could argue that the coincidence
a boundary defines the conditions of perfor­ of performer and author, that is, the self­
mance. To be constrained means both to be as-text, heightens the vulnerability of the
restricted and to be facilitated. An audience, performer and the responsibility of audience;
for example, limits performance possibilities and conversely, that the self-as-text heightens
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160 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

the vulnerability of the audience and responsi­ compact? Peterson argues that a dynamics of
bility of the performer. Because performing identification operated. The audience received
personal narrative is situationally and materi­ a “collective pat on the back” through a lib­
ally enacted, we must examine its particulari­ eral humanist recognition of what “we” share
ties to discuss these dynamics of power and with Gray. Gray’s self-texts claimed a univer­
pleasure. Two examples of monologues per­ sality of experience, and his performances
formed by white males in public settings can offered a seeming naturalness of gesture. The
suggest variations in the performer-audience assumptions of universality and naturalness
compact within the common context of staged obscured differences between self and other
performance they share. into a “we” of identification and shared expe­
The first example draws on Spalding Gray’s rience. Peterson argues that Gray accrued
performance art monologues and Michael experience, his own and others, as he textual­
Peterson’s (1997) study of them. Gray was a ized the world. The eye/I of the liberal human­
widely known performer, and his long career ist subject, albeit an ironic and reflexive one,
developed the performance art form of autobi­ elides differences among experiences and bod­
ographical performance. Gray framed his life ies. In Swimming to Cambodia, for example,
as art, filed on mental narrative note cards and Gray narrated rather than embodied women
performed in a lengthy series of works. He characters, for example, his lover Renee and
textualized himself and rendered this self as Thai prostitutes whom he placed in the imagi­
“other” in a speech act which says something nary space in front of him. In such strategies,
like: “Look at me. I am one who sees himself Peterson suggests that Gray consumed the
seeing himself.” This reflexive performance of world and the other rather than warning of
his life/art entails specific audience relations consumption’s dangers. And, in turn, audience
because its liminality troubles boundaries members were invited to consume him, accru­
between performer and audience as they par­ ing cultural capital through their recognition
ticipate in the self-text. Peterson suggests that and viewing pleasure.
the irony and presence of Gray created Gray­ Audiences can and do, of course, produce
as-event, the “sensation of witnessing a present other, oppositional, and subversive readings.
event rather than a simple oral representation Students in a graduate course who viewed
of the past” (p. 95). The presence of Gray-as­ Swimming to Cambodia with their fellow
event was charismatic, quirky, and confes­ female graduate student from Thailand, for
sional, indeed a “virtuoso imitation of the example, exposed rather than confirmed the
personal” (p. 56). Within Peterson’s reading of politics of liberal humanist recognition. In this
Gray’s performances, the personal is neither discussion we are less interested in evaluating
the disclosing risk of psychic formation nor an the performance success of the storytellers or
analysis of the material forces shaping a life but in an ethnography of audience responses than
rather a stylized act of personal presence. The in thinking through the situatedness of perfor­
stylizing of “the personal” was situated in the mance and the performer-audience compact.
dramatic frame of monologue by a performer A second autobiographic performance, this
whose status had grown to a celebrity, particu­ one by Craig Gingrich-Philbrook entitled
larly after Swimming to Cambodia. The “look “The First Time” (see Langellier & Peterson,
at me” became something like a command and 2004, and Peterson, 2000, for transcription,
a command performance by a celebrity with description, and extended analysis), can sug­
considerable cultural capital. gest a variation in the compact. Gingrich-
What, more specifically, is the audience’s Philbrook has characterized his work as
part and participation in this performance “stand up theory” and autoperformance. In
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 161

this piece, Gingrich-Philbrook performs a acts of recognition. As the performer-audience

personal narrative that “takes” from his expe­ compact is called into view and renegotiated
rience of watching a public service announce­ in performance, “The First Time” exposes and
ment about AIDS and “makes” it a story for challenges the conventions of representation,
the audience who attended a benefit in in this instance encapsulated in the heteronar­
Carbondale, Illinois. Reflexivity in this per­ rative (Roof, 1996); and it subverts the ease
formance centers on how Gingrich-Philbrook by which identification with a self-text mutes
watches a TV commercial about dancers as critique.
the audience watches him. Gingrich-Philbrook Both Gray’s and Gingrich-Philbrook’s per­
interrogates his own experience, that is, his formances draw on the paradoxical position of
first, easy identification with the heterosexual­ the audience in monologue performance. That
izing practices of representation found in the is, the direct address to an audience by the solo
commercial. He does this by displaying the performer seems to include and empower that
moves of the dancers in a character-based per­ audience at the same time it reasserts its pow­
spective that locates action on his body rather erlessness. It seems to address the audience
than in a narrative-based perspective in the directly, and yet to respond would break
imagined space in front of him. Like the waltz the dramatic frame established by the perfor­
in the commercial, he embodies a woman mance compact. Audiences to both Gray and
wearing a dress and then a man spinning a Gingrich-Philbrook enjoy the privileged and
woman. The distance between identity’s body constrained status as confidante to the self-text
and critical commentary results in audience performances. However, their performances
laughter and increased identification between differ not only in the performer-audience rela­
performer and audience, a politics of recogni­ tions discussed above but also in additional
tion in a “we.” aspects of the situation and materiality of per­
But as Gingrich-Philbrook challenges his formance: in a straight versus a gay body, by a
own first, easy identification with the com­ celebrity with accumulated cultural capital ver­
mercial, the performance challenges the audi­ sus a performer in educational settings, within
ence’s first, easy identification with him by performance venues marked by entertainment
refusing their “in the knowness.” Gingrich- values versus benefit performances for fund-
Philbrook does this by maintaining rather than raising and consciousness-raising, and others.
resolving the ambiguity of “we” and recogni­ Furthermore, although we have viewed both
tion. His performance asks in so many words, performances only on videotape, it is not
“Are you part of the homogenous, heterosex­ immaterial that we know Gingrich-Philbrook
ual ‘we’ used by the commercial announcer, or personally and have seen several other of his
are you part of ‘my people [gay men and les­ performances live. The audience as well as the
bians],’ used by the narrator?” Performer- performer, in other words, draws on habitual
audience relations resist the universalizing and forms of interaction, forms that vary across
naturalizing of experience—his and the audi­ settings and situations, and forms that may be
ence’s—by marking differences and by making stabilized or altered within any particular per­
explicit the parallels between his viewing of formance event.
the commercial and the audience’s viewing the The variation of the performer-audience
performance. He performs not only to express compact merits more attention within educa­
his outrage at the commercial but also to dis­ tional settings, too. These situations lie some­
rupt the often imperialist relations by which where between the relatively fluid and shifting
performers and audiences appropriate their relations characteristic of family storytelling
own experiences and others’ experiences in and the more stable frame of monologue in
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162 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

staged performance of personal narrative. discourse, forming “just what discourse is.”
In the classroom or in similar dialogic settings, Cultural history authorizes stories and narra­
the compact is renegotiated to shift from tive practices. Performing personal narrative is
the dramatic frame of monologue to the prohibited, for example, in income tax returns,
(inter)active frame of family storytelling. surveys, medical histories, and most types of
However, the transition is not always smooth, scholarly writing. External rules also establish
the renegotiation not always explicit, the shift divisions between what is meaningful and
to different ground rules not always success­ meaningless: for example, the dismissal of per­
ful. The challenges of how to conduct a cri­ sonal narrative as anecdote, mere entertain­
tique of a personal narrative performance— ment, and self-indulgence, or its valorization
the self-text in the narrated event and the as epistemological, artistic, and transgressive.
performer-audience relations in the narrative Internal rules form discourse through classifi­
event—engage several issues of situation and cations and gradations of sameness to locate
materiality (Park-Fuller, 2003; Warren, 2003). series of narratives (e.g., genres, master
plots, canonical stories), series of utterances
belonging to speakers (e.g., autobiographical/
ORDERING PERSONAL NARRATIVE
self-oriented or ethnographic/other-oriented
Some bodies tell their stories within their situ­ narrators) and characters of all types who lend
ated and material contexts. What are they coherence to action. Another kind of series is
doing in telling a particular story in a particu­ neither a textual repetition nor the action of an
lar way? Performing personal narrative is individual speaker but rather a more anony­
known through the discursive regularities in mous system of rules for generating discourse
which it participates. A storyteller is not free to dispersed across locations and speakers called a
narrate just anything in just any way at any “discipline,” such as “the arm of the law,” “the
place or time to any audience. Some stories voice of medicine,” or “family values.” Dis­
can be performed and some stories or parts course is also regularized by governing the con­
cannot be performed; some narrative forms ditions of speaking: who is qualified to speak
can be easily circulated and others cannot be on a specific subject and how are roles for
easily understood or credited; some people can speaking and listening distributed, appropri­
speak and others must listen; some identities ated, and interchangeable? Does one speak
are acceptable to local norms, some are not. from the authority of experience, as an expert
Why this personal narrative event, this story, on others, or for others? Who can or has to lis­
this speaker and listener(s) and why not ten? To what extent can audiences contribute
another performance event, storytelling per­ to, interrupt, challenge what is told? Finally,
formance, and performer? Regulatory princi­ discourse rules frame what can be said, under­
ples order discourse and the conditions for stood, and done in storytelling not in an effort
performance. Discourse as context entails the to find and fix meanings but to look at possi­
formative contexts of personal narrative per­ ble conditions of existence for what gives rise
formance, and how performing personal to and delimits personal narrative perfor­
narrative is formative of contexts because reg­ mance. How could this event, this story, this
ulatory rules can be broken, breached, trans­ performance have been done differently?
gressed, disobeyed, disregarded, defied. We illustrate the ordering of personal narra­
For purposes here, we follow Foucault (1971/ tive by external rules, internal rules, and condi­
1976) in the ordering of discourse according tions for speaking and performance through a
to four principles: external rules, internal particular example of illness narrative: breast
rules, speaking positions, and conditions cancer storytelling (see Langellier & Peterson,
of possibility. First, external rules delimit 2004, for extended transcriptions and analysis).
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 163

External rules of cultural history authorize plot of a happy ending: “Although some of
the narrative performances of illness. In the these women suffered recurrences, and some
latter half of the twentieth century, illness have died of their cancer, their narratives tend
narrative emerged, proliferated, and evolved to end with recovery of some tentative assur­
to a genre of storytelling in daily life, sup­ ance of health and vitality” (p. 39). Resolution
port groups, and memoirs; on stage and through recovery, if not cure, constructs the
the Internet; and as an object of research. The narrator as a survivor who is better off not just
wounded storyteller narrates a story of the physically but also in the moral dimensions of
body through the body, reclaiming the capacity achieving normalcy and often self-realization
to tell, to hold onto, her or his own story and self-actualization. As to Labov’s evalua­
against the medical chart as the legitimate story tive function, the point of view of the survivor
of disease (Frank, 1995). The illness narrative is positive, even cheerful. Ehrenreich (2001)
orders, interprets, and creates meanings to bind writes that “the effect of this relentless bright-
body and spirit together within the biographi­ siding is to transform breast cancer into a rite
cal disruption of disease (Kleinman, 1988). As of passage—not an injustice or tragedy to rail
modern adventure stories constructed around against, but a normal marker in the lifestyle,
recovery, illness narratives are “all variations like menopause or graying hair” (p. 49). The
on a long-standing heroic paradigm of the commanding investment in recovery and
struggle of brave individuals confronting “brightsiding” drives narrative closure. The
what appear to be insurmountable forces” comic closure of resolution and cheerfulness
(Hawkins, 1993, p. 2). Within a culture of serves multiple and compelling interests not
illness stories, breast cancer storytelling is just for the performer but for others with and
sufficiently widespread and widely distributed without (at least not yet) breast cancer. Breast
to compose a subgenre. Barbara Ehrenreich cancer narratives end, even if provisionally,
(2001) argues that there is, in fact, a culture and they end “happily” to the mutual desire of
of breast cancer constructed through websites, performers and audiences.
newsletters, support groups, national organiza­ External and internal rules for ordering
tions, and races for the cure. Among rites and breast cancer narratives—survival, comic clo­
rituals of breast cancer culture is the “heavy sure, and cheerfulness—constrain their telling.
traffic” in personal narrative. Jane, for example, a 54-year-old woman with
Breast cancer stories are told by survivors, an aggressive and advanced breast cancer,
those who lived to tell their tale. Like other ill­ both participates within and struggles against
ness stories, they are retrospective narratives, the normative ordering of the breast cancer
told or written from a relatively secure vantage narrative. Drawing on the authority of her ill­
point of recovery or remission, where threat of ness experience and building authority for her­
recurrence is closed off, even if contingently. self as a speaking subject by incorporating her
Their internal rules, cast in Labovian terms, reading, research, knowledge of others with
include the referential function of storytelling breast cancer, and background in science edu­
to order the events of “what happened” as cation, Jane plots her story as a series of deci­
the medical plot of breast cancer regularly sions she made and assaults she survived,
distributed in the same sequence in the narra­ interspersed with interludes of humor and
tive: discovery of a suspicious lump, diagnosis strength. She does, in fact, competently
of cancer, assessment of treatment options, perform the disciplinary “voice of medicine,”
surgical treatment, adjuvant treatment, and following internal rules of the medical plot to
recovery and resolution. G. Thomas Couser order her personal, somatic experience. About
(1997) argues the self-reconstruction of the a woman from the Cancer Society who calls to
breast cancer narrative follows the comic tell Jane that “I had cancer eighteen years ago
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164 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

and I’m doing so well and you’ve gotta be the master plot may incorporate genetics or
positive,” Jane says, “I mean it’s a nice story lifestyle as possible causes for cancer and
but the point is, I mean I know enough to makes it difficult to speak about environmen­
know that every cancer’s different.” tal factors. “The hormone story” reworks the
That “nice story,” with its emphasis on the beginning of Jane’s narrative and raises a pos­
comic plot and cheerfulness, suggests the oper­ sible link between Jane’s hormone replace­
ation of external rules that prohibit talk about ment therapy and breast cancer.
an uncertain prognosis, a treatment’s effective­ In the genre of the illness story, illustrated
ness, and especially death. Jane reserves her by breast cancer storytelling, we can observe
strongest critiques for the enforced cheerful- how the discursive context orders experience,
ness—what she calls “that friggin’ positive stories, and models of identity. External and
stuff”—enacted by acquaintances, colleagues, internal rules both prohibit and make possi­
and the woman from the Cancer Society: ble particular narrative performances. With­
out such rules and speaking positions,
Jane: I mean this positive thing
performing narrative is not possible; but
within them it is always risky and tricky,
I think is the worst thing that you can say both for what it can do and what it cannot
to somebody
do. The ordering of experience and identity
cause here you are suggests that performing personal narrative
is an ongoing struggle for agency and mean­
got this terrible news
ing. It remains to suggest the contours of
you might die contextualization in terms of the politics of
and ah nobody I don’t think performance.

nobody knows what that means

POLITICIZING PERSONAL
NARRATIVE PERFORMANCE
Enforced cheerfulness makes it possible to
avoid talking about what it means that “you An analysis of discourse gives the rules and
might die,” as Jane voices it. These prohibi­ regularities that frame the storytelling event.
tions in breast cancer storytelling reposition These conditions of possibility emerge within
death and dying as not true to experience. Jane the specific material situation and embodied
opposes the false cheerfulness of greeting cards context of a personal narrative performance.
and those who say “be positive and pray hard Performing personal narrative is also political
and I know the Lord will be this” with her because it does something; and in doing some­
preference for the truth spoken by “the people thing in and with discourse that is neither uni­
that said ‘this is shit,’ you know, call it what it form nor stable, performing may reinscribe or
is.” She rejects the acceptable model of illness resist the bodily practices and material condi­
identity, and she struggles to rework the comic tions in which they are embedded. Performing
closure of the illness narrative. personal narrative can work to both legitimate
Finally, Jane questions the possible condi­ and critique relations of power. For this rea­
tions of the breast cancer narrative by attempt­ son we cannot decontextualize performing
ing to launch a counternarrative as “what I personal narrative and divide it between bod­
forgot to do”: to put in “the hormone story.” ies with power and bodies which resist, or nar­
The hormone story works to refashion the ratives of power and counternarratives. In the
implied causality of the linear medical plot text-trick of doing what’s done, of perfor­
where breast cancer “just happens” and a lump mance and performativity, power can turn on
is discovered. The focus on the individual in itself, oppose itself, turn inside out.
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 165

In order to illuminate the entwined in a favorable light; preserve family bound­

operations of power, we emphasize perform­ aries; foster institutions of heterosexual love,
ing narrative as strategic (Patterson, 2002) in marriage, and procreation while marginalizing
a multileveled system (see Langellier & alternative arrangements and choices; repro­
Peterson, 2004). Strategies concern the goals duce gender roles; naturalize family events
around which a system is organized, whereas and family history as a coherent and linear
tactics concern how a system goes about sequence; and so on. “Good” families align
accomplishing its goals (Wilden, 1987). Under with the environmental interests of social and
ordinary circumstances, a strategy envelops or cultural forces, such as patriarchy, heterosexu­
constrains the tactics that carry it out; tactics ality, middle-class identity, and the mythic
depend upon strategy. However, tactical inno­ family. However, the narrative of sewing sand­
vations may rupture or restructure strategies, wiches also resists normative regularities, per­
but once restructured the hierarchy of strategy haps most strongly an assimilated “American”
enveloping tactics returns. Pollock (1998a) identity that subordinates race and the embod­
comments, for example, on how performance ied differences of the North American French
agency pales next to discursive forces. To dis­ ethnic family.
cuss some politics of performing personal When we turn to the staged performance,
narrative, we revisit the three performance we can view autoperformance as a strategy of
practices above and ask how tactics carry out identity formation, a way to get a life that mat­
or subvert overall strategies: what are the con­ ters in a postmodern world. Both Gray and
sequences of performing this story in this way? Gingrich-Philbrook perform the personal as
Family storytelling is an effective tactic an aesthetic and political intervention in social
for family formation and cultural survival. life, of empowering identity’s body in staged
Participants make family stories as they work performance. Tactically, they differ in how
and rework information about what happened they draw on the performer-audience compact
and what is meaningful to them. The story of in their situated and material performances.
the sewing sandwiches is a “good” story to tell Gray carries out the strategy of identity for­
because it both transmits information about mation through a stylization of the personal as
family culture and reorders information: an ironic presence, an I/eye that turns back on
cultural transformation as the sandwiches itself. His self-texts narrate but rarely embody
move from the grandparents’ generation to a others in a strategy that amasses experience—
father and his nuclear family two generations his own, that of other characters, and that of
later. The strategy of cultural survival is facili­ the audience—to a “we” of a liberal humanist
tated by the generality of the information subject position. In a variation of the perfor­
diffused among multiple participants in the mance compact, Gingrich-Philbrook chal­
embodied practice of group memory. Genera­ lenges the audience to consider who “we” are
tional changes and gendered details suggest the and how “we” come to participate in framing
different and often conflicting involvements of the personal as personal. His performance
multiple tellers. Storytelling tactics support the marks rather than masks differences between
strategy of family cultural survival, making not himself and others and among others.
only “good” stories but also producing “good” Tactically, Gray takes advantage of forms of
bodies: good fathers, mothers, children, and interaction and identification that are conven­
families. tional to staged performance. This decision to
Family storytelling tactics are constrained mobilize habitual forms of interaction allows
by strategies of normalization, for example, him to innovate new texts, that is, self-texts for
“ground rules” of family storytelling that put performance art, and new practices, that is,
collective over individual interests; show family stylizing the personal as the liberal humanist
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166 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

I/we. While offering innovation, such tactics efforts to make a gesture of tactical resistance
may simultaneously firm up more than disturb to a stereotypic communal notion of the
normative strategies of identity performance unspeakable can be co-opted and re-ordered
and the politics of audience recognition. By into the community’s normative patterns of
contrast, Gingrich-Philbrook’s performance speakability” (p. 16). Jane’s effort at a coun­
keeps open the gap between the “I” and “you” terstory does, however, reveal the “narrative
of the commercial, the supposed uniform “we” frame-up” by which medical discourse and the
of heterosexual privilege, by renegotiating per­ comic master plot hide their coercive force
former, text, and audience relations. The “we” through naturalizing and normalizing the con­
of gay men and lesbians, as performers and tent of a breast cancer narrative. Jane’s hor­
audiences viewing the commercial or attending mone story counters the presumption that
the benefit for AIDS, ruptures the heteronor­ breast cancer is inevitable or natural for cer­
mative “we.” Such performer-audience rela­ tain women because of heredity or lifestyle
tions may be more unsettling to the conventions choices. If hormone replacement therapy can
of performance and more disturbing to the for­ affect the growth of cancer or the environment
mation of subject positions. Both Gray and in which cancer grows, then it is reasonable to
Gingrich-Philbrook, however, are constrained look to other environmental features as causal
by the strategies of normalizing identity, per­ factors. Her storytelling likewise contests the
formance texts, styles, and habitual forms of normalizing of breast cancer as a rite of pas­
interaction with audience. sage to survival in her rejection of the “nice
The embodied and lived narrative of illness story” of achieving a positive attitude and
transgresses the medical chart as the story of recovery. No amount of narrative repair or
disease, but Jane’s story is contextualized not counterstorytelling can alter the uncertain tra­
only within medical discourse but also with jectory that will eventually end in her death,
the culture of breast cancer storytelling. however. Her storytelling remains complex,
Instead of the enforced cheerfulness and “that contradictory, and contingent.
friggin positive stuff” Jane attempts to “call it The politics of personal narrative perfor­
what it is” and to authorize herself as a speak­ mance cannot be determined on a single level
ing subject. Instead of the conventional comic of tactic or strategy because power opposes
closure of survival and the heroic scenario of itself, texts turn in on themselves, and per­
victory over cancer, Jane voices the uncertain­ forming bodies are fundamentally ambiguous.
ties of living with breast cancer and the fear of No one element—a canonical story or a coun­
its coming back. Her storytelling works as a ternarrative, a performer’s intention or iden­
tactic to counter the forms of closure on telling tity’s body, a liberatory or ritualized setting—
a breast cancer story. That Jane almost forgot can anchor normativity or guarantee transgres­
but did not forget the hormone story points to sion outside the multiple and meshed workings
the coercive power of a medical master plot of context. Performing personal narrative as a
but also her resistance to it. Her efforts to tar­ radically contextualized practice tells a differ­
get pharmaceutical and environmental causes ent story from the performance of prose texts
displace the conventional beginning of the many of us first learned as students. This dif­
breast cancer narrative. ferent story may be best told and heard within
However, power keeps turning back on the evolving context of performance studies.
itself. What is effective tactically may not be The doing of personal narrative in its shifting
effective strategically. Smith and Watson contexts of bodies, situations, and discursive
(1996) remark on the ability of dominant dis­ forces means that it cannot be “taken out of
courses to recuperate transgressive efforts. context” if we want to understand what it is,
In self-help groups, for example, “a person’s how it works, and what it does in the world.
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Shifting Contexts in Personal Narrative Performance 167

So, what kind of a life are we getting by Couser, G. T. (1997). Recovering bodies: Illness,
performing personal narrative? The answer is disability, and life writing. Madison: University
of Wisconsin.
consequential—it matters—because in answer­
Dailey, S. J. (Ed.). (1998). The future of performance
ing it we take from disciplinary experience and studies: Visions and revisions. Annandale, VA:
make it a story that will narrate the past and National Communication Association.
anticipate a future of who “we” are. de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday
life (S. Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley: University of
NOTE California Press. (Original work published
1974)
1. In this essay, the “I” refers to Kristin Ehrenreich, B. (2001, November). Welcome to
Langellier, and the “we” refers to Langellier’s cancerland: A mammogram leads to a cult of
and Eric Peterson’s collaborative research and pink kitsch. Harper’s Magazine, pp. 43–53.
analysis. Foucault, M. (1976). The archaeology of knowl­
edge and the discourse on language (A. M.
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10
The Constructed Self
Strategic and Aesthetic Choices in
Autobiographical Performance

LYNN C. MILLER AND JACQUELINE TAYLOR

T he impulse toward narrative is a funda­

mentally human one. Telling stories about
oneself, listening to and learning from the
lives—and literary outputs—from the shallow
grave of literary failure. The proliferation of
talk shows, memoirs, story circles, life writing,
stories of others, helps us to make sense of our and performance art in the past three decades
world. Stories mentor us and allow us to struc­ attests to the continuing appeal of the individ­
ture our awareness of the trajectory of our lives. ual story, and the direct relationship of a reader
“Though it may seem a strange way to put it,” or spectator to the lyric voice. One legacy of
as Jerome Bruner (1993) explains, “we may deconstruction remains that while the master
properly suspect that the shape of a life as expe­ narrative—the universal hero’s journey, the
rienced is as much dependent upon the narra­ edifice of the famous, successful life—may
tive skills of the autobiographer as is the story be viewed skeptically as too white, too male,
he or she tells about it” (p. 41). While autobi­ too privileged, the particular individual strug­
ography, in the form of letters, diaries, journals, gle, especially of those on the margins, retains
and other first-person accounts, might be the its fascination. The direct communication of the
oldest genre of literature, it has not always been personal between the writer or performer and
the most respected. Its very subjectivity and par­ the reader/spectator characterizes the genre.
ticularity, which are what draw us to the form, The very lack of the pretense of objectivity con­
have caused historians and literary critics to veys a sense of authenticity in a world where
regard it with suspicion as inaccurate or limited institutional authority is seen as questionable.
by self-obsession and self-interest. In the One-person performances originate in
1970s feminist critics rescued many women’s the oral culture of antiquity; in the more

169
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170 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

recent history of interpretation or performance of their own lives. While speakers may have
studies, they date to the lyceum circuits, political aims (to increase awareness or under­
platform performances, and tent Chautauquas standing, for example, of issues of sexuality or
of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth class or race), they do not pretend to universal­
centuries (see Gentile, 1989, for a history of ity; they appeal, rather, to the idiosyncrasy
the one-person show). The rise of solo perfor­ of personal experience. As we explore below,
mance at that time is evidenced by, for the personal narrative’s testimonial character
example, the mesmerizing tours of Charles encourages audience members to respond by
Dickens and Oscar Wilde. Platform perfor­ thinking about their own lives or those close to
mance may be viewed as an early precursor them. Leslie Marmon Silko (2000) points out
of performance art. Not all performance art this aspect of storytelling: “You have this sense
pieces are autobiographical (performance that there’s this ongoing story and your story
installations in art galleries, or fictional char­ has become part of it” (p. 32). The personal
acters and situations enacted by Lily Tomlin narrative encourages sharing and risk-taking in
or Eric Bogosian are not, for example), yet the performer and audience alike. In “Performing
raw personal experiences described in works Absence,” Linda Park-Fuller (2000) speaks to
like Holly Hughes’s “World Without End” or this unique property: “The performer of auto­
Tim Miller’s “My Queer Body” came, in the biographical narrative risks exposure and
1990s, to embody the edgy simplicity of the vulnerability in the effort to breach rigid prohi­
genre. bitions that perpetuate silence” (p. 24).
Autobiographical performance encom­ By contrast, auto/biography displays a more
passes a variety of forms, from testimonials embedded subjectivity: as the central focus falls
given in self-help groups or monologues in on the historical figure, the writer/performer
conversation (everyday life performance), to subsumes him- or herself within the perfor­
the documentation of an individual life as mance. Clearly, when choosing a subject to
research (autoethnography), the first-person feature in this kind of first-person recreation,
narrative onstage (personal narrative), and the the writer/performer is drawn to a particular
intermingling of the writer/performer’s life with figure’s life for specific (often personal) rea­
that of an historical figure (auto/biography). sons; the historical character can become a
In this essay, we consider the parameters and mentor figure, changing the trajectory of the
construction of two autobiographical perfor­ writer/performer’s own life (see for example
mance structures, personal narrative and Miller, 2001). As we will see in the following
auto/biography. discussion of a script by Elyse Lamm Pineau,
In personal narrative, speakers stage crafted what the artist Pineau has chosen to perform
narratives of themselves, whereas in auto/biog­ intersects with her life in powerful and intimate
raphy, performers present the intersection of a ways.
contemporary life with an historical one. While Especially if audiences are familiar with the
both forms address an audience directly, and figure performed, the performer’s ultimate test
are shaped in narrative form, they differ in some consists of a scholarly and intuitive grasp of
marked ways. In the personal narrative, the why the person was important, an understand­
writer is also the performer—the subject and ing of her historical time, and knowledge of her
object are the same as the performer attempts multiple facets. While the performer of histori­
to express an aspect of the subjective self cal figures may evade the charges of narcissism
onstage. The personal narrative gains a measure occasionally leveled at the performer of per­
of authenticity from its very subjectivity: sonal narrative, because she is not the central
writer/performers draw upon the particularity subject, she is held accountable by audience
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The Constructed Self 171

members to present their private versions selection process as the writer/performer

of what that figure represented—a nearly chooses which layers of a complex, multifac­
impossible task with a varied audience. These eted persona to weave into the narrative. We
questions of the quality of research and presen­ label this process auto/biography as this kind
tation do not come into play with the personal of historical presentation represents a negotia­
narrative: we assume the speaker knows much tion between the autobiographical self of the
more about herself than the audience does. If writer/performer and the biographical record
the personal narrative is published, however, of the historical personage. (p. 7)
and performed by others (as when Spalding At times, the encounter with the historical
Gray’s monologues are used in speech compe­ persona represents a collision with the self of
titions or acting auditions), these very issues the writer/performer (as in Catherine Rogers’s
become considerations. Past and present, fact “Georgia O’Keeffe x Catherine Rogers”;
and memory are in flux in the genre itself. As see Rogers, 2003), while at others the selves
Heather Carver (2003) states: “Autobiographi­ merge, or take on characteristics of one
cal Performance is inherently fraught with another, resulting in a third person (as in Elyse
the complexities of the relationship between Pineau’s “My Life with Anais”; see Pineau,
history and representation—between what 2003). In some performances, writer/perform­
happened and what is remembered and per­ ers hide themselves behind the historical other
formed” (p. 15). In both forms of performed in the interest of giving the audience the illu­
autobiography, audience members implicitly sion of authenticity; a famous example is Hal
ask the question: Why is this relevant, here and Holbrook’s widely toured performance of
now, to me? The narrative must evoke some­ Mark Twain. In others, such as Carolyn Gage’s
thing of consequence to the spectator; the “The Last Reading of Charlotte Cushman”
portrayal must spur some combination of (see Gage, 2003), the writer/performer updates
reflection, challenge, and transformation. the subject, placing her within the mores
The following details the characteristics of and values of contemporary culture. Choices
these two forms, delineating specific themes, inevitably must be made that limit the scope of
strategies, and individual performances. the original life and focus the perspective of the
audience from a particular point of view. Carol
H. MacKay (2003) addresses this shaping of
AUTO/BIOGRAPHY: HISTORICAL
the performance: “Although these historical
AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PERFORMANCE
figures presumably take center stage, they in
In our introduction to the volume Voices fact compete with their authorial personae,
Made Flesh (2003), we address the particular who frequently turn them into reflections of
components of auto/biography, where the themselves in order to expand their territory
writer/performer encounters an historical beyond traditional boundaries of gender and
subject and produces a performance which sexuality” (p. 152).
documents the encounter of these two identi­ In any case, the construction of an
ties. Such a performance highlights the writ­ auto/biography stretches the writer/performer
ing/performing self in the present as it to appreciate new levels of self-awareness: the
encounters or struggles with a particular and historical subject becomes a kind of mentor
complex subject of the past; the process of this (or possibly a cautionary tale). As with the
auto/biographical intertwining shapes and “mystory,” a pedagogical form using autobio­
foregrounds the performance. One major chal­ graphical materials employed by Ruth and
lenge of representing the historical figure in Michael Bowman (2002), the resulting perfor­
the autobiographical mode involves a careful mance “becomes an occasion for inventing
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172 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

new knowledge of the self, rather than merely as listener. They might wonder a number of
reproducing what is already known” (p. 162). things. Why has Jefferson decided to address
them? Who are they in the address? When is
this interaction occurring? Who are they in
IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION IN
relation to the former president?
AUTO/BIOGRAPHICAL PERFORMANCE
In Cast of One, John Gentile (1989)
Frequently seen in the post-1970s neo- addresses the role of context in talking about
Chautauqua revival which features scholars the related genre of the one-person biograph­
presenting historical personages to general ical performance: “Very few one-person
audiences (see Miller, 2003), the auto/bio­ shows—whether biographical or not—close
graphical performance is a complex one in off the audience behind the fourth wall of
terms of identity construction. A writer/per­ stage realism; those that do work on the basis
former chooses a particular figure to research, of some conceit” (p. 136). Typically, the audi­
script, and perform largely because of an intel­ ence is “cast” as a character to be addressed.
lectual interest in the figure’s life or work, For example, Emily Dickinson in The Belle
a desire to recreate the historical time period of Amherst by William Luce (1976) confides
surrounding that contribution, an emotional to audience members as if they were guests
resonance with the particular person’s life, invited for tea. Emlyn Williams as Charles
simple curiosity, or any number of factors. Dickens presents Dickens onstage, and the
Frequently, historians who have taught the audience performs the theatre-going public
time period or literary critics who have exca­ who flocked to his performances in Victorian
vated a writer’s oeuvre are compelled toward times. In Ruth Draper’s celebrated perfor­
this form of historical recreation. mances (now brilliantly re-created by Patricia
As the scholar/performer speaks in the first Norcia in public performance), the audience is
person, she is, among other things, obligated invited to imagine silent characters in a specific
to (1) uncover the distinct voice of the per­ scene. Performer and director Frank Galati
sona, through letters, diaries, and other writ­ comments:
ings as well as through analyzing recorded
instances of speech or behavior; (2) provide an The hardest thing to establish is the conven­
tional agreement between the audience and
audience with insight into the multiplicity of the performer about the nature of the expe­
roles the person occupied even while focusing rience they are about to share. The question
more fully on certain key characteristics or that all solo performers must consider is
events; (3) show the intersection of the figure “Why is this person speaking in this situa­
with his or her time period; and (4) create a tion in front of this group or ignoring this
group? Why should the audience listen to
performance context which grounds the figure
one person talk for an hour? What does this
in a place, time, and exigency. This last con­ person have to say?” (quoted in Gentile,
tingency, the performance context, will be 1989, pp. 138–39)
explored at length below. The context frames
the performance in an important way, giving it Here Galati neatly summarizes the problem
consequence and point. In personal narrative of motivation when the speaker addresses the
performance, the subject of the performance audience.
and the performer are the same and the per­ We believe the component of context cru­
former has the authority and volition to tell cial in auto/biographical performance for rea­
her life story publicly. However, if audience sons of character motivation as well as the
members are presented with a recreation of imperatives of crafting a theatrical epic situa­
Thomas Jefferson, they in turn occupy a role tion that locates both speaker and spectator.
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The Constructed Self 173

In addition to aesthetic considerations, Gift,” Pam Christian’s portrait of Anne Sexton

pragmatic considerations of audience familiar­ (performed in various theatrical venues in
ity and expectations arise. A portion of the Texas and Illinois), shows the poet contem­
audience often knows something about the plating her suicide. Alone, she composes a
history and contribution of the figure per­ letter to her daughter Linda; her ruminations
formed; often people attend a performance in compose both an apologia and a deep excava­
order to see a favorite writer or politician por­ tion of the emotions that fuel her poetry. In
trayed. And, in neo-Chautauqua performance these two performances, the audience is cast
(Miller & Taylor, 2003, p. 8), where question­ in the role of witness, as we have seen is often
and-answer sessions, both in and out of char­ the case in the subgenre of personal narrative.
acter, are part of the performance event, The closed approach to the audience in the
audience members also relish the opportunity Fitzgerald and Sexton performances is appro­
of addressing in the (fictive) flesh the person priate: Fitzgerald in 1940 and Sexton in 1974
who has previously existed only in their imag­ would not have discussed publicly their men­
inations. Yet an audience member who knows tal instabilities, as alcoholism and drug abuse
that Emily Dickinson lived a famously reclu­ were not subjects of public discourse. Casting
sive life might wonder why Julie Harris, in the audience in the role of witness also adds
The Belle of Amherst, speaks so freely of her depth to each of these performances, as the
private feelings. If the context strains the occasional discomfort of audience members
credulity of the audience, the suspension of in overhearing such private revelations
disbelief is shattered. Not only is the per­ encourages both introspection and sympathy.
former-audience connection less persuasive in The intimacy of the situation creates familiar­
such a situation, but, more importantly, an ity, as well as a complex of feelings and
opportunity is lost for locating the historical reflections through which each spectator
figure in a milieu that informs the audience, apprehends the life and work of these writers,
allowing the spectators to contribute to the both of whom relied heavily on autobiograph­
portrayal and to their own educations. ical details in composing their literary works.
In her performance of “Gertrude Stein as In the case of Sexton, whom Kay Capo (1988)
Gertrude Stein,” for example, Lynn C. Miller has called a pioneering performance artist,
(2003) recreates the situation of Stein’s actual the performance by Christian showcases the
lecture tour of America in 1934–35. The con­ poet’s merging of personal and public selves.
temporary audience is constructed, during the Elizabeth Lee-Brown (2004) writes: “Incorpo­
first portion of the performance, as interested rating portions of Sexton’s poems, excerpts
participants at one of Stein’s mid-thirties lec­ from her correspondences with fans and
tures. Later, Miller steps out of the role of family members and excerpts from interviews,
Stein and allows the audience to join her in Christian’s performance examines the ways in
the present as she entertains questions from which Sexton constructed herself as a public
the contemporary audience about Stein and spectacle” (p. 123).
Miller’s re-creation of Stein. By contrast, Even when the writer/performer has chosen
Michael McCarthy’s portrayal of F. Scott to make the performance about the seams
Fitzgerald (performed for the High Plains and between herself and her subject, as we explore
Tulsa Chautauquas) illustrates a very private below in the discussion of Elyse Lamm
context where the audience is an onlooker, not Pineau’s Anais Nin enactment, clear contextual
a participant. Set in the evening before Scott’s decisions clarify and heighten the auto/bio­
death, the author, speaking only to himself, graphical performance, locating the event in
reviews his career. Similarly, “The Excitable a unique space and time. Within a defined
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174 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

context, the performer can more fully embody intersected around Nin’s art; the aesthetic,
a persona who exists in the trappings of a when Pineau spent days immersed in the Nin
specific world, freeing the performer to make archives (feeling the presence of the departed
similarly concrete decisions about embodiment writer); and the genealogical, the new life gen­
and interaction with the audience. erated from the encounters with as Pineau
(2003) terms it, a “storied self.”
MERGING OF SELVES Pineau began her dance with Nin by adapt­
IN AUTO/BIOGRAPHY ing her work into a one-person show when
she was a master’s student at Northwestern.
We now turn to a more detailed discussion of Dazzled by admiration for her subject, she
an auto/biographical performance which high­ found herself confronted with self-revelation
lights the encounter of selves that this kind at every step. The correspondence she felt with
of performance involves, “Intimate Partners: A the writer during her preparation for the
Critical Autobiography of Performing Anais” performance moves her to write: “‘If I could
by Elyse Lamm Pineau (2003). In our analysis, speak,’” I would say to myself at the end of a
we focus on (1) the interweaving of self and rehearsal, “‘that is what I would say.’” Years
other in the construction of the auto/biogra­ went by, during which her relationship with
phy, (2) the context created in the perfor­ Nin deepened, until she began to imagine
mance, and (3) the textual and performative herself as a kind of special reader, one left a
strategies employed by the writer/performer. personal legacy by the writer: “My staged per­
formances seeped into my everyday performa­
Self and Other tivity such that, on or off the stage, my body
could slip in and out of hers with such ease
Pineau comments on the script by talking that I had difficulty marking the distinctions
about her longtime relationship with the between myself and the Nin-in-me who had
American writer Anais Nin. The two never become a kind of alter ego” (2003, p. 35).
met, but Pineau’s study of the author’s work Here Pineau alternates between narrating the
created more than a typical reader-writer bond: present time and performing the past from
the leather-bound journal on stage with her.
I first met Anais in the House of Incest, seven
years after her death. Through her legacy of
Inevitably, time and close scrutiny wore away
diaries and novels, essays and public lectures, at this elegiac relationship until, at the end of
she drew me into intimate conversation, then Pineau’s doctoral work, “the honeymoon”
heated disagreement, and eventually, the rich vanished altogether. She began to regard Nin
and layered complexity of longtime compan­ with a critical eye as hypervigilant as, earlier,
ionship. This essay, and the performance
her regard was hyperindulgent. Rather than
script which it contextualizes, use my rela­
tionship with Nin to explore the fecundity finding Nin an extension of herself, Pineau
of autobiographical subjectivities as they are reveals: “‘If I could speak,’ I declared in each
enacted on and off the stage. I want to track seminar where I invoked her, ‘this is never
some of the shifting configurations that can what I would say.’“ While Pineau’s body still
mark and mar the intimacy between per­ remained attuned to Nin’s, her performance
former and autobiographical other, fore-
grounding the incorporeality between the
had a deconstructive edge, one where she sig­
lived body and the embodiment of a literary naled to her audience her critical detachment;
alter ego. (2003, p. 33) eventually, she ceased to maintain the rela­
tionship. Then, ten years after she had first
Pineau delineates three histories she shares developed her solo performance at North­
with Nin: the biographical, as their lives western, Pineau found herself entering a new
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The Constructed Self 175

phase, one where she “entered the rehearsal accommodate the intergenerational family of
hall prepared, perhaps for the first time, to lis­ persons and tales that spin themselves out
ten to what she had to say about me, and par­ from encounters with the storied selves of their
ticularly, about the ways in which I had been kin” (Pineau, 2003, p. 42). Specifically, her
using and abusing her story over the years. construction is an embodied one, as over the
And so it was that our partnership took the years her corporeal identity stretched to
stage” (2003, p. 37). accommodate the body of Nin (both her
At this point in the essay, the script/perfor­ works and her physical self in a metaphorical
mance of Pineau/Nin (entitled “My Life with way): “This development of a Nin-in-me,
Anais”) unfolds as Pineau chronicles her desire which is the sine qua non of performing auto­
to take possession of the now-deceased Nin’s biographical texts, was formed by the contigu­
tape recordings, never examined by scholars ity of Nin’s body as present to me in her texts,
and held by Nin’s longtime companion, and my body as present to hers through
Rupert Pole. Pineau, overcome by desire to rehearsal” (2003, p. 43).
feel and hold the words of the woman she had Pineau’s essay and performance script take
studied for so long, proclaims, the reader/audience member through the intri­
cate steps of her performance with Nin, honed
I deserved them. After all these years of over years of interrelationship, “in terms of
reading and writing and performing Nin, how my body constructed itself first as, then
who else could understand what they were against, and finally as witness to Nin’s own”
worth? Who else would know that, for Nin,
these performances were “the real thing”! I
(2003, pp. 43–44). In transcribing this pro­
had an obligation to the scholarly commu­ gression, Pineau articulates a line of succession
nity to copy and preserve them. It was my from Nin to herself and back again, creating in
privilege—it was my right to possess them! the process a new persona, “the Nin-in-me.”
(2003, pp. 38–39) For the spectator, Pineau’s performance pre­
sents a complex of significations, all of which
She finds it simple to obtain access to Pole’s influence each other; to name just a few, the
intimate memories. All she has to do is to per­ performance becomes acts of research, of pos­
form Nin for him, and prove that she truly session, of mentorship, and of sharing (as she
deserves access to the intimate circle of Pole invites the audience to enter into her intricate
and Nin’s shared life. Despite the fluidity with partnership). As in any adaptation, Pineau’s
which she performs Nin’s turn of phrase and efforts reveal one reader’s process of appre­
gestures, her voice, and even her peculiar pre- hension and criticism of a work (in this case
Raphaelite quality, Pineau by the end of her the author’s persona as well as her texts). Yet,
performance rejects Pole’s offer of Nin’s final, more profoundly, the enactment lays bare
most private, diary. She realizes her imposture how—through dialogue, through space, over
is in danger of morally and ethically over­ time—one self invariably impacts and trans­
reaching. By dropping her impersonation of forms another.
Nin, she allows Nin herself to once again
occupy her rightful place between Pineau and
Context in the Performance
Pole as “the real thing.”
In the final section of “Intimate Partners,” Developed specifically for an audience at the
Pineau extends Bryant Alexander’s notion of National Communication Association (NCA)
“generative autobiography” (see below) into in 1994, “My Life with Anais” enlists the audi­
her own construction of “generational autobi­ ence as fellow explorers in her continuing
ography”: “I want to stretch the generative to search for and journey with Anais Nin.
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176 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

Making the assumption that her audience in Pineau’s self-enlightenment. As will be

shares her interest in autobiographical perfor­ discussed further, in the section on personal
mance, particularly in the pursuit of perfor­ narrative performance, the opportunity for
mance knowledge through adaptation and audience transformation is a characteristic
experimentation, Pineau addresses us as cocon­ of auto/biographical performance.
spirators. In other words, she acknowledges us Given her literary preoccupation and
as scholars and as audience when she states subject in this performance, Pineau’s context
from down center, “I want to tell you a true allows her audience to function triply as read­
story that never happened. A story of ten years ers, critics, and appreciators. Like her, we
in three days. A story of entering the looking- worship at Nin’s shrine; like her, we critically
glass house and finding the real thing” (Pineau, apprehend Nin’s self-dramatizing persona;
2003, p. 37). Her poetic phrasing both echoes and like her, we are drawn into the seductive
Nin’s lyric writing and is a signature style of dance of the author’s life and work.
Pineau’s own writing, honed through many
years of performative and scholarly works. In
Strategies in the Performance
this case, her use of language is both a perfor­
mative strategy and a contextual device, each “My Life with Anais,” like many auto/bio­
powerfully underscoring the intimate partner­ graphical performances, displays simple stag­
ship that is her overriding intention. ing and focuses on the direct relationship
Heightening the contextual dimension, between performer and audience. A chair,
Pineau stages her piece in a fluid manner char­ a silk scarf, a leather-bound diary, and an
acteristic of auto/biographical performances audiotape are the only the physical props.
where the actor must traverse multiple periods Addressing the audience, Pineau sets up basic
of time, as well as engage in both direct stage areas to delineate her confiding in the
address with the offstage audience and dra­ present about her actions in the past, and
matic address with absent characters. The particularly, her encounter with Rupert Pole.
performance takes place in three dimensions: Pineau’s pacing in front of the audience
(1) the present story time where Pineau engages denotes her mental and emotional churning as
the audience directly; (2) the past, symbolized she describes the sensuous charge of actually
by the diary and the single chair, where she touching the “real” diaries during her research.
conducted her research and felt for the first She comes upon Nin’s memory of childhood:
time the seduction of Nin’s works in her “I feel my empathic body taken up, taken in. I
hands; and (3) the encounter with Rupert Pole taste words on her tongue. Together we wrap
in the house he shared with Nin. Her move­ our arms around this child, this child, whose
ment among these three spaces is minimal, yet only wish was to create a world in which
clear. Pineau, whether Nin or not-Nin, uses everybody loves her and no one ever leaves.”
her body and voice as narrative glue and stage What the script of the performance cannot
metaphor. The piece is, after all, about her life capture is the slow becoming the audience wit­
change, not Nin’s. But such is Pineau’s nesses as Pineau moves into and out of her
alchemy with her subject that we are able to constructed Nin persona. In her performance,
witness the fusion and frisson of the two there are three people: herself; Rupert Pole,
women in the performance. As in her title for the executor and former intimate; and the
the essay, Pineau allows her audience to look absent/always-present Nin herself. MacKay
in on an intimate partnership. Because of the notes this triangulation which “confounds the
clarity of her context, we spectators are invited reader” (2003, p. 160). The configuration also
to be witnesses, researchers, and cocelebrants creates a psychodramatic enactment where
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The Constructed Self 177

Pineau proves to Pole that she is worthy of marked by a strong narrative thread and a
his trust, his admiration, and his desire (for significant emphasis on language—including
Pineau as a surrogate of Nin): in a sense, Nin the foregrounding of numerous literary
and Pineau alternate as the object of desire in devices and theatrical techniques that derive,
Pole’s gaze. It is from this position, which she at least in part, from the creators’ knowledge
ultimately finds almost a violation, that Pineau of chamber theatre techniques for the staging
withdraws when she refuses to accept the of narrative literature.
secret diary Pole offers. Equally noteworthy is the predominance, in
Language in all its evocative and literary this body of performances, of works that speak
glory, ripe with multiple meanings, remains from the margins, seeking to position a life
at the heart of this performance; this seems as connected to and as a distinctive instance
appropriate, since what initially drew Pineau to of a particular identity. These pieces draw on a
her subject were the author’s words. Language tradition of testimonial literature—bearing
is a signature throughout the piece that unites witness to experiences and perspectives rarely
contextual and performative strategies. The voiced in the culture’s predominant narratives.
words resonate inside and outside the body in Many of the creators directly address the
this performance, but it is in the embodiment absence of stories such as theirs; they desire to
of Nin’s poetry and Nin’s persona that the move from the position of misrepresented and
auto/biographical transformation takes place. passive subject to a more powerful position of
creative agency, through the shaping of lived
experience into performance. Such work regu­
THE STAGED
larly contests master narratives: those narra­
PERSONAL NARRATIVE
tives that presume to represent universal
We now want to consider the growing body human experience but, in fact, regularly ignore
of staged personal narratives that have been race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and
created by performance studies teachers and much more. Instead, these performances posi­
scholars over the past fifteen years. A number tion themselves as counternarratives—always
of the pieces analyzed here first came to our keenly conscious of the master narrative as
attention at communication and theatre con­ background for the rhetorical space they seek
ferences. During this time, autobiographical to foreground. These staged personal narra­
performances have come to occupy more and tives draw on a variety of strategies to make
more program space and more and more crit­ space for the stories that their author-perform­
ical attention. Several of these performances ers believe need telling.
have toured the country, featured not only Testimonial performances characteristically
at colleges and universities but also at festi­ invite audience members to draw connections
vals, community centers, and professional to their own personal experiences. Testimony
theatres. The lively influence of performance calls forth testimony. The performer knows
art can be detected in some pieces; a good she has tapped into this aspect of personal nar­
example is Out All Night and Lost My Shoes rative when audience members approach her
by Terry Galloway (1993) which, since its after the performance and begin telling their
appearance at the 1992 Edinburgh Fringe own stories. Often, the performance functions
Festival, continues to be performed on pro­ as a frame within which audience members
fessional and campus stages (see Faires, view their own experiences.
2000). But it is important to note that the As personal narrative performances have
works generated by scholars coming out of a gained ground in performance studies, a
performance-of-literature background are number of concerns have been raised about
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178 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

these works. While these counternarratives Finally, autobiographical performances, by

are designed as sites of resistance to dominant their very nature, are not objective. In some
narratives, it is important to look at the cases the life and the aesthetic object, the per­
inevitable privilege that adheres to a staged formance, seem to have leaky boundaries.
autobiographical performance. By virtue of Some critics have argued that it is difficult to
claiming one’s life in public, the performer critique such a performance without seeming
claims that his or her life is worthy of atten­ to critique the life. Others have noted that
tion. This makes autobiographical perfor­ such performances are sometimes unclear
mance both an ideal genre for redistributing about their goals; for instance, does the per­
power and a locus for continued struggles with formance seek to evoke an aesthetic, therapeu­
the inequitable distribution of power. In other tic, or political response, or something else
words, the performer makes space for a voice altogether? If the desired response is therapeu­
formerly excluded, but immediately has to tic, whose therapy is sought—the performer’s
deal with the assumption that she is now or the audience member’s? And is the perfor­
speaking not only for her particular experi­ mance equipped in some way to deal with the
ence, but for all those who share aspects of responses it might evoke? Or should it be? We
that experience. The performers cited here try attempt to address these questions by examin­
valiantly to resist this universalizing impulse, ing four personal narrative performances.
but in truth there is no simple solution to the
problem of speaking for others.
“sista docta”
Nor is there an easy solution to the assump­
tion of moral superiority that personal narrative In “sista docta,” Joni L. Jones (2003) pro­
performances may invoke. The very act of tak­ vides a harrowing account of the demands
ing the stage to narrate one’s life asserts, as we placed on a young black female professor
have said, the value of that life. The claim that working toward tenure at a large research
it is this life to which we should attend, rather university. The solo performance, combining
than some other, asserts that this life is in some poetry, improvisation, everyday life perfor­
way (at least in the telling) worthy of others’ mance, and audience participation, features
attention, and thus inherently more important drum accompaniment as Jones dances and
than a “typical” life. Again, performers work to performs her way through a multiplicity of
resist these troublesome power dynamics, but roles and competing expectations. While Alli
not always with unmitigated success. Aweusi drums, Jones opens the performance
In her autobiographical performance, “On by handing cards to audience members that
Being an Exemplary Lesbian: My Life as a contain the lines she will have them speak in
Role Model,” Jacqueline Taylor (2003) sought the “faculty party” section of her perfor­
to undermine this location of moral superior­ mance. Jones, dancing all the while, as she
ity by directing attention to and poking fun at does throughout the performance, asks how
the notion of the exemplar as the one from the many sista doctas are in the house, recognizes
margins who is allowed to take the stage. Yet these women, and then begins with an adapta­
the strategy was only partially successful. For tion of Mari Evans’s poem, “Status Symbol”
whatever one might choose to say about the (Jones 2003, pp. 238–239) that includes details
complications of speaking inside the spotlight, about Jones’ experience and sets the theme of
about the impossibility of speaking for others, dealing with the inherent conflicts an African-
the fact remains that the performer functions American woman encounters as a high-status
as an exemplar within the context of her per­ professional in a white and male-dominated
formance, however much she might contest it. setting. The poem is followed immediately by
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The Constructed Self 179

a scene in which Jones performs her sisters and is a familiar strategy in staged personal
her daughter commenting on and questioning narratives.
the work Joni does. The scene, based on a Other segments follow, including: a step
transcript of an actual conversation, evoca­ routine performed by Jones for the sista doctas;
tively explicates the tensions she faces between her own poem, “never tell a woman to wear
family and professional obligations and expec­ lipstick”; and “girltalk,” a series of quotes
tations. The daughter comments, from black women academics about the insti­
tutional racism of the academy. In one memo­
I like that Moma and I get to go to plays, and rable scene, messages from her answering
sometimes I go to her classes and I get to help machine provide an accumulating series of pro­
her direct. What I don’t like is that Moma
travels a lot and I have to stay with babysit­
fessional demands on her life. As she dances
ters and one time she was at a conference and jogs her way through the recorded
and she couldn’t make my costume for messages, the physical rigors of such a bom­
Halloween. (quoted in Jones, 2003, p. 240) bardment of expectations are made literal
through her sweat and visible exhaustion.
One sister notes that “white folks are toxic The academic world Jones stages is indeed
and oppressive. They can’t help it. It’s in their a chilly one for women and an outright arctic
genetic coding.” Told by another sister that one for African American women. Elizabeth
“Joni works with white folks,” she replies, “I Bell (2003) notes that Jones’s script, “almost
wouldn’t be going to none of their parties and line for line, parallels the research on African
putting on pantyhose. I wouldn’t be doing American mentoring: women of color are few
none of it.” The dialogue identifies the ability and far between in senior positions in acade­
to “hang with white folks” as one of the trou­ mia; feelings of isolation and tokenism abound;
blesome demands of the job (quoted in Jones, and the mentoring load, service responsibilities,
2003, p. 240). and committee work for these women is mon­
In “the faculty party,” various audience umental—often to the detriment of research
members stand and deliver the lines Jones ear­ and publication that would lead to their own
lier distributed. The comments, ranging from advancement in rank and power” (p. 309). The
encouraging and well intentioned but naïve to audience literally enters into the world Jones
blatantly racist, accumulate as Jones trans­ creates by reading the lines she assigns them or
forms from a polite wine-sipping partygoer to joining her onstage for improvisational scenes
a woman staggering, in a series of weighted that draw on the audience members’ own
dance movements, under the weight of her related experiences. Through such participa­
commentators’ ignorance and racism. In tory strategies, Jones performs her own story:
another section, Jones performs a series of solidly situated among the stories of others,
“stupid statements” while enacting self- hers resonates with them.
defense postures. At the end of each state­ Jones’s piece both is dedicated to and often
ment, the audience is coached to respond in directly addresses other sista doctas. For such
unison, “Be careful, your misunderstandings women the performance offers a powerful jolt
are dangerous.” These strategies allow audi­ of recognition, a sense that often isolating
ence members to consider their complicity experiences in the academy are in fact shared
in the kinds of remarks quoted here, while by a community of other black academic
recruiting them into the performance in ways women. But just as powerfully, the perfor­
that allow them to be part of a response to mance addresses another audience, one with­
such racism and obliviousness. This practice out the direct personal experience of racism
of enlisting other voices into the performance and sexism in the academy, but one willing to
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180 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

learn from Jones’s account and enter into a The piece, originally performed at an AIDS
dialogue about the effects of race and gender benefit in 1995, posits an audience familiar
in the university. Interestingly, Jones has with Pride parades and gay culture. Yet, even
placed some of the potential objections, con­ as the piece assumes the intimacy of a conver­
cerns, or misunderstandings of white audi­ sation between familiars of this world,
ence members into the text of her piece (for it inserts enough detail that newcomers can
instance, as lines for the partygoers or in the easily come along. For instance, when he
series of “stupid statements”). In this way, she describes the moment of silence at the Pride
frames such perspectives quite clearly for her Parade in New York, he says: “I’m standing
audience and increases the likelihood that even there and the minute of silence begins to flow
some of those who have not thought much up the parade route. You know how that
about these issues will begin to share more of sounds: You ever been there? At a specific
her framework and understanding. She per­ time. . . .” (1997, p. 355). Such language
forms for such audience members, or even lets invites both insiders and outsiders to share in
them perform, lines that reveal what those his reminiscences and reflections.
attitudes sound like to her. In the opening moments of the perfor­
Clearly, Jones’s performance exists as coun­ mance, Gingrich-Philbrook recalls sitting in a
ternarrative to dominant narratives about the café prior to the parade as friends describe their
academic life. As we have demonstrated, that favorite Pride Parade moments. While one part
counternarrative addresses both an audience of his mind is occupied with getting his own
of insiders (other sista doctas) and an audience answer ready, he is most attuned to the “rever­
of outsiders (those who still don’t get it, but ential tones” with which his friends speak
with a little more help, just might). Especially about Pride. He conveys this through a series of
interesting about the staging is the use of similes that build in power through repetition:
drumming and dance. The rhythm of the
drums and the choreography of the dance [M]y new acquaintances spoke about Pride
become strong conduits for content about the the way people sometimes do talking about
pace and demands of the academic world with birthdays—looking back on how far they’ve
come over the past year, taking stock of
which sista doctas contend. their life. They spoke about Pride the way
people sometimes talk about the future,
making resolutions on New Year’s Eve
“Refreshment”
about how far they want to go in the com­
“Refreshment” by Craig Gingrich- ing year. They spoke about Pride the way
we speak, on the Fourth of July, about free­
Philbrook (1997) is a deceptively simple piece.
dom. And they spoke about Pride the way
It begins with Gingrich-Philbrook seated in a that people speak, on Memorial Day,
chair, the performance’s only set piece, and remembering the price some have paid for
uses neither props, music, nor the juxtaposi­ that freedom, with a kind of nostalgia.
tion of stylistically distinct scenes in its (1997, p. 354)
account of the author’s experiences and
thoughts as a spectator at the Gay Pride Moments later, in what first appears to
Parade in New York “a few years ago.” Not be an aside, but soon takes its place as a cen­
in any sense a plot-driven narrative, Gingrich­ tral element in this performance, Gingrich-
Philbrook’s story is worthy of the telling pri­ Philbrook explains his inability to join his
marily because he tells it so well, with an friends in marching and his consequent loca­
eloquence and richness that reveal an elegant tion as a spectator. He tells a story about high
mind in action and a love of language play. school bullies assaulting him while he was
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The Constructed Self 181

in junior high, stomping on and breaking refuses us the comfort of even identifying
multiple bones in both his feet as they the victim, as he reminds us once again of our
demanded that he admit that he was queer. shared vulnerability:
He remembers, as he reflects on his friends’
reverence for Pride, the way his mother and And I thought,
stepfather would scoff at the notion of gay Oh God. Here, here some gay man has
been stabbed, here on this, the safest, the
pride, saying, “What is there to be proud of most holy day of the year.
for goodness sake? . . . We’re not proud of And then I caught myself, and thought,
being heterosexual.” This memory is the Here, here maybe some lesbian has been
springboard for a fanciful scene in which he stabbed, here on this, the safest, the most
imagines telling them, “You are too proud: holy day of the year.
Or, here, here maybe a bisexual person
You wear your heterosexuality on your chest
has been stabbed, here on this, the safest,
just like it was a big blue ribbon from the state the most holy day of the year.
fair for best big hairdo or best menacing ges­ Or, here, here maybe a transgendered
ture made with a plate of vegetables toward a person has been stabbed, here on this, the
child.” (Note how these images depict a het­ safest, the most holy day of the year.
erosexuality that prides itself at the point of Or, here, here maybe one of those
“straight but not narrow” folks has been
unappealing excesses.) He then imagines flying
stabbed, here on this, the safest, the most
them over the Pride parade and forcing them holy day of the year
to look down on what they see with an under­ . . . where we are all still vulnerable. All
standing that these people are “trying to make of us. (1997, p. 359)
a community, just trying to refresh their iden­
tities.” The scene juxtaposes the angry, argu­ Gingrich-Philbrook simultaneously per­
mentative style of a young child (“You are too forms resistance to the master narrative (as
proud”) with his adult eloquence and poetic in the scene where he imaginatively flies his
repetition: “And see how the city, stretching mother and stepfather over the Pride Parade
out on either side of them, pushes in behind and forces them to see the scene through his
them, closes in behind them, closes in behind eyes) and his commitment to reinscribing his
them after they’ve gone, closes in behind them own story as another master narrative. For
like they were never there” (1997, p. 355). what is he doing in the section quoted above
Eventually, searching for the “refreshment” with the “Or, here, here maybe” refrains, if
of a raspberry sorbet, Gingrich-Philbrook not reminding us of the range of stories that
passes a vendor hawking “Neuter Newt” but­ might be told instead?
tons. This sight occasions a lengthy reverie on It is through these detailed and poetic mus­
what besides alliteration could make this a ings that Gingrich-Philbrook asks us to attend
good political slogan. In order to make real the more carefully to the world around us and the
slogan’s implied violence, Gingrich-Philbrook language with which we describe and some­
describes in unbearable detail what “we” times attempt to simplify it. Moving deftly
would have to do if we were to neuter Newt, between humor and utter seriousness, he
and the scene that he depicts hauntingly invites us into a world of what he has
echoes the violence of the school-yard bullies described as “performed theory,” where the
he told earlier. questions about language, location, and power
Finally, he happens upon what he first takes that theory seeks to explicate are constantly
to be melted raspberry sorbet spilled in the investigated in the thoughts he shares with us.
street but soon identifies as a pool of blood. His is a meditation that seeks to complicate
Now, in yet another series of repetitions, he and unsettle our perception of the world, to
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182 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

share not only his own location as a gay man and self-exploration.” The joke, Alexander
but his own carefully inscribed resistance to reminds us, is grounded in assumptions about
universalizing that location or imposing it on race and class, about the incongruity of the
others as a final site of authority. divide between Spry’s location as a white priv­
ileged child and the location of “the garbage
man’s own children” (p. 105). But Alexander
“Skin Flint (or, The Garbage Man’s Kid)”
is, in truth, the son of a garbage man, and
“Generative autobiography” is the term so this performative moment not only fore­
Bryant Keith Alexander employs to describe grounds issues of race and class as they operate
the performance that develops in response to in both Spry’s performance and in Alexander’s
and in dialogue with another performed auto­ life, but also becomes the catalyst for his own
biography. In a carefully reasoned essay, autobiographical exploration and perfor­
Alexander (2000) offers his own performance, mance, written, as he says “between the lines of
“Skin Flint (or, The Garbage Man’s Kid),” as her performance.”
a case study to illustrate his thinking about Alexander’s performance describes witness­
generative autobiographical performances. ing Spry’s piece and uses the metaphor of the
Witnessing “Tattoo Stories,” the second of closet to portray the silence and denial which
Tami Spry’s paired performances exploring have surrounded his response to his father’s
her relationship with her now deceased work:
mother (see Spry, 2003), Alexander finds
himself considering his own autobiography Today I take the public opportunity to out
and in particular his relationship with his myself:
father, but not, perhaps, for any of the reasons [As myself—in a confessional mode]
“I am the son of a garbage man.”
Spry, in the creation of her work, might have I say that for first time after 34 years
been inclined to expect. Spry describes, first of subterfuge and euphemistic descriptions
in “Skins” and then in “Tattoo Stories,” a such as:
mother-daughter relationship that is at once [As myself—embarrassed, hesitantly
extremely close and marked by contradiction grappling] “My dad is a . . . My dad is a . . .
My dad is a . . . a truck driver.”
and ambivalence. In the second of these pieces,
“My dad works for . . . the . . . the city.”
she recreates a scene where she shares with her [With an increasing rate and frustration]
friends the joke her mother used to enjoy with “My dad is a san . . . ni . . . tational engi­
her, a “joke” in which she insisted that Spry’s neer.” (2000, p. 106)
real father was actually the garbage man, who
would return one day to retrieve her (like an Alexander returns twice more to segments
almost-forgotten piece of trash, the jest implies where he struggles to find language for his
but does not quite say). The mother would father’s work. These repetitive sections func­
insist on the truth of this tale of paternity until tion as a literary device that accumulates in
the child Spry was in tears, then laughingly power with each return and variation. He
reveal the joke. It is not until the adult Spry includes as well sections where he describes his
shares this joke with her friends and they experiences in scenes that enact his childhood
respond with unexpected sympathy that she exchanges with each of his hardworking and
begins to fathom the enormity of the injustice proud parents, struggling to instill their family
done to her childhood self. values into their son in the face of a society
For Alexander, however, this tale, some­ that often diminished them. References to
thing of an aside in the narrative Spry is weav­ Spry’s narrative abound, not only through
ing, becomes the trigger for his own “reflection direct discussion of her performance, but also
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The Constructed Self 183

stylistically. For instance, he tells his own reflection, my own self-critique. Today I out
bitter family joke: myself as a garbage man’s kid. In doing so I
re-claim my identity. I proclaim an identity.
“Did I ever tell you the Alexander family I declaim my respect and unending grati­
joke? No? Well it goes something like this: tude to my dad. . . . Today I proudly profess
The Alexander kids never really went to the that I will always be the garbage man’s
dentist. Most of us have relatively straight kid . . . and that’s alright. The joke is not on
teeth. You know why? Because whereas me. (2000, pp. 109–110)
some kids had their teeth controlled and
directed by wires and braces—ours were Alexander’s performance is a powerful and
controlled by slaps to the mouth. Isn’t that moving piece that works in its own right, even
funny?” (2000, p. 107) if one approaches it without previous knowl­
edge of Spry’s performance. Indeed, Alexander
Later, and more directly, he confronts
is careful to describe Spry’s performance suffi­
head-on the impact of the Spry family joke
ciently for anyone who has not seen it to
on him and his family:
understand its significance as the catalyst for
(As myself—eager, once again recreating the his own reflections. It is also, in a manner rem­
tone of Spry’s self-disclosive moment in iniscent of Gingrich-Philbrook’s notion of
Tattoo Stories) “Did I ever tell you the story performed theory, a performance that enacts
of the garbage man? I never told you that theories of generative autobiography and of
story? . . . Well! When I was growing up my
analysis of classism and racism as embedded in
dad was a garbage man—and even though
other people found that funny—well, it was the autobiographical narratives we spin about
not one of our family jokes.” (2000, p. 109) our lives. Yet one does not need a background
in literary theory to understand the clear
Alexander explains his inability to laugh at points Alexander is making about class and
the Spry family garbage man joke (which in race. Look through my eyes, it tells us, and see
truth is not funny in Spry’s performance either, what you might not have noticed in the per­
as it reveals a cruelly manipulative maneuver by formance that went before. Look through my
mother against child): eyes and see how my particularity connects to
a web of social and cultural meanings that
I did not laugh at the garbage man inscribe on my life and on all our lives notions
joke . . . because the incomprehensible pro­
jection of self as other, which is the crux of
of whose stories matter, notions that this per­
the joke as she tells it, reflected my own oth­ formance takes the stage to contest.
erness—reflected my own denial of being a Finally, it is a moving enactment of the
garbage man’s kid. (2000, p. 109) testimonial impulse of personal narrative per­
formance, as it both responds to the frame
Alexander’s performance, in dialogue with of Spry’s performance and simultaneously
Spry’s, moves through a journey of coming reframes that piece with another narrative. In
to terms with the shame society visited on doing so, it powerfully portrays the act of
Alexander and his family and a reworking of silencing that can inhere in a performance
his understanding the past to finally proudly designed to break silence and counter a master
claim and honor the father who worked hard narrative.
and honorably to care for his family. He closes
with a powerful and empowering proclama­
tion and tribute: “A Clean Breast of It”

Her performance was a flint struck against A number of personal narratives have
the steel of my resistance, sparking my explored illness and recovery through staged
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184 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

performances. “A Clean Breast of It” by Linda So I was making all these resolutions to eat
Park-Fuller (2003) is one in a strongly testi­ right, yes? And at the same time, I was eat­
ing hospital food! Which, as you may know,
monial style that recounts her breast cancer
doesn’t taste that great, but I don’t think
diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, and uses it’s particularly good for you either. . . . The
narrative to educate the audience about this funniest thing occurred at lunch one day,
disease. This is one woman’s story, but it is when they served me a six-ounce can of diet
quite consciously and carefully not just one Shasta soda pop. As I was pouring it into
woman’s story. Instead, she employs a number the glass, I noticed some printing on the side
of the can. It said: “Warning: This product
of strategies to connect her story to the larger
contains saccharine, which has been known
context of breast cancer experiences. She to cause cancer in laboratory animals.”
describes herself as inspired to create “A Clean Hah! Doesn’t anyone talk to anyone else in
Breast of It” in part by the AIDS narratives she this hospital? I mean, what am I in here for?
witnessed at the 1993 Arizona State University . . . So that’s when I realized that if I
thought behavioral changes were going to
conference, “HIV Education: Performing
make a difference in preventing recur­
Personal Narratives” (see Corey, 1993). She rence, . . . then I would have to initiate them
has frequently performed her piece in educa­ myself. (2003, pp. 229–230)
tional and therapeutic settings, encouraging
other cancer survivors and their loved ones to This is a narrative account from a woman
enter into postperformance dialogues. who is actively involved in reflecting on and
Park-Fuller’s performance is more of a learning about her disease and in shaping her
straightforward personal narrative than any of own recovery. Thus, the audience stands to
the other pieces discussed here. She employs learn a great deal by following her journey.
a largely chronological organizational structure In the early moments of her performance,
as she narrates her experience from the moment Park-Fuller picks up an acoustic guitar and,
she discovers a lump in her breast through diag­ with an untrained voice and the accompani­
nosis and treatment and the first few months of ment of simple chord changes, she sings, “It’ll
reorienting her life after cancer. She wants to Come to Me,” a song that emphasizes the
make sure the audience understands the emo­ improvisational nature of much of life, which
tional and practical impacts of breast cancer. requires us to “make it up as [we] go along.”
The communication teacher in her is apparent This moment positions her as a kind of folk
as she carefully explains, in clear and simple raconteur. There is nothing particularly pol­
language, what she has learned about how ished or professional about this musical
cancer attacks the body with its own cells: number, but it is pleasant and provides a the­
matic notion to which the performance will
What fascinates me most is that cancer is all return. Three more times she punctuates the
about communication—intercellular commu­
nication, about how the cells communicate
performance with her singing as she continues
(or fail to communicate) with one another. with additional verses of the opening song.
When you think about it, cancer is just one The guitar playing, we learn in the perfor­
big misunderstanding! (2003, p. 228) mance, is something she had always wanted to
learn to do, but only gave herself permission to
As she learns more about her disease, she pursue as she sought to balance her life after
also learns more about the need to take an diagnosis and surgery. She explains that she
active role in her own healing, questioning the needed to learn to do something amateurishly,
medical establishment’s inability to address simply because it brought her pleasure, and
the human side of this disease, or even to assist so the simplicity of the music becomes an inte­
in recognizing the lifestyle changes that might gral manifestation of what she has learned
promote healing. about living from her cancer experience.
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The Constructed Self 185

Park-Fuller’s language is simple, too, inten­ Second, aesthetically, it symbolizes the

tionally vernacular, as she sprinkles the script themes of life’s interruptions and improvisa­
tion, since I as performer cannot predict
with “you know,” “oh,” “oh boy,” “oh
exactly when the timer will go off. Like the
man,” and “you see.” cancer that occurred so unexpectedly, forc­
Yet the hand of the seasoned director, ing me to stop, reevaluate and revise my life,
literary scholar, and teacher is everywhere so the sounding of the timer forces me to
apparent in this simple narrative. Park-Fuller stop and revise my performance. And, third,
wants to resist any suggestion that she can ethically, the timer evokes awareness of
others whose stories do not end as fortu­
stand and speak for all cancer survivors. In a
nately as mine. Over the course of the play,
piece like this, she inevitably does so, and yet, it comes to represent them. By interrupting
to do so is problematic, for no two breast my narrative (the survivor’s narrative), it
cancer experiences are the same. To counter symbolically gives the power to contradict
any suggestion that hers is a universal breast my story to those who cannot tell their own.
Their stories are not heard within the frame
cancer story, Park-Fuller employs several
of my performance, but drawing attention
devices. First, she opens the performance with to their absence reminds audiences that
a dedication: someone had a different story that will
never be told. In this way, the piece attempts
This performance is for all those who have to transcend the “merely personal” in per­
struggled with breast cancer—those who sonal narrative—to stand with, not to stand
have survived and those who have not. They in for, others’ stories. (2003, pp. 218–219)
all have their own unique stories, and I do
not claim to speak for them. But I dedicate
this performance to them. (2003, p. 222) The educational and therapeutic objectives
have a primacy in Park-Fuller’s piece that
At the outset she has called into the room shapes several of these performance choices.
all those who have experienced breast cancer She assumes no knowledge of breast cancer
and has stated clearly her inability to speak for experience among her audience and makes that
them. Yet she makes it clear all the same that acceptable by emphasizing her own ignorance
there is a sense in which she speaks on behalf of the disease prior to diagnosis, while making
of them. sure to include substantive factual information
A second strategy Park-Fuller employs is a to contextualize her individual tale. She speaks
timer, set to go off at thirteen-minute intervals, simply and humbly about her journey, in a way
“symbolizing the death rate of breast cancer in that that sets her up, not as professor and
the United States” (2003, p. 218). She sets the expert, but as fellow traveler, using a simple
timer near the beginning of the performance, colloquial language that invites the audience
as she gives the audience statistics about the member to view her as a friend who has been
incidence and mortality rates of the disease. there. Yet she manages to do a great deal of
Each time the timer goes off, she stops wher­ teaching along the way, as she consistently calls
ever she is in the performance, the first time the audience to attend to the larger cultural
repeating, “And every thirteen minutes, some­ context in which her individual story unfolds.
one else dies”; always she resets the timer. It is interesting to compare the sophisticated
Park-Fuller writes about the way this timer and perceptive academic discourse Park-Fuller
comes to function in the piece: employs in writing about this performance to
the everyday discourse of her performed narra­
In retrospect, I can now say that it serves
tive. In such a comparison, it becomes clear
three purposes. First, as a social-medical
critique, it sharpens our comprehension of that Park-Fuller brings to the staged narrative a
how many people die from the disease and highly trained capacity for adapting her level of
how little progress has been made against it. diction to target audience and rhetorical goals.
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186 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

CONCLUSION between story and storyteller and performer

and spectator to be direct descendents of the
As we see in even this limited selection of
oral tradition and of the early literature in the
staged personal narratives, the performer
performance history of the field of perfor­
draws from a wide array of compositional and
mance studies. Narrative remains paramount
staging strategies, from the simplest retelling
in performed autobiography, in all its complex
of an experience while seated or standing
permutations and inherent simplicity.
before the audience on a bare set to a much
Auto/biography and personal narrative are
more highly dramatized narrative or collection
flexible performance forms: they can be per­
of narratives. Some scripts are compilations
formed in spaces from theatres to classrooms
of poetry, song, everyday life performance,
to tents pitched out of doors (as in the original
improvisation, and more. Almost invariably,
Chautauqua performances). Constructions of
performers of their own story draw into the
self, memory, and milieu constitute the central
narrative the words of others, whether the
elements of autobiographical performance. A
remembered words of friends or family, imag­
genre of great fluidity and possibility, autobio­
inary scenes, or the literary works of others.
graphical performance signifies through the
While the consciousness with which perform­
act of natural conversation: to speak one’s
ers acknowledge their privileged location
life in the presence of another is to claim a
onstage varies, most of the performances we
measure of consequence.
have considered work to expose and compli­
cate that assumption of power—often by
directly calling attention to voices not repre­ REFERENCES
sented. Most powerfully perhaps, the autobio­ Alexander, B. (2000). “Skin flint (or, the garbage
graphical performance calls out to us with the man’s kid)”: A generative autobiographical
claim that a particular life matters, and mat­ performance based on Tami Spry’s “Tattoo
ters in ways that the master narrative might Stories.” Text and Performance Quarterly,
20, 97–114.
well have obscured. The staged claim that
Bell, E. (2003). “Orchids in the arctic”: Women’s
one’s life is worth the audience’s attention autobiographical performances as mentoring.
seems to call forth a mirroring response, one in In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver
which the audience members reflect in turn on (Eds.), Voices made flesh: Performing women’s
the value of their own lives, responding in kind autobiography (pp. 301–318). Madison:
with yet another story, if not a full-fledged University of Wisconsin Press.
Bowman, M. S., & Bowman, R. L. (2002).
performance, about the meaning they have
Performing the mystory: A textshop in autoper­
struggled to make of the lives they are living. formance. In N. Stucky & C. Wimmer (Eds.),
In personal narrative performance and in Teaching performance studies (pp. 161–174).
auto/biographical performance, the audience Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
occupies a pivotal role as witness and partici­ Bruner, J. (1993). The autobiographical process.
In R. Folkenflik (Ed.), The culture of autobi­
pant. As we have discussed, the formulation of
ography: Constructions of self-representation
context, the intimacy—and the community (pp. 38–56). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University
created by the presence—of the shared life, call Press.
forth a unique performance situation. Craig Capo, K. E. (1988). “I have been her kind”: Anne
Gingrich-Philbrook (2000) says that this Sexton’s communal voice. In F. Bixler (Ed.),
situation demonstrates “solo performance’s Original essays on the poetry of Anne Sexton
(pp. 22–45). Conway: University of Central
status as a situated accomplishment of exis­
Arkansas Press.
tential collaboration” (p. viii). In locating the Carver, M. H. (2003). Risky business: Exploring
strategies and characteristics of this genre women’s autobiography and performance. In
of performance, we find the fabric woven L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver (Eds.),
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Voices made flesh: Performing women’s auto­ Performing women’s autobiography (pp. 152–
biography (pp. 15–29). Madison: University of 164). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Wisconsin Press. Miller, L. C. (2001). Alice does and Alice doesn’t.
Corey, F. C. (Ed.). (1993). HIV education: Per­ In L.C. Miller & R. Pelias (Eds.), The green
forming personal narratives. Tempe: Arizona window: Proceedings of the giant city confer­
State University Press. ence on performative writing (pp. 44–51).
Dailey, S. J. (Ed.). (1998). The future of performance Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
studies: Visions and revisions. Annandale, VA: Miller, L. C. (2003). Gertrude Stein never enough. In
National Communication Association. L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver (Eds.),
Faires, R. (2000, February 25). Two generations, one Voices made flesh: Performing women’s autobi­
art: Terry Galloway and the Rude Mechanicals ography (pp. 47–65). Madison: University of
make loud, messy theatre together. The Austin Wisconsin Press.
Chronicle. Retrieved June 14, 2004, from Miller, L. C., & Taylor, J. (2003). Editors’ intro­
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/ duction. In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H.
dispatch/2000–02–25/arts_feature.html Carver (Eds.), Voices made flesh: Performing
Gage, C. (2003). The last reading of Charlotte women’s autobiography (pp. 3–14). Madison:
Cushman. In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H. University of Wisconsin Press.
Carver (Eds.), Voices made flesh: Performing Park-Fuller, L. (2000). Performing absence: The
women’s autobiography (pp. 125–151). staged personal narrative as testimony. Text
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. and Performance Quarterly, 20, 20–42.
Galloway, T. (1993). Out all night and lost my Park-Fuller, L. (2003). A clean breast of it. In L. C.
shoes (B. Hamby, Ed.). Tallahassee, FL: Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver (Eds.),
Apalachee Press. Voices made flesh: Performing women’s auto­
Gentile, J. S. (1989). Cast of one: One-person biography (pp. 215–236). Madison: University
shows from the Chautauqua platform to the of Wisconsin Press.
Broadway stage. Champaign-Urbana: Univer­ Pineau, E. L. (2003). Intimate partners: A critical
sity of Illinois Press. autobiography of performing Anais. In L. C.
Gingrich-Philbrook, C. (1997). Refreshment. Text Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver (Eds.),
and Performance Quarterly, 17, 352–360. Voices made flesh: Performing women’s auto­
Gingrich-Philbrook, C. (2000). Editor’s introduc­ biography (pp. 33–46). Madison: University of
tion. Text and Performance Quarterly, 20, Wisconsin Press.
vii–x. Rogers, C. (2003). Georgia O’Keeffe x Catherine
Jones, J. (2003). Sista docta. In L. C. Miller, Rogers. In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H.
J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver (Eds.), Voices made Carver (Eds.), Voices made flesh: Performing
flesh: Performing women’s autobiography women’s autobiography (pp. 103–124).
(pp. 237–257). Madison: University of Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Wisconsin Press. Silko, L. M. (2000). Interview with Leslie Marmon
Langellier, K. (1986). Personal narratives and Silko. In E. L. Arnold (Ed.), Conversations
performance. In T. Colson (Ed.), Renewal with Leslie Marmon Silko (pp. 29–36).
and revision: The future of interpretation Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
(pp. 132–144). Denton, TX: NB Omega. Spry, T. (2003). Illustrated woman: Autoper­
Lee-Brown, E. (2004). Autobiography, adaptation, formance in “Skins: A daughter’s reconstruction
and agency: Interpreting women’s perfor­ of cancer” and “Tattoo stories: A postscript to
mance and writing strategies through a femi­ ‘Skins.’” In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & M. H.
nist lens. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Carver (Eds.), Voices made flesh: Performing
University of Texas at Austin. women’s autobiography (pp. 167–191).
Luce, W. (1976). The belle of Amherst: A play Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
based on the life of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Taylor, J. (2003). On being an exemplary lesbian:
Houghton Mifflin. My life as a role model. In L. C. Miller,
MacKay, C. H. (2003). Performing historical figures: J. Taylor, & M. H. Carver (Eds.), Voices made
The metadramatics of women’s autobiographi­ flesh: Performing women’s autobiography
cal performance. In L. C. Miller, J. Taylor, & (pp. 192–214). Madison: University of Wiscon­
M. H. Carver (Eds.), Voices made flesh: sin Press.
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11
The Strange Case of the Body in the
Performance of Literature Classroom
An Enduring Mystery

BRUCE HENDERSON

AUTISM AS METAPHOR: FOUR experience is not unlike entering performance

PRELUDES ON PERFORMANCE studies when I did. I was part of the generation
AND THE BODY’S PEDAGOGY that saw the shift from “interpretation” or
“oral interpretation” (with its fairly exclusive
Twenty years after receiving my first PhD in attention to the study of literature through
interpretation (now performance studies) from performance) to “performance studies.”
Northwestern University, I have returned to One of my fellow graduate students in the
my home town (Oak Park, the western suburb program is a woman trained in rehabilitation
of Chicago that produced such writers as therapy, who is excited about performance
Ernest Hemingway, Carol Shields, and my own studies and plans to make it one of her cognate
high school classmate Jane Hamilton) to begin areas. When I ask her whom she is reading and
work as a graduate student again at one of whom she has studied, she names Richard
Illinois’ public universities, the University of Schechner, whose recent textbook (2002)
Illinois at Chicago. Today I have entered an she has adopted as her founding text, and
equally “blurry” field, disability studies. It is an two scholars, Carrie Sandahl and Jim Ferris,
exciting, if somewhat dizzying time to be a new whose work bridges disability studies and
student in this emergent field, one that has performance studies.
grown out of rehabilitation sciences into an When I mention the rich tradition of
area more concerned with cultural critiques of performance studies at Northwestern, a
policies, practices, and representations of the 40-minute ride to the north, she seems only
disabled body, mind, and experience. My new vaguely aware of it. Nor is she familiar with

188
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 189

the earlier work done by William Rickert with speech.) It begins, in almost Orwellian numeri­
“group performance of literature” by students cal fashion, with a chapter marked “2” (we
with disabilities at Wright State University, learn later that the narrator will assign only
even though it is her alma mater. And course­ prime numbers to the chapter headings):
work in the “performance of literature” has
long been absent from the theatre and com­ It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog
was lying on the grass in the middle of the
munication curricula at the University of
lawn in front of Mrs. Shears’s house. Its eyes
Illinois at Chicago. I agree—partly out of mis­ were closed. It looked as if it was running on
sionary zeal, partly out of the selfishness of its side, the way dogs run when they think
wanting someone with whom to talk about they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the
performance—to help her with an indepen­ dog was not running or asleep. The dog was
dent study she plans to do on disability and dead. There was a garden fork sticking out
of the dog. The points of the fork must have
performance theory. But I wonder where to gone all the way through the dog and into
begin. And of what use will the “performance the ground because the fork had not fallen
of literature” be to someone whose primary over. I decided that the dog was probably
interest is in the autobiographical work of killed with the fork because I could not see
performance artists with disabilities? any other wounds in the dog and I do not
think you would stick a garden fork into a
At the same that I volunteer to work with
dog after it had died for some other reason,
my fellow graduate student (whose own excite­ like cancer, for example, or a road accident.
ment is infectious and who has welcomed me But I could not be certain about this. (p. 1)
as an older returning student) I hunt for a novel
to read. For the first time as a student, I am tak­ With some impatience, I put the book
ing a full load of classes and have only one aside. Yes, I think to myself, I see what the
work of literature assigned for any of them. So, novelist is doing, and I note from the back
amidst the somewhat alien corn of Foucault, cover that he has worked with autistic
Goffman, Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, Ian children. But I do not think I can go on this
Hacking, and Althusser through which I am journey with Christopher, the narrator, for
wandering, I feel a hunger (and the metaphor some two hundred pages, for much the same
of consuming is apt—reading is an activity reason that Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes
I associate with eating, both in positive and mysteries always left me cold: it feels more
negative ways) for fictional story. like a logic problem than a story. (The novel,
Somewhere I read of a new British novel, in fact, takes its title from a line in the
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze”; see
Time by Mark Haddon (2003), which is receiv­ Doyle, 1890/1963, p. 27.) Raised on the
ing enthusiastic reviews and which I can justify modern novel of Freudian (and post-Freudian)
in my monastic reading existence because of its exploration of consciousness and uncon­
central premise. It is a novel told from the point sciousness, I cannot imagine myself caring
of view of an autistic boy, a teenager who is a enough about listening to this boy figure who
savant in math, but who can describe the world killed his neighbor’s dog to stay with him in
only through a perspective unencumbered by this emotionless, distanced, utterly observa­
or disengaged from “normal” human processes tional and unselfreflective voice. It is a gim­
of interpretation and from “normal” expres­ mick, a writing-class exercise. I turn to
sions of emotion. (I am learning to put “nor­ something lighter and pulpier, a chatty novel
mal” in scare quotes, both in print and in of the gay world of NYC theatre.
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190 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

Yet, a week or so later, I return to the autis­ taught by Professor Lilla Heston (sister of the
tic boy’s story. I feel guilty—what kind of famous actor Charlton). Heston dominates the
student of disability am I if I haven’t the class. I find myself so nervous in front of her
patience to sit with this individual? I have that I give some of the most tentative, most
learned that it is “better” to view something ineptly self-conscious performances I will ever
like autism not as a deficit but as a differ- give. I cannot get beyond her piercing stare.
ence—and to try to understand what an autis­ My choices of texts seem to alienate her and
tic may possess that may be viewed as my intellectual explanations of performance
strengths rather than weaknesses, presences choices are unpersuasive to her. Finally, during
rather than absences. And so I try again—per­ a class performance critique, she describes my
haps it is because summer has turned to gestures as “autistic.” I am so shocked by the
autumn, perhaps because the work load is use of the word that I essentially shut down for
such that I cannot bear the density of interior the rest of the course. I have received a message
life my favorite novels provide, who knows? (to this day I do not know if it is the one she
But this time I follow Christopher’s journey to intended or not). I am a pathological per-
the solution of the mystery (and then some, as former—there is a sickness to my work. I have
he takes the perilous journey to London to see to look up “autistic” in the dictionary, and see
his estranged mother). And I find myself expe­ it is a disease (today we refer to it as a syn­
riencing both pain and overwhelming, some­ drome or spectrum) of, among other things, an
times tear-producing affection for him. It is inability to communicate. I understand now
not that at any point in the novel his own (and did then, I suspect) that what she referred
autistic style changes and he becomes an to was a lack of connection between my phys­
empathic, “cured” subject—this is not a novel icalization (gestures, posture, movements) and
of transformation in that sense. Nor do my the text I was performing. To my instructor,
tears come from a response based in pity or this lack of connection appeared to be uncon­
charity. I think I weep simply because I have scious rather than chosen.
learned more about what it means to be him I realize now, over 25 years later, that
and to have experienced the difficulty of his Heston was using the word “autistic” (if the
journey—just as a I recall a teenaged self years word was chosen with any conscious intent)
ago weeping as Sam carried Frodo up Mount to shock me into being more self-aware as
Doom to fulfill his destiny. a performer. Her own performances, while
While Christopher’s way of knowing the always a joy to witness, were lessons in self-
world is not my own, I believe I have success­ presentation. One felt that every moment had
fully learned how he knows the world—a been planned and revised meticulously, like
thing autistics must themselves learn (and con­ the prose of her beloved Henry James: the
sciously so) about the way the “others” do. In pleasure was in her ability to behave in a con­
a sense, I wonder, is this not what all literature trolled manner and yet be “in the moment” at
demands of us—to relearn the world each time the same time. I think that, in an odd way,
we read someone else’s words? she was trying to encourage me to be both
The word “autistic” both scares me and more disciplined and less self-absorbed as a
attracts me, and I think I can locate the begin­ performer.
ning of its shameful fascination for me. The word “autistic” today carries a wider
Twenty-five years ago, as a first-semester grad­ spectrum of potentialities, both positive and
uate student in interpretation at Northwestern negative, than in 1978 when I took the course.
University, I am struggling in the beginning I have often wondered whether the late
graduate seminar, Studies in Performance, Dr. Heston would remember this “curious
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 191

incident” and what she would have to say partially be made accessible to us. In his
about the changing face of autism today. She writing on performance, Wallace Bacon (1966,
was a gifted actress and reader, but my mem­ 1972) preferred the word “communion” to
ories of her onstage are of her solitariness: as “communication”: for him, performance, like
Mrs. Alving in the final moment of Ibsen’s literature itself, could never be simply a “trans­
Ghosts, alone with her son who is no longer fer” of meaning. The autistic can participate
capable of communicating with her, or as in acts of communion, though what he or she
Bernarda Alba, isolated in her tyrannical reign makes of them will probably be different from
over her house of women (her daughters) and the perceptions of the “normal” subject.
able to make brief, genuine contact with an It is not entirely accurate to say that the
other only in her few exchanges with her ser­ autistic does not experience his or her body.
vant. Were Heston’s performances, even in But it may be accurate to say that the autistic
traditionally staged plays, variations on a kind has a different kind of cognitive access to the
of positive construction of the “selfness” of ways in which his or her body is one of many
some kinds of autism—the sense of being other bodies that share experiences, emotions,
isolated yet observant at the same time? responses. Many autistics (there is a wide
Having gathered my thoughts for this essay range of ways of being and knowing covered
as an overview of one problem in the teaching by the spectrum) are deeply gifted in ways not
of the performance of literature, I sit down usually associated with stereotypes the public
to one last “read” for inspiration. I turn to has learned from such films as Rain Man. For
a book I picked up earlier in the semester, example, while some autistics have difficulty
Francis Spufford’s memoir, The Child That maintaining attention in ways that appear
Books Built (2002), in which he traces his normative to most people, they can become
development from infancy to adulthood focused to an extreme degree on a pattern, or
through his reading habits and choices. He on a category, or on a phenomenon. Similarly,
begins with a description of what the experi­ while difficulty in communicating interperson­
ence of reading was for him: ally is one of the usual impairments associated
with autism, many autistics can learn how to
“I can always tell when you’re reading perform social scripts and to understand what
somewhere in the house,” my mother used
to say. “There’s a special silence, a reading
lies underneath the protocols and conventions
silence.” I never heard it, this extra degree of of interaction.
hush that somehow traveled through walls Such memory work need not simply be rote
and ceilings to announce that my seven­ or robotic. It can achieve depth and authentic­
year-old self had become about as absent as ity, through a learning process different from
a present person could be. The silence went
simply participating in society in a natural way.
both ways. As my concentration on the
story in my hands took hold, all sounds In her recent memoir Songs of the Gorilla
faded away. (p. 1) Nation, Dawn Prince-Hughes (2004), a writer
and primatologist, movingly describes her own
Spufford describes his reading behavior as journey to self-discovery through observation
“catatonic.” For Spufford, the experience of of and interaction with gorillas. She writes
reading silently has the degree of engagement about her success in working at a zoo, after
we might associate with a performer in public. an isolated childhood and a part of her adult­
Yet at the same time it is a private engagement. hood spent homeless on the streets. She notes:
The text’s meaning is not unlike the meaning “The fact that I excelled at certain tasks—keep­
of the sounds the autistic makes when touched: ing records, making keen observations, des­
we as a public witness something that can only criptively communicating information, and
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192 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

memorizing events perfectly—not only saved synonymous with the concept of “poet,” the
me but deposited me exactly where I wanted text was always fluid and protean: themes,
to be” (pp. 103–104). Prince-Hughes now motifs, and some formulaic (metrically regu­
lives with a partner and has a son. She has lar) phrases were the anchors from one perfor­
learned how to perform in a way that provides mance to another. Because written language
her satisfaction and pleasure—through her did not yet exist (or, later, existed for very lim­
autism, not in spite of it. ited purposes, of which literary publication
Autism is a condition I now study, in my was not yet one) there was no sense in which
second graduate career. It has also become a verbatim repetition could be viewed as a mark
powerful metaphor for the body in perfor­ of fidelity to a text. Thus, the art of perfor­
mance, as I reflect upon the history of my field mance was one in which the body (which
of study in my first graduate career. Is it worth included the voice and, by extension, all that
asking whether part of what makes some per­ the body could fill, including context, space,
formances valuable and worthwhile is a figu­ and even audience) was the medium for “pub­
ratively “autistic” element, which can be seen lication.” There was freedom and, in the terms
in the history of teaching and practicing the of Foucault (1961/1977), discipline in such a
performance of literature? In saying this, I am performance aesthetic. While it is likely that
thinking especially of the phenomenon of solo habit led to certain passages becoming more
performance: the long tradition of the single and more fixed, only with the introduction of
reader, holding a book or standing at a lectern, writing as a dominant verbal mode could
who addresses a text to an audience. we imagine a notion of a text as something
In other words, do we have a history that that could be separated from the body of its
both promotes and diminishes the connections composer and then reperformed by another
between body-of-performer and body-of-text performer.
at different times, sometimes simultaneously? With such a transition, a new kind of
How does this always complex, overdeter­ performer emerged: the rhapsode, literally
mined set of relations shift back and forth over “stitcher of lines.” Eugene and Margaret Bahn
time? What remains constant? And what does (1970), who provided one of the earliest
all this augur for the future of teaching the attempts to survey traditions in the perfor­
performance of literature? mance of nondramatic literature, note the first
reference to such performers in the sixth cen­
tury BCE A particular group of rhapsodes,
BACK TO BEFORE: WHAT THE
devoted to the preservation and recitation
RHAPSODE “KNEW” (OR DIDN’T)
of the Homeric epics, were known as the
Textual evidence in the Homeric epics, along Homeridai. Such performers were itinerant,
with comparatively recent research by Milman traveling to different festivals and competi­
Parry (Parry, 1987) and Albert Lord (2000), tions, but also often attaching themselves to
suggests that there was a kind of performance particular courts and noble houses. One such
that predated our contemporary notions of a rhapsode was Ion, who was transformed into
fixed text: of a text that can be separated in a a somewhat fictional character in Plato’s early
meaningful way from the moment of perfor­ dialogue that bears his name (trans. 2001b).
mance or from the body of the performer. The This dialogue parallels another early dialogue,
Homeric bard composed in performance, typ­ Gorgias (trans. 1998), which similarly interro­
ically in a style that involved a musicality and gates the nature and office of the sophist,
rhythm perhaps not entirely unlike some of orator and teacher who claimed to be able to
today’s rap artists. For such a bard, who was teach virtue through the teaching of rhetoric.
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 193

One of Plato’s final dialogues, the Phaedrus and nutritionists of nutrition than is the
(trans. 2001a), returns to the question of spo­ rhapsode—even though the rhapsode, in his
ken versus written language, critiquing writing performance of Homeric epic, speaks of these
as the beginning of the loss of knowledge. fields through the words of Homer. Socrates
Plato’s technique in each of the dialogues gets Ion to concede even that he is ill-equipped
is similar. He has his version of Socrates (his as a critic of poetry, because he is able to speak
own teacher) encounter a practitioner of one only about Homer and not about all poets (a
of the arts of spoken performance (or, in the sobering thought in our own day of critical
case of Phaedrus, an audience member) and specialization). This series of reductions points
proceeds to question, as if from a naïve out that the ability to perform poetry is not
and uninformed position, the very definition the same as possessing knowledge about the
and basis of the art. The performer always subjects it describes or narrates. Even Homer’s
falls into the traps of logic and dialectic “knowledge” as original composer of the
(which Plato believed to be the only true poems is suspect, as Plato believes in a world
paths to knowledge). The opponents of of “ideals”: original forms of which our own
Socrates inevitably concede the intellectual human knowledge and experience are a mere
bankruptcy of their claims. Of course, Plato, set of copies.
true rhetorician that he is, never gives Socrates Ion’s mistake, from a contemporary per­
a worthy opponent: dialectic often seems more spective, is his failure to challenge the terms
a veil for Socrates’ own rhetorical demonstra­ of the debate itself: to ask whether he should
tions than a genuinely “dialogic” opportunity “know” the “facts” of nutrition, divining, or
for investigation, in the sense pursued by arithmetic is to confuse the “mimetic” with
Bakhtin (1981). Plato’s Ion and Gorgias are the “original” (or “original copy,” in Plato’s
always depicted as pleasant, entertaining, yet sense). Ion is an expert on the art of “imitat­
rather empty-headed men, proud of their pub­ ing,” if you will—of using his body (including
lic acclaim, but unable to defend an idea voice, intellect, and emotions) to (re)create the
beyond a question or two. imagined world created in Homer’s words.
In the Ion, Plato raises two important ques­ Similarly, Socrates and Ion conflate perfor­
tions about the performance of literary texts mance with criticism, “speaking Homer”
that have recurred through history and remain with “speaking about Homer.” It is possible
relevant and open today for teachers and to define performance as a form of literary
students. Plato (through Socrates) questions, criticism: this was the pedagogical mission
first, what the rhapsode “knows” and, second, of “interpretation” in twentieth century
from what source the rhapsode derives his per­ American schools. But Socrates and Ion
formance skills. He does this through a series (as imagined by Plato) do not describe perfor­
of seemingly innocuous questions, each of mances. Rather, they discuss what would seem
which leads Ion down the primrose path to to be lectures, speeches given by the rhapsode
an admission of ignorance. on the texts he performs.
Concerning “knowledge,” Socrates asks Socrates’ second challenge to Ion, Plato’s
Ion questions designed to reveal the rhap­ question of the source of “inspiration” (which
sode’s limits. On the subjects about which we may make roughly synonymous with
Homer speaks, the rhapsode possesses knowl­ “ability,” “accomplishment,” or “talent,”
edge inferior to that of the actual practitioner though none of these terms is a perfect fit)
of each activity. Ion must concede, finally, is inextricably tied to the first. The challenge
that diviners are better equipped to speak Ion does not really make to Socrates is that
of divining, mathematicians of arithmetic, performance is itself a field of knowledge. This
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194 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

then would raise the troubling question of the (The same question, of course, arises with such
degree to which performance is an “art”: an arts as acting, music, painting, dance, and
activity with rules and processes, which can be writing.) Or is all such teaching merely critical
accessed through rational discourse, through response to and refinement of given talents?
analysis of its components, through the acqui­ In the performance classroom, what attention
sition of skills, and through methodological should be given to theory as opposed to prac­
steps and practices. Indeed, Socrates claims tice—and how should teachers combine the
that performance is not such an art. (He makes two? Should such classrooms be dominated
the same claim about oratory, to which, it is by textual study, with delivery skills and tech­
often suggested, Aristotle’s Rhetoric may be niques viewed as always emergent from the
seen as a response; we have no such response demands of texts? Or should performance
from Aristotle about the performance of liter­ classrooms stress attainment of skills and tech­
ature, as his Poetics is really about dramatic niques of performance (“delivery”) and trust
structure and theatrical production and not that students will learn about textual and
about solo performance.) In one of those char­ critical analysis through courses in literature
acteristic speeches that combine flattery and departments? Socrates’ seemingly innocent
insult, Socrates provides Ion with the follow­ question (similar to questions posed not only
ing set of options: in the Gorgias, about public speaking, but
also by such famous teachers of oratory as
If you’re really a master of your subject, and Isocrates) continues to provide the subject for
if, as I said earlier, you’re cheating me of the debate.
demonstration you promised about Homer,
then you’re doing me wrong. But if you’re
not a master of your subject, if you’re pos­
FROM ELOCUTION TO
sessed by a divine gift from Homer, so that
you make lovely speeches about the poet EXPRESSION TO INTERPRETATION:
without knowing anything—as I said about THE DEBATE OVER THE BODY’S
you—then you’re not doing me wrong. So PERFORMATIVE DISCIPLINE
choose, how do you want us to think of
you—as a man who does something wrong, The research of Bahn and Bahn (1970) sug­
or as someone divine. (2001b, p. 48) gests that the performances of the rhapsodes
and the teaching of interpretation in twentieth
Ion, who is probably not the first and cer­ century American schools are early and late
tainly not the last performer to prefer praise chapters in the same history. At the beginning
as a divinity to critical and moral argument, of the century in which I studied the perfor­
accedes to the “lovelier way.” In doing so, mance of literature, teachers turned away, like
he misses the opportunity to articulate Plato’s Ion, from the mission of explaining
for Socrates what goes into the training and that performance is itself a field of knowl­
education of a performer. Socrates’ flattery edge. In acknowledging the mystery of per­
convinces him to keep mysterious the formance, they preferred concepts like
processes by which the rhapsode creates his “suggestion” and later “communion” (which
performance. focused the student’s attention on the thing
Questions of what constitutes the education performed, a literary text) to examinations
and/or training (the two words suggest very and discussions of the performing body itself.
different pedagogical and philosophical out­ The reasons for this relate to a growing
looks) of the performer of literature persist to distaste among educators for the study of elo­
the present day. How does the performer learn cution, as it had developed in England and
to “perform”? Can performance be taught? America during the eighteenth and nineteenth
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 195

centuries. As taught in private studios and elocutionists and platform entertainers “who
“schools,” and as practiced in settings ranging were not educationally oriented,” as early
from private salons to the public platforms member Frank Rarig remembers (Rarig
of the Lyceum and tent Chautauqua circuits, & Greaves, 1954, p. 499; Edwards, 1999,
elocution had acquired a bad name. At pp. 63–78). It is safe to say that, without the
the end of the nineteenth century, a generation advocacy of the NCA (under its various names),
of charismatic teacher-performers—among the study of interpretation probably would
them, Charles Wesley Emerson, S. S. Curry, have lacked the academic respectability to situ­
Genevieve Stebbins, Leland Powers, and Anna ate itself on a widespread basis in colleges and
Morgan—worked hard to give academic universities. As the study of interpretation
respectability to training in “speech arts,” but receded in the decades following World War II,
largely failed to find a place for such train­ the NCA’s Interpretation Division reinvented
ing in colleges and universities. Curry (1896) itself: in 1991, it became a Performance Studies
advocated the name “expression” for what Division, and resituated literary interpretation
he saw as “The Advance Needed” beyond the as one study among many in a rapidly expand­
“mechanical” and “imitative” practices of ing field. Through the history of the NCA,
“histrionic art” on the elocutionary platform scholars can trace important connections
and the stage (pp. 121, 361–384). The teachers between nineteenth century “elocution” and
of expression emphasized the performer’s twenty-first century “performance,” as theo­
responsiveness to literature’s “suggestiveness,” rized and practiced by generations of educators.
and de-emphasized the cultivation of vocal It is significant, therefore, that the elusive
and bodily techniques. “In the typical lesson” mystery of describing embodied perfor­
of a Curry textbook, mance should present itself at the NCA’s
first annual meeting in 1915. A paper deliv­
the performer should use the body to suggest ered by Maud May Babcock, later published
a poetic speaker’s reactions to a phenome­ in the fledgling Quarterly Journal of Public
non in nature—as the embodiment of a
moment of situated “impression” or total
Speaking, provoked a response by Rollo
perception—rather than trying to imitate Anson Tallcott, which provoked a further
through voice and gesture the thing per­ response by Babcock. The “impersonation”
ceived (rolling waves, crashing surf, squawk­ versus “interpretation” debate of 1916—the
ing gulls, and so forth). Audience members “great debate,” as David A. Williams (1975,
complete the chain-reaction of “suggestive­
p. 43) humorously dubs it—identified issues
ness” by kinesthetically performing the text
in their own bodies. (Edwards, 1999, p. 21) that remained alive for teachers of inter­
pretation through most of the twentieth
Although the study of expression was a century.
short-lived cultural phenomenon, it provided The “great debate” centered around issues
the transition from nineteenth century elocu­ of both definition and appropriateness.
tion to the academic study of interpretation in Babcock, echoing the expression teachers,
the twentieth century. defined interpretation
Any discussion of interpretation or oral
interpretation in American higher education as the presentation of any form of literary
must consider the role played by the National material . . . without the aid of dress, furni­
ture, stage settings, or literal characteriza­
Communication Association (NCA). Founded
tions in voice, action, or make-up. Such
in 1914 as the National Association of presentation must be content with suggest­
Academic Teachers of Public Speaking, the ing the real thing to the imagination of the
organization discouraged the membership of audience. (1916/1940c, p. 85)
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196 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

Impersonation, by contrast, seeks “literal “symptom,” in Foucault’s sense, upon which

characterization” in “realistic surroundings.” a nation turned its gaze for expression of its
Readers interpret, whereas actors imperson­ own understanding of what certain language
ate: “The reader is always himself, while the meant. While some vestiges of the antitheatri­
actor is always some one else” (1916/1940c, cal bias that pervaded middle-class culture in
pp. 85–86). Babcock’s examples support the the United States are surely part of Babcock’s
view that suggestive interpretation appeals to moral aesthetic, her views also reflect the
“the cultured and the learned.” She seeks growth of the Chautauqua circuit and its com­
“prophets and reformers who will raise the petitors: in professional platform entertain­
standards of entire communities by honest ment, what began as a spiritually ennobling
efforts at interpreting literature, for the sake of project devolved eventually into something
the message,” and will not “exploit themselves” more akin to the world of the circus, with
like “vaudeville” performers (p. 93). Performers its sawdust tricks and freak-show exhibitions.
who focus on the techniques of embodied prac­ How legible was the line between the exhibi­
tice, rather than the “message” of the literature tion of the “Venus Hottentot,” the African
itself, risk the charge of exploitation. woman displayed because of her (to Caucasian
The pioneering Babcock established the eyes) outsized buttocks, and the young woman
Speech Department at the University of Utah. or man on an elocutionary platform, nearly
She staged dramatic productions, and was a century later, doing birdcalls and childish
considered the “first lady” of “physical educa­ imitations? In a sense, what was at stake in
tion” at Utah (Engar, n.d.). While it is tempt­ both was a loosening of the discipline of the
ing to read a kind of latter-day Victorianism body—hence, of the mind and spirit, which for
surrounding the body, in the writings of many European and American followers of
Babcock (1916/1940a, 1930/1940b, 1916/ Delsarte in the late nineteenth century made
1940c) and those who were in sympathy with performance a holy act (see, for example,
her position, the situation is not quite so Shaver, 1954).
simple. Babcock deplored “impersonation” While there was a place for theatrical
(under which we might group practices as dis­ “impersonation,” then, in fully staged produc­
parate as the comic character monologue and tions—particularly of the canonical, “secular
the monodrama) as a breach of the aesthetic of scripture” as Northrop Frye (1978) terms it,
what she saw as the “finer art” of interpreta­ the literary culture exemplified by Shakespeare
tion. But she clearly was invested in the culture —Babcock argued both for a return to the
and disciplining of the body: she believed in nobler texts of the lyrical poem (along with
the values of physical education, and partici­ fine examples of the relatively new genre of the
pated in what her university claims was the novel) and for an aesthetic that would appro­
first dramatic production done by an institu­ priately discipline the body to meet its require­
tion of higher learning. Hers was not a simple, ments. Babcock’s call for “interpretation”
stereotypically maidenly reticence regarding over “impersonation” was a call for a return
the indecency of bad behavior—though the to the moral interpretation of literature. While
body has never been an untroubled site of cul­ the body itself has the capacity for elevation,
tural meaning and anxiety, whatever the era. when in harmony with the spiritual and the
Rather, her view of “interpretation” seems moral, it can be debased into mere sensation
a complex nexus of social attitudes towards and easy pleasures of the flesh. So it is,
the body and the cultural position of popular Babcock argued, with literature: one must
entertainment and high art, in which the learn to discriminate between elevated and
body becomes the vessel of meaning: the debased texts. Contemplation of literary
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 197

classics, rather than training in impersonative Addams, interacting with other characters, in
techniques, produces the most valuable disci­ The Member of the Wedding).
plining of the body. Tallcott makes a sensible-sounding argu­
It is important to resist a kind of historical ment: that the kind of literature being
“presentness” in which we place ourselves at performed should dictate which of his four
too far a distance from what may feel like a approaches should be selected. Yet he cannot
bluestocking primness in Babcock’s philoso­ discard the moral imperative of such aesthetic
phy. Less than three decades ago, as a student debates, and concedes the following:
of interpretation, I witnessed how questions of
selection of material became sources of debate, If personation were something indecent,
or positively harmful to education, there
even the grounds for some graduate students
would be an excuse for staunchly refusing to
in my program being failed on their “recital” adopt it; but, on the contrary, it is being
requirement. In some cases, the reason for fail­ shown every day to be not only harmless but
ure was either the student’s poor taste in a very powerful means for stimulation to
selecting material, or the student’s inability the appreciation of interpretation. Taking it
to observe the subtle nuances of language in from a standpoint of true lyceum entertain­
ment, it is a sort of preliminary course to
favor of too robust (usually veiled as “shal­ work of higher cultural value. I believe it is
low”) an actio. just as noble to teach people to entertain
Rollo Tallcott (1916/1940), a faculty well and cleanly as it is to teach literary
member and dean at Ithaca College during interpretation, although, of course, the lat­
Babcock’s years at Utah, responded to ter should always be the final goal; for who
shall say that the primary teacher is doing
Babcock’s initial paper with an attempt to
any less noble work than the high-school
distinguish more finely a spectrum of perfor­ teacher or the college professor? (1916/
mance aesthetics. Tallcott would be best 1940, p. 100)
known for his book The Art of Acting and
Public Reading (1922); the title of that text This passage is fascinating in part because
suggests a philosophy that, while keeping the it turns back and forth on itself, sometimes
two “arts” separate, nonetheless sees them as within a single sentence. While Tallcott argues
related, as part of the same general educa­ for the value of “personative” performance as
tional and aesthetic endeavor. In the “great “clean” entertainment (note the hygienic lan­
debate” of 1916, he argued for four “degrees” guage that we find not only in other parts of
of literary performance, from “interpretative speech pedagogy of the time, but also in other
reading” (which apparently would correspond avenues of public education), he finally con­
to a straightforward reading, done with intel­ cedes that it has the same status, in a sense,
ligence and feeling, in which the personality as using nursery rhymes to introduce infants
and the presence of the reader as such are and young children to the notion of verse and
never disguised), to “impersonative reading” poetry itself. There is a developmental and
(with its greater degree of “suggestive” char­ evolutionary rhetoric at work here.
acterization), “straight personation,” and, Part of the disagreement between Babcock
finally, “acting” (1916/1940, p. 94). The line and Tallcott, as Williams points out, has to do
between “straight personation” and “acting” with a lack of agreement about the meaning
might best be seen in the difference between of the very terms themselves. How much of
performing a one-person monologue (Julie a performer’s attempt to give voice and body
Harris as Emily Dickinson alone onstage in to character “counted” as “impersonation”?
The Belle of Amherst) and acting in a multi- How much “suggestion” was permitted for
character play (Julie Harris as Frankie the performer still to remain in the domain of
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198 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

“interpretation”? What Babcock and Tallcott during the mid-twentieth century, might view
share is a belief in the superiority of sugges­ the pedagogical interest in suggestion and
tiveness to literalness as an aesthetic of perfor­ “non-impersonative” performance as antici­
mance, a philosophy passed down by Curry pating the growth of reader-centered aesthetic
and the “expression” teachers. One can trace and critical theories that emerged in the last
this view back to the ancients. In the Ars quarter of the twentieth century. The call by
Poetica, Horace (trans. 2001) maintains that Babcock and others for performers to remain
the representation of certain actions onstage fully and recognizably “themselves” is conso­
should be discouraged both because such rep­ nant with a more recent interest in featur­
resentations are unbelievable when literalized ing the dialogue between reader and text.
and because to perform them violates codes of Performance theorist Dwight Conquergood
decorum: an audience can visualize the blind­ (1985) describes the possibility for such
ing of Oedipus more vividly and profitably in dialogues, for example, in his Bakhtinian
the mind’s eye than through any enactment of approach to the literary experience. This inter­
it onstage. est also finds its place in the growth of hybrid
The American teachers who made “sugges­ forms of personal narrative performance. In
tion” one of the hallmarks of interpretation’s memorable performances by John Anderson
aesthetics related the concept not only to of Emerson College, a literary text becomes
issues of decorum and probability but to the a kind of intertextual opportunity for the
comparatively new psychological approach to juxtaposition of personal experience and the
speech and communication advanced by such expressive values that literary texts may serve
scholars as Charles Henry Woolbert. It was in our lives. One performance by Anderson—
Woolbert’s mission, during the first three a bricolage of sections of Faulkner’s As I Lay
decades of the twentieth century, to transform Dying, an audiotape recording of a past family
“public speaking” into “speech science,” in dinner, and his own narrated memories of his
professional settings like the forerunner orga­ mother’s death—extends and complicates
nization of the present-day NCA. His “theory some of the concerns Babcock and Tallcott
of delivery” drew upon “current academic articulate in their debate. Notably it presents
psychology” rather than the training routines a “reader” who “is always himself” (unlike
of nineteenth century elocutionists; the theory Babcock’s “actor” who “is always some one
viewed suggestion as more psychologically else”)—but in ways that exceed what Babcock
“real,” valuable, and satisfying to the interior seems to have imagined.
life of the performer and audience than In attempting to lead performers away from
pantomime or impersonation (Cohen, 1994, elocution’s mechanical rules of voice and body
pp. 49–53; Gray, 1954, pp. 436–440). As training, the influential Babcock rejected even
Williams (1975, pp. 52–53) notes in his essay Tallcott’s modest attempt to categorize and
on the “great debate,” the aesthetic of sugges­ relate performance modes. The mystery of sug­
tion continued to dominate the work of such gestive performance began and ended with
major postwar teachers as Charlotte Lee. As contemplation of the literary text. Ironically, as
revised by coauthor Tim Gura, the tenth edi­ the twentieth century progressed, the practical
tion of the well-known Lee textbook Oral difficulty of cultivating a suggestive delivery led
Interpretation (2001) carries suggestion into to a return of mechanical rules and regulations
the twenty-first century as one of the bedrocks that often seem quite removed from either a
of its aesthetic. clearly articulated rationale for their necessity
Careful and sympathetic readers of the text­ or superiority over other rules, or the specific
book literature of interpretation, as this grew requirements of the text being performed. At
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 199

national and regional conferences of communi­ described by Wallace Bacon, whose influential
cation educators, many of whom judge compe­ textbook went through three editions between
titions at the secondary school and college 1966 and 1979. Bacon takes the important
levels, a lively debate continues from year to step of largely eliminating discussions of
year about judging standards (although this physical and vocal technique: the student’s
kind of debate tends to take place in hallways preparation for performance consists chiefly
and over dinner tables rather than at formal of “communion” with a literary text. “Surely
sessions). In competitive performance, a set communication is important,” Bacon writes,
of rules for judging “oral interpretation” and but communication need not take place
“readers theatre” still obtains. A physical script between a performer and an audience:
(sedimented into small black notebooks which
are de rigueur) must be present; offstage focus If it is true that the study of literature itself
(even in such events as the duet performance of is valuable, and that literature gives forth
its fullest secrets when it is articulately
dramatic literature) must be maintained; move­ sounded, then the study of interpretation is
ment must be limited; and contestants receive valuable for the student because the litera­
reminders that a given event falls in an “inter­ ture which he sounds gives forth its secrets
pretation” category and not an “acting” one. to him, whether or not others are listening.
As recently as the 1990s, when I was a judge (1966, pp. 5–6)
for such contests at both the secondary and col­
lege levels, such criteria for “suggestiveness” For Bacon, interpretation is an art of the
were stated on ballots. Rule violations consti­ body, but the performer’s body requires no
tuted grounds for lowered evaluations or even discussion. Bacon achieves a canny shifting
disqualification. of the “locus” and identity of the body at
Tallcott’s approach to performance has the the center of the study: he takes as his concern
potential to be more open-ended and less rule- the poem’s body, which the performer’s body
obsessed. A knowledgeable acting teacher must “match.” In later editions of the text­
should understand the need for different per­ book, the concept of “matching” becomes
formance aesthetics for a chorus speech from the primary guide in the disciplining of the
a Greek tragedy and a character monologue performer’s body:
from a play by Albee or Mamet. Such a teacher
should be able to draw such distinctions It is perhaps not too much to suggest that
there is a kind of love relationship between
among different kinds of literature, or at least reader and poem, each reaching out to
between different specific texts: Eliot’s dra­ the other. The interpreter must not deny
matic lyrics “act” differently from Browning’s to the body of the poem its right to exist.
“dramatic monologues,” for example. With (1972, p. 34)
the growth of presentational aesthetics in pro­
fessional theatre, the need for the actor to Performance, like growth in nature, “is not
understand the demands of narrative and lyric a matter of information; it is in some final way
texts becomes an imperative for flexibility. a mystery to which we pay homage” (1972,
Yet Babcock’s championing of the sugges­ p. 35). Like any mystery, there are things
tive delivery of quality literature, to appeal to about performance that cannot be articulated
the tastes of “the cultured and the learned,” in language.
appears to have had a more lasting influence It is misleading to speak only of Bacon’s
on the pedagogy of interpretation during the singular achievement, for other educators
twentieth century (see, for example, Johnson, in the postwar era continued to teach
1940). It survives in the “art” of interpretation and practice oral interpretation in more
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200 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

technique-oriented ways that favored public within the NCA (see Edwards, 1999, pp.
recital over literary study. (My example of 16–33, 85–93; Rein, 1981, pp. 53, 77–82,
secondary school contests suggests one place 154–155).
where the “platform art” has continued to But as Bacon’s career came to an end, the
thrive since the age of oratorical culture and demise of interpretation as an academic
the elocution studio.) But Bacon came to the study seemed not very far away. An important
teaching of interpretation at a time when essay in the prestigious NCA journal Commu­
training in technique was in decline. As Lynn nication Monographs announced the need to
Miller Rein (1981) has documented in her reexamine the interpretation course, by chal­
history of the Northwestern University School lenging what might be considered a “text”
of Speech, the ebbing of support for technical available for, and legitimate for, study through
training seems to have provoked the resigna­ performance. In “A New Look at Per­
tion of C. C. Cunningham as department chair formance,” Elizabeth C. Fine and Jean Haskell
of interpretation. During the nearly two- Speer (1977) threw down the gauntlet by stat­
decade Cunningham era at Northwestern, two ing: “For the greater part of the academic
successive deans of Speech made deep cuts in history of oral interpretation, performance has
the resources for Interpretation. Ralph Dennis been acknowledged as one of the most effective
had fired the “individual instruction” staff ways to understand literature and treated as a
during the Great Depression; his successor means to that end, but seldom has it been
James McBurney provoked Cunningham’s examined in its own right” (p. 389). Their arti­
protests by failing, among other things, to pro­ cle, drawing on the work of such current folk­
vide adequate studio space for student prac­ lorists and ethnographers as Richard Bauman,
tice. In the age of radio and sound film, Roger Abrahams, and Dell Hymes, called for
McBurney clearly saw the “platform art” of performers, teachers, and scholars to expand
oral interpretation, which Cunningham prac­ both their methodologies (to include the bur­
ticed impressively, as a vanishing academic geoning work being done by social scientists
discipline in the postwar years; it had vanished in such fields as anthropology, sociology, and
already, since the demise of Chautauqua psychology) and the objects of their study
circuits, as a popular entertainment form. (beyond those traditionally considered “litera­
McBurney’s choice for Cunningham’s replace­ ture”). Fine and Speer’s article is best seen per­
ment was Bacon, a PhD in English from the haps as an articulation of a shift of possibilities
University of Michigan with no “interpreta­ rather than as a prescription for (or proscrip­
tion” experience whatsoever. It was part of tion of) the performance of literature—an
Bacon’s charge, as the new chair of Interpre­ opening up of possibilities rather than yet
tation, to improve the academic respectability another narrowing of the locus of study.
of a program that had clung too firmly to its In the wake of the Fine and Speer essay, a
roots in the “elocution and oratory” curricu­ growing number of interpretation teachers
lum of the nineteenth century. Among Bacon’s affiliated with the NCA saw the need to decen­
achievements were the exponential growth of ter literary study within the discipline. Ronald
Interpretation’s PhD program and, within Pelias (1985) argued that “interpretation
national and regional associations of speech thought and performance criticism” can be
educators, the increased visibility of North­ divided into four schools, which intersect with
western’s interpretation department as a cen­ each other and are often coexistent in the
ter for literary study. In the decades preceding classroom. Performance is (1) performing art;
his retirement in 1979, Bacon became the pre­ (2) communicative act; (3) self-discovery; and
eminent figure in interpretation scholarship (4) literary study. While acknowledging the
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 201

dominance of literary study throughout the Conquergood (1986) sounded a similar warn­
twentieth century, Pelias resituated it in a ing to members of the NCA’s Interpretation
wider field of concerns. So did Jill Taft- Division:
Kaufman (1985) in her review of twentieth
century theory and practice by scholars and We cannot claim proprietary rights to “per­
teachers associated with the NCA’s Interpreta­ formance” simply because we have hus­
banded it as a well-kept secret for so long.
tion Division: a wideranging interest in perfor­
Nor can we expect other disciplines to take
mance research had replaced the mid-century seriously our claims about performance if we
dominance of text-centered literary studies. As are not willing to have them tested in the
noted above, a Performance Studies Division public arena of disciplinary exchange. (p. 30)
emerged from the NCA’s Interpretation
Division a mere six years later. Autism becomes a valuable metaphor for
The postwar era in American speech educa­ a phenomenon that my former teacher Lilla
tion, in short, witnessed a series of resituatings Heston never considered: the collective inabil­
of the body within different conceptions of ity of “interpreters” to explain themselves to
“text” and the different disciplines of embodi­ those not afflicted with their condition. The
ment they suggested. Contrasting disciplines mystification and undertheorizing of perfor­
were required by the literary study advocated mance by an Ion anticipates the unwillingness
by Bacon, and by the questioning of the very of interpretation teachers in the twentieth
assumptions of such study called for by Fine century to investigate and explain how the
and Speer—the kind of questioning that performing body performs. From Babcock’s
cleared the way for the paradigm shift from promotion of suggestive interpretation, before
the study of textual interpretation to the study the first meeting of the future NCA, to Bacon’s
of performance in its own right. advocacy of audience-less “communion” with
At the beginning of the essay, I invoked the poem, the pedagogy of interpretation has
autism as a powerful metaphor for the body in emphasized the mystery of its processes rather
performance, and related this term to peda­ than the possibility of their explication.
gogical approaches: the methods used to edu­ I certainly do not wish to suggest that the
cate, train, or discipline that body. It seems to history I have recounted is merely a patholog­
me that some important parts of the history of ical or self-defeating one. In a sense, this is the
interpretation pedagogy have been character­ reason I invoke Mark Haddon’s novel, with its
ized by teachers who, for a variety of reasons, autistic narrator/hero, in one of the preludes to
were uncommunicative about their work this essay. The novel teaches us to live inside
to anyone but their own colleagues and the autistic’s experience—to value it for what
students. Taft-Kaufman perceptively assessed it offers, and to understand how what it does
the “dearth of published research” as a prag­ not offer alters significantly what its narrator
matic concern for professional growth, and a can and cannot know and tell us (and himself).
contributing factor to “disciplinary isolation” The autistic’s way of knowing the world can
(1985, pp. 179–181); at the heart of her con­ offer him or her strengths that other people
cern, nearly twenty years ago, was a scholarly do not possess, and can lead to certain kinds
discipline of teacher-practitioners who bor­ of discoveries and ways of knowing that
rowed their theory from other disciplines add immeasurably to the world. Consider, for
(notably literary studies) and “published” example, Temple Grandin’s Thinking in
their applications of that theory in the con­ Pictures (1996). Here the autistic professor of
stantly vanishing records of classroom perfor­ animal sciences eloquently articulates what it
mances and productions on campus stages. means to live inside her body and mind. Her
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202 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

condition has enabled her to help make the she teach?” After a moment of stunned silence
way she works with farm animals such as (how could someone who teaches perfor­
cattle more “humane,” more centered on the mance not know who Elizabeth Bishop is?),
experiences of animals, than it would have and after I explained, with a somewhat edgy
been without her autism; her work has guided tone to my voice, that she happened to be one
nonautistic members of her profession. Like of the five greatest postwar poets, she replied,
Ion’s “autism,” the metaphorical autism with no defensiveness, “Well, I don’t really
Babcock or Bacon—in needing to keep inter­ know literature that well. My majors were
pretation something somehow private, not communication and history.”
contaminated by appeals to the masses—is a And, the more I thought about it, the more
necessary and valuable, if troublesome, part of I realized that I needed to rethink my own
our history as teachers and students. Or so it response. My colleague took her undergradu­
seems, after the study of “interpretation” has ate degree at a small liberal arts college where
vanished into the study of “performance.” there were no courses in the performance of lit­
erature, her masters in a general communica­
tion program, and her doctorate from a highly
THE ART OF LOSING—OR NOT?
regarded program where performance studies
As we continue to become more varied as is much more situated in ethnography, com­
teachers, students, and performers, there may munication theory, and folkloric studies. There
be, for many, an inevitable sense of loss. Yet is absolutely no reason why I should have had
there is no reason to lose a sense of a shared the right to expect that she would know Bishop
culture and history. New performers and per­ and this particular poem (1978)—though my
formances will continue to take on cultural own generation of students probably could
and even canonical status. They may expand have recited much of the poem by heart.
our sense of text to include such performances My colleague, however, is steeped in ethno­
that cross borders, such as John Anderson’s As graphic theory and method and has a far more
I Lay Dying collage, which will remain etched sophisticated understanding of what is at stake
in my memory and in my body as long as I in such performance traditions than I have.
breathe. They may be the folkloric storytelling Her work on the life stories of Holocaust sur­
performances of John Gentile and Penninah vivors is every bit as detailed, specific, and tex­
Schramm. They may be the performative writ­ tually sophisticated and insightful as my own
ings performed by Amy Burt and Scott Dillard, might be on Bishop’s texts. I also know, on the
to name just two individuals whose autobio­ basis of three years of teaching with this col­
graphical work seems to me indistinguishable league, that her study of the texts produced by
from any category of literature I know. people in interviews and everyday conversa­
I struggle to emerge from my own literary- tions has taught her what she needs to know in
centered autism. A few years ago my depart­ order to lead her students into a world of per­
ment hired a new faculty member, whose forming poetry, short stories, diaries, letters,
teaching assignment would center around sto­ plays, and other kinds of texts: a careful way
rytelling and other courses in performance of listening to and responding to the voices
studies, including the beginning course in the and bodies of others (not unlike the positive
analysis and performance of literature. In con­ qualities associated with some forms of
versation, I said to my colleague, “Well, as autism, as can be seen in the autobiographical
Elizabeth Bishop says, ‘The art of losing isn’t writings of Prince-Hughes and Grandin).
hard to master,’” to which my young col­ When I have her students in my advanced
league replied “Elizabeth Bishop? Where does classes in the performance of literature, I have
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The Body in the Performance of Literature 203

confidence that they know how to approach performance. Literature in Performance, 5(2),
a text in performance. It no longer seems so 1–13.
Conquergood, D. (1986). Between experience and
important whether she brings them to that
meaning: Performance as a paradigm for
knowledge through Bishop’s compressed meaningful action. In T. Colson (Ed.),
lyrics, or through a dense description of one of Renewal and revision: The future of interpre­
her participants speaking of liberation from tation (pp. 26–59). Denton, TX: NB Omega.
Auschwitz. The words of a poem, the words of Cunningham, C. C. (1941). Literature as a fine art.
an interview: they speak to each other, not in New York: Nelson.
Curry, S. S. (1896). Imagination and dramatic
separate, isolated, “autistic” realms, but in a
instinct. Boston: School of Expression.
shared knowledge of loss. There is art in both, Doyle, A. C. (1963). Silver Blaze. The memoirs of
there is loss—but there is no loss of art. Sherlock Holmes (pp. 7–33). New York:
Berkley Medallion. (Original work published
1890)
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Edwards. P. C. (1999). Unstoried: Teaching litera­
Babcock, M. M. (1940a). Impersonation versus ture in the age of performance studies. Theatre
interpretation. In G. E. Johnson (Ed.), Studies Annual, 52, 1–147.
in the art of interpretation (pp. 102–105). Engar, A. (n.d.). Maud May Babcock. Retrieved
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Original March 5, 2004, from http://www.media.utah
work published 1916) .edu/UHE/b/BABCOCK,MAUDE.html
Babcock, M. M. (1940b). Interpretation or imper­ Fine, E. C., & Speer, J. H. (1977). A new look
sonation. In G. E. Johnson (Ed.), Studies in the at performance. Communication Monographs
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Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Original work pub­ Foucault, M. (1973). The birth of the clinic: An
lished 1930) archeology of medical perception (A. Sheridan,
Babcock, M. M. (1940c). Interpretative presenta­ Trans.). New York: Pantheon. (Original work
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G. E. Johnson (Ed.), Studies in the art of inter­ Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline & punish: The
pretation (pp. 85–93). New York: Appleton­ birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.).
Century-Crofts. (Original work published New York: Pantheon. (Original work pub­
1916) lished 1961)
Bacon, W. A. (1966). The art of interpretation. Frye, N. (1988). Northrop Frye on Shakespeare.
New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bacon, W. A. (1972). The art of interpretation Frye, N. (1978). The secular scripture. Cambridge,
(2nd ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart and MA: Harvard University Press.
Winston. Geiger, D. (1967). The dramatic impulse in modern
Bacon, W. A., & Breen, R. S. (1959). Literature as poetics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State
experience. New York: McGraw-Hill. University Press.
Bahn, E., & Bahn, M. L. (1970). A history of oral Gentile, J. S. (1989). Cast of one: One-person shows-
interpretation. Minneapolis: Burgess. from the Chautauqua platform to the Broadway
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination: stage. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois
Four essays (C. Emerson & M. Holquist, Press.
Trans.). Austin: University of Texas Press. Grandin, T. (1996). Thinking in pictures.
(Original work published 1975) New York: Vintage.
Bishop, E. (1978). One art. In Geography III Gray, G. W. (1954). Some teachers and the transition
(pp. 40–41). New York: Farrar, Straus and to twentieth-century speech education. In K. R.
Giroux. Wallace (Ed.), History of speech education in
Cohen, H. (1994). The history of speech commu­ America: Background studies (pp. 422–446).
nication: The emergence of a discipline, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
1914–1945. Annandale, VA: Speech Commu­ Haddon, M. (2003). The curious incident of the
nication Association. dog in the night-time. New York: Doubleday.
Conquergood, D. (1985). Performing as a moral Horace. (2001). Ars poetica (D. A. Russell, Trans.).
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York: Norton. School of Speech: A history. Evanston, IL:
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interpretation. New York: Appleton-Century- Robb, M. M. (1968). Oral interpretation of litera­
Crofts. ture in American colleges and universities
Lee, C., & Gura., T. (2001). Oral interpretation (Rev. ed.). New York: Johnson Reprint.
(10th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Schechner, R. (2002). Performance studies: An
Lord, A. B. (2000). The singer of tales (2nd ed.). introduction. London: Routledge.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shaver, C. L. (1954). Steele MacKaye and the
Parry, A., (Ed.). (1987). The making of Homeric Delsartian tradition. In K. R. Wallace (Ed.),
verse: The collected papers of Milman Parry. History of speech education in America:
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Background studies (pp. 202–218). New York:
Pelias, R. J. (1985). Schools of interpretation Appleton-Century-Crofts.
thought and performance criticism. Southern Spufford, F. (2002). The child that books built: A
Speech Communication Journal, 50, 348–365. life in reading. New York: Metropolitan.
Plato. (1998). Gorgias (J. H. Nichols, Jr., Trans.). Taft-Kaufman, J. (1985). Oral interpretation:
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Twentieth-century theory and practice. In
Plato. (2001a). From Phaedrus (A. Nehamas & T. W. Benson (Ed.), Speech communication in
P. Woodruff, Trans.). In V. B. Leitch (Gen. the 20th century (pp. 157–183). Carbondale:
Ed.), The Norton anthology of theory and crit­ Southern Illinois University Press.
icism (pp. 81–85). New York: Norton. Tallcott, R. (1922). The art of acting and public
Plato. (2001b). Ion (P. Woodruff, Trans.). In V. B. reading. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Leitch (Gen. Ed.), The Norton anthology of Tallcott, R. (1940). The place for personation.
theory and criticism (pp. 37–48). New York: In G. E. Johnson (Ed.), Studies in the art of
Norton. interpretation (pp. 102–105). New York:
Prince-Hughes, D. (2004). Songs of the gorilla Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Original work pub­
nation: My journey through autism. lished 1916)
New York: Harmony Books. Williams, D. A. (1975). Impersonation: The great
Rarig, F. M., & Greaves, H. S. (1954). National debate. In R. Haas & D. A. Williams (Eds.),
speech organizations and speech education. In The study of oral interpretation: Theory and
K. R. Wallace (Ed.), History of speech education comment (pp. 43–57). Indianapolis, IN:
in America: Background studies (pp. 490–517). Bobbs-Merrill.
New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
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12
On the Bias
From Performance of Literature
to Performance Composition*

RUTH LAURION BOWMAN AND MICHAEL S. BOWMAN

Every pattern piece bears markings that together constitute a “sign language,”
indispensable to . . . every stage [of the process]. . . . Note all symbols carefully. . . .
Some pertain to alteration.
—Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Sewing (1976, p. 57)

PREFACE: SEAM-STRESSES tosses her paper bits into the air . . . like snow.
A light rises on the “Veiled Lady,” upstage
behind blinds. X-fade of lights from Girl Friday
and the Seamstress to Coverdale and Mrs.
[Blinds, a platform with stairs, and a bathtub. Moodie as they enter into isolated spots.
A seamstress is sewing as the audience enters.
Lights fade to black. Lights rise on the seam­ Possible inclusion: As the last few women
stress and then the full stage as seven women place their remnants in the tub and exit and
enter from upstage with pieces of fabric. One Girl Friday begins to make snow, a short
woman, Girl Friday, has paper. The women excerpt from Rear Window is projected on a
position themselves across the stage, Girl pair of half-opened blinds. In the excerpt, Lisa
Friday in the tub. In various rhythms, the Fremont stares out of Jeffries’ rear window
women rip, tear, rend the fabric . . . and the and then says to him, “Tell me everything
paper. The women gather the torn remnants, you saw. And what you think it means.”]
place them in the tub and exit. Lights isolate (R. Bowman, 2003, p. 1)
the Seamstress and Girl Friday who, in the tub,

205
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206 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

On June 29, 1854, the Boston New Era obliquely, so (confound it) at ease in its ability
published an account concerning a woman to rise from the sofa and take its leave of me.
who had “imparted energy to a machine” I’m not ready for that to happen. I am in love.
(Brandon, 1983, p. 8). “Through the instru­ I am in love with my electric light bulb Eureka
mentality of J. M. Spear,” a Universalist cler­ moment on mesmerism. It turns me on.
gyman, philanthropist and, in all likelihood, It turns me on, out the door, and into the
the author of the reported incident, street where the vendors of mesmerism display
their varied goods. As I pick through the bits
a request came . . . that on a certain day and pieces, the nubby wools and slick satins, I
[ Mrs. ___ ] would visit the tower at High realize that I am not in love with mesmerism
Rock . . . . When there . . . she began to
experience the peculiar and agonizing sensa­
itself; I am in love with its remnants. I am
tions of parturition, differing somewhat in love with what people have made out of
from the ordinary experience, in as much as the always already leftovers of mesmerism
the throes were internal, and of the spirit and what I can make with them now. I want
rather than of the physical nature, but nev­ to make something, too. Actually, I want
ertheless quite as uncontrollable, and not
to make something that becomes a remnant.
less severe than those pertaining to the lat­
ter. This extraordinary physical phenome­ Disposable. Reusable—perhaps. For me, a
non continued for about the space of two memory that hangs out with my Eureka
hours . . . the most interior and refined ele­ moment on the sofa at home.
ments of her spiritual being were imparted I collect to make a remnant. It is a model,
to, and absorbed by, the appropriate por­ a pose, a figure—of a woman who gave birth
tions of the mechanism [which, by means of
“superior direction” had appeared on High
to an electric babe.
Rock]. . . .
The result of this phenomenon was, that
indications of life or pulsations became TWO CLASSROOMS
apparent in the mechanism; first to her own warp n: 1 a (1): a series of yarns extended
keenly sensitive touch, and soon after to the lengthwise in a loom and crossed by the woof
eyes of all beholders. These pulsations con­ b: FOUNDATION, BASE <the – of the eco­
tinued for some weeks, precisely analogous nomic structure is agriculture . . . 3 a: a twist
to that of nursing (for which preparation or curve that has developed in something
had previously been made in her own orga­ orig. flat or straight . . . b: a mental twist or
nization) until at times a very marked and aberration. (Webster’s, 1975, p. 1320)
surprising motion resulted. . . .
Neither Mrs. ___ nor myself can profess
to have, as yet, any definite conception Let us imagine two performance class­
as to what this “new born child,” the so- rooms. Although they may be located in the
called “Electrical Motor” is to be. . . . But same building, they are separated by a great
the incalculable benefits which have already distance. In the first classroom, by means of
accrued to us in the unfoldings of the inte­ constant vigilance, conducted with great effort,
rior principles of physical and human
science have overwhelmingly compensated
a distinction between text and performance
us for all that it has cost us, whether in is maintained. In this classroom, if a student
means or reputation. (quoted in Brandon, appears, one who specializes in that particular
1983, pp. 9–10; emphasis in original) kind of performance that relies too heavily
on improvisation, personality, or technique, he
When ambling through the rooms of my will be led to the classroom door and sent
mind-on-mesmerism, I always find this account down the hall or across campus to some other
firmly ensconced on the sofa in the living room, place. In this classroom, the law holds that
the weight of a large lap cat, smiling smugly, only the text may be performed. The teacher’s
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On the Bias 207

business is to judge, first of all, whether the text most recently been called “Oral Interpreta­
was indeed performed but, more importantly, tion” or “Performance of Literature.” Wallace
whether certain performances have crossed an Bacon, who was chair for many years of the
invisible line and, by leaving out too much or Department of Interpretation at Northwestern
by putting too much in, have left the protected University, wrote about the difficulty of life in
zone of the text for the contraband zone the first classroom. He argued that the art of
beyond the text. Attempting to eliminate the interpretation consisted in sailing between the
need for this continual ad hoc adjudication, “dangerous shores” of text and performance
the teacher tries to draft rules from examples without steering too closely to either. But,
that would clearly distinguish, in principle, at the end of the day, those of us who were
between the allowed and the forbidden, a per­ trained in Interpretation knew from which
formance of the text and a performance that shore the interpreter’s craft had departed and
goes beyond the text. When drafted, these rules to which shore it was to return. Oral interpre­
allow teachers and students to detect improper tation was about the art of reading literature
performances, ones characterized by too much aloud—a special kind of literary appreciation,
improvisation or imagination or invention. The to be sure, but literary appreciation nonethe­
teacher calls these rules “Interpretation.” less. Its very identity as a practice hinged on
the conviction that “[1]iterary appreciation
weft n: 1 a: WOOF b: yarn used for the for the silent reader and literary appreciation
woof . . . 1 woof n: 1 a: a filling thread or for the oral performer are in some respects
yarn in weaving . . . 2 woof n: 1: a low gruff
sound typically produced by a dog . . . 3
vitally distinct” (Bacon, 1960/1975, p. 4).
woof vi: to make the sound of a woof. Variations in the weave of fabrics arise
(Webster’s, 1975, pp. 1328, 1350) from how the warp and weft are patterned to
intersect. For instance, a common plain weave
In the second classroom, the opposition typically recites, “No give Woof No give Woof
between text and performance has been aban­ No give Woof No give Woof,” while a jaunty
doned. Here, the students and teacher attend twill riffs, “Woof Woof No give No give Woof
only to the consequences resulting from what Woof No give No give Woof No give No give
happens onstage. The air seems less clear in Woof Woof.”
here, almost impossibly dense, as if the sounds Proof of that conviction came when a
and images were accumulating somehow, con­ reader was able to demonstrate his or her
densing, no longer cleansed by the freshening understanding of the text in the performance
breeze of the text. It is difficult to get one’s itself. Reading aloud helps us participate in the
bearings in here, to locate any fixed, solid life of the text—not just the lexical meanings
point by which to navigate. Yet, an odd liveli­ of the words, but also its tensions, motives,
ness has appeared in the classroom, a charge ambiguities, ironies, and other complexities—
of sensations curiously different from those in a way that silent reading often does not.
who were in the first classroom. Such participation enhances our knowledge of
Because the warp has very little give or the text and what it is attempting to do or say.
stretch, most garments are cut to fall vertically With such knowledge, we can begin to partic­
on the warp or lengthwise grain. In turn, the ipate even more fully in the life of the text
more giving weft or crosswise grain of the through ever more “lively” performances.
fabric runs horizontally across the garment, Over time, this process of discovery and
around the bulk of the body. refinement should progress to a point where
These two classrooms do not really exist, the inner life of the text and the inner life of
although they have names. The first one has the reader begin to coalesce or “match.” And
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208 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

when that point comes, the liveliness of the work together to realign crooked intersec­
reader’s performance should be congruent tions. On the other hand, rolling with the
with that of the text. If the performance dis­ distortion may well be worth the experience.
plays too little life, the reader has misunder­
stood the lesson performance was meant to
WHAT WAS ORAL
teach him or her; if the performance displays
INTERPRETATION?
too much life, has become too showy or spec­
tacular, then he or she has answered the siren’s
call of another sort of error, a kind of egotism, [Audience talk erupts forth. Seamstress contin­
forgetting that the text is the interpreter’s ues to plant weeds upstage left.]
whole excuse for being (Bacon, 1960/1975,
p. 5; Bacon, 1979, pp. 5–10, 35–40, 70–74). AUD A: By common consent, the
whole nation has gone mad
1 bias n: a line diagonal to the grain of a fab­ on the gaseous fumes of
ric . . . 2 a: an inclination of temperament mesmerism!
or outlook . . . : PREJUDICE <a–in favor
of jolly fat men> b: BENT TENDENCY . . . AUD B: And why not! For once there
3 a: a peculiarity in the shape of a bowl that is a serious, scientific expla­
causes it to swerve when rolled on the nation of nature, her forces,
green . . . syn see PREDILECTION—on the and in turn those that govern
bias: ASKEW, OBLIQUELY society and politics.
2 bias adj: DIAGONAL, SLANTING—used AUD C: It also proves the existence of
chiefly of fabrics and their cut . . . a soul in mankind!
4 bias vt: 1: to give a settled and often preju­ AUD A: How convenient for you
diced outlook . . . 2: to apply a slight negative . . . that the fundamental truth,
or positive voltage. (Webster’s, 1975, p. 106) the power behind all things, is
an invisible fluid that no one
We were trained primarily in classrooms can see!
resembling the first one, and we still venture
AUD C: But you assume that sight is
into them on occasion. But we now spend
the arbiter of truth.
most of our time trying to imagine the second.
The second classroom seems newer to us than AUD A: No, I’m saying the almighty
the first one, perhaps because the names we buck is . . . and that’s the only
give it, “Performance Art” or “Performance thing mesmerism proves. Why
anyone who has a penny for a
Composition,” are relatively new. It is tempt­
“do-it-yourself” guide to mes­
ing to say that the second classroom is evolv­
merism has opened a shop,
ing from the first in a process akin to natural enlisted their daughters as
selection or adaptation, but the more time we mediums and paraded the
spend there, the less convinced we are of the product in connection with
accuracy of that kind of narrative. So let us tell ads for seegars, pills, hair oil,
another story. and cough candies.
When the warp and weft meet at a crooked AUD C: But your very argument is
intersection, they are off their grain and on grounded in material matters
the grain of the bias. They have become jolly whereas mesmerism not only
fat men. They have become jolly fat men addresses physical maladies
who swerve obliquely when rolled on a green. but moral and spiritual ones
Perhaps this is why at least two people should too.
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On the Bias 209

AUD A: Entire families, little magne­ AUD B: But it’s been proven that
tized troupes, strutting their subjects won’t perform acts
stuff on the stage alongside contrary to their normal
striped pigs and laughing gas. behavior.
AUD D: It’s the work of the devil! AUD A: And we all know what’s “nor­
mal,” right? We’ve all read
AUD C: No, it’s the one true religion:
“Confessions of a Magnetizer,”
god’s universal sunshine pour­
correct? First hand testimony
ing its beams into the dun­
that mesmerism exploits our
geon we’ve made of religion.
sexual drives.
AUD A: What?!
AUD D: It’s rape and debauchery is
AUD B: In scientific terms, mesmerism what it is! A villainous art
accounts for all the unex­ where profligate men of
plained events that the mira­ depraved appetites take a
cle mongers of virtually every disgusting delight in seduc­
religion have used to shackle ing half-witted girls whose
mankind to them. parents have prostituted them
to this wicked trade.
AUD C: Yes, that’s it! With mes­
merism, anyone can contact AUD B: Rehash! Rehash of the sensa­
god and enter heaven on their tionalist press! You’ve bought
own accord without some their quackery hook, line and
select priesthood standing in sinker!
the way. Mesmerism Democ­
ratizes Religion! AUD D: No, I’ve seen it. Zombies
stretched beamlike between
AUD A: Hogwash! It simply replaces chairs! Fluid darting from
one intermediary for another; the eye of the operator to
the magnetizer for the priest. penetrate the brain of the
AUD B: Initially, perhaps, but once we bewitched! A cloudy haze
learn more each of us will be streaming from the mes­
able to draw on the universal merist’s fingers! Insects elec­
fluid as we will. trified in magnetized water!
It’s witchcraft, plain and
AUD C: A will derived from the will of simple.
God!
AUD B: You’ve been brainwashed by
AUD A: . . . which will lead to the the press!
same old chaos. Your faith in
some universal moral “Will” AUD A: Exactly! And just as she’s been
we each use as we “Will” is brainwashed by the press, so
ludicrous. You’ve only to look too but to a far greater extent
around to see the perversions: mesmerism can be used to
Here we are having paid our induce the public body
buck to watch one man to mass hysteria, such as led
seduce another! There’s uni­ to the witch-burnings in the
versal morality for you! old countries and in our own.
AUD D: Black magic is what it is: AUD B: But it also can be used to per­
Satan’s way of claiming inno­ fect mankind. Would you have
cent souls! us revert back to the brute
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210 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

force of muscle? Cast aside 1840s, after which it ceded popular strength
the discoveries of steam, and and its more sensational phenomena, such as
electricity, and now mankind’s table-turning and clairvoyance, to its big sister,
own telegraphic force of spiritualism. Touted as a universal cure, mes­
nature? Why it may allow us merism captivated the public because it cut
to perform surgeries without
across the predominant intellectual currents
an anesthetic, address the
of the day, binding enlightened rationalism
vagaries of the nervous sys­
tem, improve the concentra­ (soon to become pragmatism), transcendental
tion of industrial workers . . . romanticism, and burgeoning capitalism in
the common cause and Victorian vision of
AUD C: Convert pagans to Christianity! progress. Moreover, its physiological, psycho­
AUD B: In sum, it reveals the power logical, spiritual, social, and theatrical facets
of the mind over matter and “could be embraced selectively. One could
thereby all discord can be pick and choose what one wanted and
cured and eliminated. needed” (Kaplan, 1975, p. 7). What John
AUD A: Whose mind!? Whose mat­ Priestley said of electricity could also be said
ter!? Your simple equation of mesmerism: “As the agent is invisible, every
ignores the very real horrors philosopher is at liberty to make it whatever
of urbanization, industrializa­ he pleases” (quoted in Darnton, 1968, p. 16).
tion, slavery . . . We were fortunate enough to begin our
AUD B: Oh god, an abolitionist too! careers at a moment when the discipline we
trained for disappeared. We entered a gradu­
AUD A: It’s the hocus-pocus of ate degree program in oral interpretation at
utopian cant in the hocus­
Northwestern University in the early 1980s,
pocus of the side-show, which
and we spent the next few years studying the
proves nothing at all!
histories, theories, and practices of oral inter­
GIRL FRIDAY: [To Coverdale.] . . . more or pretation, with the aim of entering a profes­
less than the extraordinary sion where we could teach others how to read
power of the imagination: a and perform literature. But by the time we
shift from common sense, as
finished graduate school, the degrees they
we know it anyway, to a will­
gave us were in something else: performance
ingness to imagine a situation
and play within it. studies. There are only a handful of us who
hold master’s degrees in interpretation and
COVERDALE: Which may well reveal the PhDs in performance studies. The discipli­
appalling emptiness nary tensions and turmoil of the 1980s may
GIRL FRIDAY: or possibilities not be written on our bodies, exactly, but
they are always written there at the top of
COVERDALE: of the self.
our CVs.
(R. Bowman, 2003, pp. 68–71; see Brandon, 1983, p. 39;
In all electrical phenomena we observe
Coale, 1998, p. 4; Collyer, 1838, pp. 19, 25; Du Potet de
Sennevoy, 1838, p. 341; Ewer, 1855; Fuller, 1982, currents coming and going. (Mesmer, 1785/
pp. 29, 32; Hawthorne, 1852/1986, p. 198; Kaplan, 1975, 1958, p. 29)
p. 35; Marks, 1947, pp, 5, 53, 203–205; Poe, 1837/1928,
pp. 46–47) We are many in the city
Who the weary needles ply;
None to aid and few to pity
In the United States, the heyday of mes­ Tho’ we sicken down and die;
merism ran from around 1835 through the But ’tis work, work away
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On the Bias 211

By night and by day For the Vienna-trained physician, Franz

Oh, ’tis work, work away Anton Mesmer, the principal benefit of mes­
We’ve no time to pray. merism or, as he termed it, “animal magnet­
ism” was physiological, although his discourse
(Judson, 1849, p. 26)
regarding it swerves obliquely toward the
metaphysical. In his doctoral thesis of 1766,
The irony of our graduate education was in Mesmer drew on the scientific, philosophical
the way it prepared us to teach something that and folk archives of the past to articulate
was about to disappear. On one level, training the presence of an “extremely subtle ‘univer­
in oral interpretation was an intensive craft— sal fluid’” that surrounds and permeates all
a method, a techne, - an art to some—designed
things. Influenced by the planets, this universal
to enhance one’s understanding of and appre­ fluid, a fluidium, ebbs and flows in the human
ciation for texts, literary texts most especially. body as it does in tidal waters in a two-part
When anyone asked, “What is oral interpreta­ magnetic manner. When the two flows are
tion?” we recited the mantra of the day: The in magnetic disharmony, maladies result and,
study of literature through performance, and Mesmer theorized, if you “control the tidal
the study of performance through literature. waves entering the physiology from outside
The first part of that formula made sense to us, the body . . . you control the illnesses” (quoted
because that is what we did nearly every day in Buranelli, 1975, p. 114). To balance errant
in our classes. No one really understood the flows, Mesmer’s treatments progressed from
second part of the statement, but none of his fixing magnetic plates or “tractors” to the
us dared admit that, and so it always passed patient, to his administering repetitive down­
without elaboration or comment. But on ward “passes” of his hands a few inches away
another level—and this is the dark and dirty from the victim’s body, to, in France, the mode
secret of interpretation, the thing that most of operation for which he became most
outsiders never really appreciated—interpreta­ famous, or infamous: the communal baquet.
tion taught us to think irreverently about our Mesmer moved to Paris from Vienna in
subject matter, both literature and perfor­ 1778. There, he applied to the Academy of
mance. Our professors in the English and the­ Sciences and the Royal Society of Medicine
atre departments sensed this, judging by their for funding, but both institutions snubbed his
schizophrenic reactions to us when we ven­ efforts, leveling charges of “quackery” and
tured into their classes—by turns horrified or immorality at Mesmer (Report, 1833, p. 77).
bemused at how we read literature or how we However, aided by the popular press, Mesmer
thought about and practiced performance. gained support among radical intellectuals,
amateur scientist-philosophers, and the com­
One reinforces the action of Magnetism by mercial upper class. One in particular, Nicolas
multiplying the currents upon the patient. Bergasse, a lawyer from a wealthy bourgeois
. . . [T]o touch a patient with force, gather family in Lyons, met Mesmer’s financial needs
together as many people as possible in his
apartment. Establish a chain of people which
by establishing the Société de l’Harmonie
leads from the patient and ends at the mag­ Universelle with an initiation fee of 100 louis-
netizer. One person leaning against the mag­ d’or. The society was a smashing success not
netizer, or with his hand upon his shoulder, only among the aristocrats and upper-class
increases his action. There is an infinity intellectuals who could afford the fee but also
of additional ways I might relate, such
among the populace who learned of Mesmer’s
as using sound, music, light, mirrors,
etc. . . . In order to magnetize a tree . . . a treatments through the letters, pamphlets, pic­
bottle . . . a flower. . . . (Mesmer, 1785/ tures, and “counterfeit tubs that were hawked
1958, pp. 63, 66–68) on the streets” (Darnton, 1968, p. 52). While
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212 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

Mesmer contrived to keep the key points of his Sometimes, though, the patients, they just
theory a secret, the treatments, being commu­ falling asleep. For violent convulsives, there
nal and often administered before “the pres­ are chambers with lovely pads or mattresses
ence of a crowd of witnesses” (Report, 1833, on the wall. Sometimes, Monsieur Mesmer he
p. 115), became a spectator sport (Miller, comes too, in a long robe of lilac silk embroi­
dered with gold flowers and wearing a white
1995, pp. 5–6).
magnetic wand or . . . rod that he is using to
trace artistic figures on the body to make it
calming.
GIRL FRIDAY (as tour guide): Bonjour and
good day. As you are having paid your fee, In addition to what I showing you today,
I welcome you to “l’Harmonie,” first estab­ outdoor treatments are available, too. Here,
lished in 1778. We all knowing our history Monsieur Mesmer usually magnetizing trees
of la France and les Etats-Unis, oui? Bon. and attaching patients to the tree with a rope.
My name is Monique and if you are having We also providing, in the back room, tubs for
a question, please be telling me. the poor and, for a small fee, portable tubs for
mesmeric baths at home in your privacy. I
First, we are entering the lovely drawing room hope you enjoying the tour. Merci and thank
of Franz Anton Mesmer’s spacious home in you. And having . . . have you any questions?
Paris. As you see, the patients are sitting around (R. Bowman, 2003, pp. 3–4; see Binet & Féré,
a baquet or, how do you say . . . a . . . a vessel? 1901, p. 11; Darnton, 1968, pp. 6–8; Mackay,
A wooden vessel . . . which it is filled with 1869, p. 279; Wagstaff, 1981, pp. 2–3)
water that has been mesmerizing with iron bits
or shavings. The iron rods, or often we are
using a rope, issue from the vessel and the
patients, they apply the rod to the afflicted
parts of their body. Many times they are hold­ It was an odd double-game we learned to
ing hands and pressing their knee, their knees, play. On the one hand, oral interpretation did
together to make a mesmeric chain . . . like teach us to read well, and because most of
a . . . uh . . . circuit . . . a circuit magnetique. what we read was literature from the western
Oui? You understand? From the ante-chamber, canon, we developed a healthy knowledge of
soft musique is hearing, made by a pianoforte and respect for it. On the other hand, we all
and, sometimes, we are having we . . . have knew that part of our delight in performing lit­
a glass harmonica or an opera singer. The erature lay in what we could make the litera­
musique sending reinforcing waves of the fluid ture do that it could or would not do on its
universal into the patient’s body. We have own. There is always something of a tour de
many assistants who are young and strong so
force element at work in performance, after
they can be pouring the magnetic water over
all, and the plain and simple truth of the mat­
the patients and applying also various tech­
niques therapeutic. ter is that for many of us performing literature
was an irreverent, aggressively playful, and
Since la tête always is receiving universal often erotic act, not the hand-holding tryst in
fluid from the stars and the feet, they always the parlor between platonic lovers that most
receiving fluid from la terre, the assistants (it
scholarship in our field made it out to be.
makes good sense) they concentrate on the
Something unusual always happened when we
midi, on the . . . ah . . . the middle, the equa­
tor of the body. They gently rub the patients’ added the voice and body to the text, adapting
backs, or sides or, oui . . . upon the breasts. or translating materials from one medium to
This makes the patients having convulsions or another, and though various disciplinary mea­
crises or, what do you call it? It is like a play, sures occasionally were used to try to make us
like in a play, a climax, I think it is called. behave, things regularly went awry.
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On the Bias 213

Whether using plates, passes, or portable discourse and the carnivalesque pleasures
tubs, Mesmer’s aim was to effect a convulsive of “awryness” not so much from Bakhtin—
or crisis state in the subject that would shock although he helped us articulate it—but from
the magnetic fluid back into a harmonious watching and listening to the professoriate in
pattern, to put him or her back on-grain, so to that department at work. The Department of
speak. Over the next sixty years or so, experi­ Interpretation did not teach us to do what we
ments by Mesmer’s devotees and other physi­ do now. We learned to do other things there
cians (largely in France, England, and that we no longer do very often. Yet, the expe­
Germany) yielded alternative theories and rience of moving through that difficult, eccen­
treatments. In 1784, the lucid state of sleep or tric, “interdisciplinary” program—the manner
“artificial somnambulism” was chanced upon in which we did things there—has played an
by the Marquis de Puysegur. This hypnotic enduring role in whatever it is that we have
practice became known as “mesmerism,” and become. As Hamera (1998) suggested, the per­
thereafter practitioners advanced it as a more formance studies of today is heir to the con­
effective treatment than the crisis state versations and improvisations we learned in
Mesmer himself sought to induce. Magnetized those classrooms, which on the surface were
objects were virtually discarded, replaced by about something else. To forget that is a form
the understanding that the somnambulistic of amnesia (p. 274).
state could be incited by the superior magnetic
force or “will” of the skilled physician via his
administering repetitive passes, commands, THE KILLER BS
or a concentrated stare. As Poe speculated in [The Seamstress sews in the
1837, mesmerists “possess an unusual abun­ shadows.]
dance of the magnetic fluid; or else, owing
to their peculiar constitutional temperament —R. Bowman, 2003, p. 36
they distribute it more readily than others; or,
The only thing of interest in a
which is perhaps more probable, they have the
refuted system is the personal ele­
faculty of CONFINING THEIR WILL TO
ment. It alone is what is forever
THE OBJECT OF THEIR ATTENTION
irrefutable.
WITHOUT DISTRACTION, and at the
same time making it act with great power” —Nietzsche, quoted in Ray,
(1837/1928, pp. 50–51; emphasis in original). 1995, p. 76
Further experimentation in the medical
community and elsewhere yielded the more While physicians concentrated on the physio­
spectacular or, as some might have it, “hocus­ logical effects of the great fluidium and reli­
pocus” phenomena associated with mesmerism gious folks the metaphysical, social reformers
(Marks, 1947, p. 5), such as table-turning, drew on the conceptual premises of mes­
catalepsy, unrestrained or “improper” behav­ merism to support antiestablishment and
ior, clairvoyance, self- and other diagnosis, and utopian philosophies, communities, and, in
amnesia. France, a revolution. In Mesmerism and the
Others who have told pieces of this story— End of the Enlightenment in France, Darnton
what Northwestern’s interpretation depart­ (1968) traces how mesmerism was used by
ment was like “back in the day” (e.g., radical intellectuals in pre- and postrevolu­
Edwards, 1999; Hamera, 1998; Henderson, tionary France, its fluid character able to
1998)—have let the cat out of the bag adapt to and appear on the stages of both
already: how we learned about double-voiced reason and romanticism.
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214 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

Another important character in our story, universal flow, its “mysteries, scandals, and
of course, is theory. Edwards (1999) has called passionate polemics.” Little wonder then that
attention to the indebtedness of performance the radical elite should use “the popular and
studies to a canon of theory, rather than the apolitical vogue of science,” its discourse and
canon of literature that interpretation was meant modes of address, to disseminate their revolu­
to serve, and there is no question that he is right tionary ideas (Darnton, 1968, pp. 161–162).
about that. Everyone was reading theory in the As it happened, most of the theorists whose
early 1980s, and its influence was everywhere in writing we gravitated toward had last names
the criticism we were reading and in the perfor­ that began with the letter “B.” Brecht and
mance art that seemed to have become all the Burke were already somewhat known to us, but
rage. Yet, while theory seemed to be telling most as time passed, more “Bs” kept showing up:
everyone else at the time that they could think Bakhtin, Barthes, Baudrillard, Benjamin,
irreverently about literature, performance had Berger, Boal. One day, one of us jokingly
already taught us to do that. For us, theory let us referred to them as “the Killer Bs,” and the term
think irreverently about performance. has always stuck with us. Although no one used
Prior to the revolution, scientific discoveries the term “performative writing” in those days,
and marvels captured the imagination of the what was appealing about theory as it was
reading public and prevailed in its popular lit­ practiced by the Killer Bs was its spectacular
erature. Science was fashionable. And while quality. It was dizzying, breathtaking, and often
the onslaught of popular scientific writings vastly entertaining. It seemed to fulfill Aristotle’s
about invisible agencies and their correspond­ definition of good theatre, and its relationship
ing cosmologies was confusing—e.g., what to literature was precisely the sort of relation­
had been a primary element, water, became a ship that performance held for us: irreverent,
“compound of inflammable and dephlogisti­ playful, aggressive, erotic. It helped us imagine
cated air” (Darnton, 1968, p. 17)—the public the kinds of performances we desired to give,
was enthralled rather than discouraged. something that could break down or break
As channeled through the popular press, away from the old text-vs.-performance dual­
the apolitical discourse of science was reader- ism in which we felt trapped—and in which the
friendly, as accessible to the common man as discipline of performance studies is still largely
were the frequent demonstrations of scientific trapped—in order to create some “third” kind
marvels. Both gave rise to fad commodities of writing/performance.
which the public could participate in or pur­
chase for itself, as was the case with mesmeric The surplus of movement excited by the fric­
tubs, lightning rods, and balloon rides, hats, tion of an elastic body which happens to be
exposed to another body, so as to effect a dis­
and sweets. Of course, embedded within the charge, forms artificial electricity. (Mesmer,
“apolitical” discourse was a subversive ideol­ 1785/1958, p. 29; emphasis in original)
ogy that, through reason, all men could under­
stand and command the laws of nature. In Mesmerism was particularly appealing to
the last two lines of a poem praising an early radicals because its immense popularity during
balloon flight in Lyons, such sentiments ring the 1780s was coupled with controversy. The
clear: “The eagle of Jupiter has lost his controversy centered on the condemnation
empire,/And the feeble mortal can approach of Mesmer by the aristocratic academy.
the gods” (quoted in Darnton, 1968, p. 20). Mesmer’s battle and battle tactics became
As Darnton summarizes, while few of the a model or pose through which the radical
reading public had ever read Rousseau’s Social intelligentsia expressed their own discontent
Contract, they knew all about Mesmer’s with les gens en place (men in power) and their
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On the Bias 215

dogmatic conservation of aristocratic privilege. and moral malaise throughout the state and
In short, “Mesmer’s fight was their fight” its people. Like Rousseau, Bergasse advocated
(Darnton, 1968, p. 90). a return to a more primitive or natural and
Through much of the decade, the radical therefore more harmonious society, a like
elite inundated the public with reader-friendly reformation of the arts, and a concentration
pamphlets that described and defended mes­ on educating children so as to stem the top-
merism as a science. In this way, mesmerism down tide of corruptive (i.e., artificial) influ­
served as a rhetorical hook, appealing to the ences or, in the vernacular of the day,
public’s fascination with science and thereby “sensations” or, in the vernacular of our day,
implying every citizen’s right to access it. “interpellations.” Unlike Rousseau, Bergasse
Simultaneously, the social politics of mes­ grounded the cause and cure of social malaise
merism as a revolutionary praxis took shape in in scientific fact. In sum, the “more robust
the letters, novels, memoirs, lectures, and text­ constitution” of the natural mesmerized man
books that the proponents of mesmerism “would make us remember independence.
shared with each other and, by the decade’s When, with such a constitution, we necessarily
end, with the reading public. would develop new morals, how could we
Although we didn’t stumble across it until possibly put up with the yoke of the institu­
later, Jean-Luc Godard’s well-known character­ tions that govern us today?” (quoted in
ization of his aims as a filmmaker captures Darnton, 1968, p. 124).
perfectly the sense of what we wanted to accom­
plish and what we found modeled for us in the
work of the Killer Bs: “research in the form of a [Coverdale dons a winter coat as two
spectacle” (Godard, 1968/1972, p. 181). Blithedale members enter, also dressed in
The “most energetic” and prolific advocate winter duds. The trio piles into the tub and
of mesmerism was Nicolas Bergasse who, “by sets off to Blithedale. As they deliver their
injecting a Rousseauist bias into a mesmerist little manifesto, Girl Friday performs “the
analysis of the . . . relations among men,” snow” which becomes increasingly heavy. By
envisioned “a way to revolutionize France” the climax, the trio in the tub is spot lit as is
(Darnton, 1968, pp. 108, 124). Bergasse drew the Seamstress who may help Girl Friday cre­
on two popular notions of the day—physical­ ate the veil of snow falling on (occasionally
moral causality and the aim of natural law— pelted at) the folks in the tub.]
to argue that animal magnetism was the
COVERDALE: There were three of us,
conservative agency of nature and hence was
charged with maintaining “a constant and BL MEMBER A: Blithedale communitarians,
durable harmony” within and among all enti­ BL MEMBER B: Agrarian socialists,
ties (quoted in Darnton, 1968, p. 114). When
man was in flow with nature, à la Rousseau’s COVERDALE: who rode together through
primitive state, the fluid was enabled to pro­ the storm.
duce healthy bodies, just minds and social BL MEMBER B: Our destination was
relations. When man was out of flow, the Blithedale,
reverse occurred. It was Bergasse’s claim that BL MEMBER A: a rented tract of farmland
in modern-day France, those least connected
with the law of flow in nature were the aristo­ COVERDALE: with a house (thank god),
cratic gens en place whose depraved lifestyle BL MEMBER A: that lay on the Charles River
had affected their governance of French insti­ nine miles outside the city of
tutions which, in turn, had effected physical Boston.
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216 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

COVERDALE: As we threaded our way COVERDALE: (generous and absurd as it

through the narrow streets of was)
the city,
BL MEMBER B: to Cast Aside our Meager
BL MEMBER B: the buildings on either side Materiality and Live a Life
seemed to press too closely of Cooperation rather than
in upon us Competition.
BL MEMBER A: and the snowfall, too, looked ALL: YES.
inexpressibly dreary, BL MEMBER B: To Refuse the Paltry
COVERDALE: (I would almost call it dingy), Principles on which Societies
have all along been Based.
BL MEMBER A: coming down through the
city smoke and alighting ALL: YES.
on the sidewalk only to be BL MEMBER B: To Step Off the Tired Treadmill
molded into the impress of of the Established System!
somebody’s patched boot or
overshoe. BL MEMBER A: To Vacate the Rusty Relic of
Society!
BL MEMBER B: Thus, the track of old con­
ventions was visible on what BL MEMBER B: To Shut Up the Ledger!
was freshest from the sky. COVERDALE: Fling aside the Pen!
COVERDALE: But, when we left the pave­ BL MEMBER A: Retire from the Pulpit!
ments of the city and the
COVERDALE: Abandon the Sweet
muffled hoof of the team
Indolence of Life . . .
beat upon the country road,
then there was better air to BL MEMBER B: To Lessen the Laborers’
breathe. Great Burthen of Toil
BL MEMBER A: Air that had Not been ALL: By Performing our Due Share!
Breathed Once and Again, YES! We had Left the Strug­
gling Self Seeking World To
BL MEMBER B: Air that had Not heard Form an Equal Brotherhood
Words of Falsehood and and Sisterhood Of Earnest
Formality, Toil and Shared Beneficence!
BL A & B: like all the Air of the Dusky [Freeze beat.]
City! COVERDALE: With such unflagging spirits,
BL MEMBER A: If ever Mankind might give we made good companion­
Utterance to their Wildest ship with the tempest and, at
Dreams, our journey’s end, professed
ourselves reluctant to bid the
BL A & B: yes, rude blusterer good-bye. To
own the truth, however, I was
BL MEMBER A: and Speak of Earthly
little better than an icicle and
Happiness as an Object to
began to be suspicious that
be Attained,
I had caught a fearful cold.
BL A & B: YES, We Were Those Men
and Women! (R. Bowman, 2003, pp. 8–10; see Hawthorne, 1852/1986,
pp. 11, 19)
BL MEMBER B: It was Our Purpose
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On the Bias 217

PERFORMING THEORY state.” . . . signed by 2,000 mostly female

operatives. (Voice of Industry, 1845, quoted
In 1845, the New York Daily Tribune esti­ in Kessler-Harris, 1982, p. 62)
mated that there were probably about twice
as many women seeking work as seamstresses
Are women to be born for this, to toil,
“as would find employment at fair wages.”
shrivel, die and rot? . . . My very soul is
These 10,000 workers, the Tribune con­
roused with indignation. The women of
cluded, constituted an oversupply of workers
France once rose in rebellion. Their cry was
who could not possibly earn enough to keep
“bread for our babes”; will the women of our
themselves alive. “One and a half to two dol­
country ever utter this cry as they gather in
lars per week,” it declared, “is represented as
crowds from the attics, cellars, by lanes, and
the average recompense of good work­
dark dens of filth and squalor? Alas! Yes, if
women engaged at plain sewing, and there are
no change comes for the better, they too will
very many who cannot, by faith and diligence,
thirst for the purple cup of revolution. (Stray
earn more than a dollar a week.” (Kessler-
Leaves from a Seamstress’s Journal, 1853–
Harris, 1982, p. 65)
54, quoted in Reynolds, 1989, p. 356)

To convince is to conquer without

In Heuretics: The Logic of Invention, Greg
conception.
Ulmer (1995) argues that creative work is
—Benjamin, 1928/1996, p. 446 more systematic than popular mythology
might have us believe, that it proceeds as much
from imitation or emulation as it does from
Many of us who helped invent perfor­
inspiration or imagination or genius or spe­
mance studies but whose training was in oral
cialization. In reviewing a number of dis­
interpretation worried about the status of lit­
courses on method, ranging from Plato’s
erature in the emerging discipline, its possible
Phaedrus to Breton’s surrealist manifesto,
disappearance into the abyss of textuality.
Ulmer found a common set of elements.
Elsewhere, we have argued that the “semiotic
Those elements, Ulmer suggests, can be
misrule” seemingly authorized by theories
mnemonically summarized by means of the
of textuality does not mean abandoning
acronym CATTt, representing the following
literature, but instead developing a more
operations:
“writerly” or “producerly” orientation to
solo and group performances of literature
(Bowman 1995, 1996; Bowman & Bowman, C = Contrast
2002; Bowman & Kistenberg, 1992). But A = Analogy
that isn’t what we want to talk about here.
T = Theory
This is another story.
T = Target
“We the undersigned, peaceable, industri­ t = tale (or form in which the work will appear)
ous and hardworking men and women of
Lowell [mills in Massachusetts], confined in
unhealthy apartments, exposed to the poiso­ Performance studies, like all intellectual and
nous contagion of air, vegetable, animal and artistic formations, developed by extrapola­
mineral properties, debarred from proper tion in this same manner. Performance studies
Physical Exercise, Mental discipline, and is heavily invested in the mythology of the
Mastication cruelly limited, and thereby
“antidiscipline” and flaunts its eccentricities
hastening us on through pain, disease
and privation, down to a premature grave, as if flaunting eccentricity were something
pray the legislature to institute a ten-hour peculiar, but if we take as performance
working day in all the factories of the studies’ “manifesto” any of the representative
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218 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

texts by Schechner (1985, 1988, 1992) or within the institutional framework of the west­
Conquergood (1985, 1991, 1995) that are ern literary/theatrical tradition. “Participant­
commonly cited as charting the direction of observation” is the investigative method of
the field, we can detect the pattern of inven­ the anthropologist/ethnographer, where that
tion identified by Ulmer. method itself is refigured as a special kind of
performance activity.
A postrevolutionary French mystic and out­
Contrast
spoken opponent of capitalism, Fourier had
For Schechner and Conquergood perfor­ a plan for a future utopia that was ruled by
mance studies is imagined in contrast to the “his” discovery of the principle of Universal
conservatory and professional training models Harmony. While Fourier claimed the idea as
of most academic theatre and performance his own, in substance and rhetoric, the influ­
programs; by extension, performance studies ence of Mesmer and, particularly, Bergasse
is projected as intervening in the entertainment is “evident in many of his works” (Darnton,
and showbiz apparatus, as well as in the tex­ 1968, p. 143). Like Bergasse, Fourier believed
tualist paradigm of knowledge that relegates in physical-moral causality as a law of nature
performance to an ancillary role of illustrating and urged a return to more a primitive, natural
or disseminating whatever knowledge or truth society. Thereby the “SUDDEN TRANSI­
is thought to be contained in texts. TION FROM SOCIAL CHAOS” as wrought
Published in 1852, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s by civilization “TO UNIVERSAL HAR­
The Blithedale Romance is in part based on MONY” would be enabled (quoted in
the author’s experiences at Brook Farm in the Darnton, 1968, p. 143; emphasis in original).
spring through autumn months of 1841. Like Specific to Fourier’s plan was the reorganiza­
many reform communities of the period, The tion of society into discrete communities or
Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and “phalanxes,” where each member would
Education was envisioned by its founders as engage in an industry of his or her choice and
“a society of liberal, intelligent and cultivated also be allowed to express his or her natural
persons, whose relations with each other impulses, including sexual ones.
would permit a more simple and wholesome
life, than can be led amidst the pressures of our
Theory
competitive institutions” (quoted in Delano,
2004, p. 34). Such sentiments were directly Schechner and Conquergood also rely on
informed by the utopian socialism of Charles the metaphor of the trickster—a traditional
Fourier, whose ideas were popularized in the anthropological subject—to imagine how per­
United States through Albert Brisbane’s The formance studies might function within the
Social Destiny of Man; or Association and institutional space of the academy, and the
Reorganization of Industry (1840). performance studies scholar is projected as
a boundary-crossing inter-/antidisciplinarian.
Thus, performance studies might borrow or
Analogy
“poach” its theory from anywhere as it tries
Schechner and Conquergood both rely on to “make do” within the confines of academe
the analogy and example of the anthropolo­ (de Certeau, 1974/1984). Even so, anthropology/
gist/ethnographer, someone whose business ethnography may be identified as one major
is to observe and interpret culture, rather than source of theoretical and methodological bor­
to engage in the elaborate form of gossip rowing, while another might be that amalgam
known as theatre or performance criticism of poststructuralist theories known at one time
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On the Bias 219

as critical theory but now more commonly studies should appear would be a scholarly
called cultural studies. essay or a theatrical performance of some kind.
In later documents, Fourier does lend some Conquergood repeatedly advocated perfor­
credit to mesmerism, claiming that “if it had mance as a means of scholarly representation,
been abused in ‘civilization,’ it would be ‘in although his own work always appeared as a
great fashion, of great utility, in the state of conventional scholarly essay. Indeed, most of
harmony,’” for somnambulists or mesmerists the influential work that passed for perfor­
would be able to contact the other world and mance studies has taken the conventional
thereby further enable the flow of harmonic essayistic form of the disciplines from which it
fluid between the material and spiritual worlds has borrowed. More innovative forms of schol­
(quoted in Darnton, 1968, p. 144). arly representation began to appear in the early
1990s as personal narrative, autobiography,
Target and post-/autoethnography took hold, and
scholars often used venues other than academic
The immediate targets of performance books and journals for presenting these exper­
studies are the professional discourses of com­ iments with media, genres, and styles. It wasn’t
munication and theatre studies, but the wider until the mid-1990s that things began to crys­
target is the human sciences generally. The per­ tallize around the terms “performative writ­
formance studies scholar might be found any­ ing” or “performance writing” (Allsopp, 1999;
where within a college of arts and sciences, for Phelan, 1992; Pollock, 1998).
the field’s “specialization,” as Edwards (1999) Of the fifty or so Fourierist communities
notes, “is the general field of human experi­ attempted in the United States between 1840
ence, studied as and by performance” (p. 83). and 1860, Brook Farm and the North
While Fourier was never mesmerized him­ American Phalanx in Red Bank, New Jersey,
self, he apparently “communicated mesmeri­ are, in popular and historical accounts, the
cally with his disciples” after his death, as most frequently mentioned. Although the
recounted in the following 1853 transcription Brook Farm group waited until 1844 to repli­
from a Fourierist table-turning session: cate Fourier’s practical scheme, a journal ded­
icated to his ideas was published at the farm,
[MEDIUM] . . . Ask the table, that is, the and in writing The Blithedale Romance
spirit that is inside it; it will tell you that I
have above my head an enormous pipe of
Hawthorne entertained two or three volumes
fluid, which rises from my hair up to the of Fourier’s works. For the most part, Brook
stars. It’s an aromatic pipe by which the voice Farm and cooperatives like it stressed
of spirits on Saturn reaches my ear . . . THE Fourier’s concepts of industrial reorganiza­
TABLE (thumping strongly with its foot)— tion, also known as Associationism in the
Yes, yes, yes. Aromatic pipe. Conduit.
United States. Hawthorne, on the other hand,
Aromatic pipe. Conduit. Conduit. Conduit.
Conduit. Yes. (quoted in Darnton, 1968, directed his sights toward the more prurient
pp. 144–145) and explicit connections between (Fourierist)
social reform and mesmerism, as he saw them
practiced in New England at the time.
tale
As noted earlier, mesmerism flourished in
In the early years of its formation (roughly, the United States from the mid-1830s through
the 1980s), one of the missing pieces in the 1840s. Marketed to the U.S. public as
performance studies’ invention of itself was a universal cure for physical, spiritual, and
the CATT’s “tale.” The major dilemma was social ills, mesmerism becomes a multivalent
whether the form in which performance metaphor in Hawthorne’s hands to critique
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220 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

social reform practices of his day, the various Farm, mesmerism is used by Hawthorne
ploys of the Blithedale characters, the narrator to question the moral-physical (thought­
Miles Coverdale’s voyeuristic inclinations, and enactment) ambiguities of the period generally
Hawthorne’s own craft of writing fiction. In and its reform movements in particular. One
large part, Hawthorne’s view is negative, his glaring irony that encapsulates both concerns
distrust of mesmerism palpable. the economic history of the times. In 1837,
In sum, performance studies invented itself a financial panic brought on an economic
by combining anthropology and critical depression that lasted well into the 1840s.
theory/cultural studies whose lessons and Credit was tight and, as a result, many smaller
strategies it translated onto another domain— farms in New England were abandoned or sold
literary theatre and oral interpretation. There, off. The rural dispossessed gravitated to the
literature was translated most often into “ver­ cities where they found they had to compete
bal art” or “cultural performance” or “textu­ with European immigrants for industry jobs.
ality,” while critical theory/cultural studies’ The inflated and embattled labor base drove
concern with the politics of textuality reap­ down wages and put a temporary end to trade
peared as the politics of performativity. union activity and the advancements gained in
the 1830s. Insufferable working conditions,
overcrowded tenements, and staggering
THE BODY ELECTRIC
increases in poverty and crime testified that liv­
“You can see them in those ing in the city as one of the “exploited ‘lower
shops,” said seamstress Aurora million’” was a tough row to hoe. Meanwhile,
Phelps, “seated in long rows, the wealthy “‘upper ten’” (Reynolds, 1989,
crowded together in a hot close p. 126)—the “industrialists from Boston and
atmosphere, working at piece­ New York”—snapped up the cheap rural
work, 30, 40, 60, or 100 girls acreage and converted it into summer resorts
crowded together, working at for leisure and profit (Kolodny, 1986, p. xi).
20 and 25 cents a day.” The travesty escalates when “social reformers”
such as Hawthorne and his fellow social
—Kessler-Harris, 1982, p. 78
democrats vacated the cities in a romantic huff
of antiindustrial protest and invested in the
“The especial genius of Woman,
promise of Brook Farm for 500 bucks a share.
I believe to be electrical in move­
Hawthorne apparently bought two shares, one
ment, intuitive in function,
for himself and another for his fiancée, Sophia
spiritual in tendency.” It is
this electrical, magnetic nature, Peabody, but a year later turned tail and sued
[Margaret] Fuller argues, that the cooperative in an effort to reclaim his
makes women especially useful as investment. Eleven years later, Hawthorne
mesmeric mediums. published The Blithedale Romance.

—Reynolds, 1989, p. 378

It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of
mental occupation, to devote ourselves too
Everything now, in its own way,
exclusively to the study of individual men
wants to be television. and women. If the person under examina­
—Ulmer, 1989, p. 11 tion be one’s self, the result is pretty certain
to be diseased action of the heart, almost
before we can snatch a second glance. Or, if
we take the freedom to put a friend under
As embedded in the reform discourse that our microscope, we thereby insulate him
influenced the making of Brook-Blithedale from many of his true relations, magnify his
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On the Bias 221

peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, The sewing machine, introduced in the 1850s,
and, of course, patch him very clumsily far from lightening the seamstresses’ load,
together again. What wonder, then, should increased pressure to produce more. The
we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, machine encouraged centralization into small
which, after all . . . may be said to have been shops where work could be routinized and
created mainly by ourselves! efficiently distributed. Seamstresses faced con­
. . . But I could not help it. (Hawthorne, tinual unemployment: cycles of harsh over­
1852/1986, p. 69) work followed by idleness. (Kessler-Harris,
1982, p. 66)

One of the most important courses in our

New York City Physician Claims Itinerant
graduate program at Northwestern, at least in
Mesmerists Bilking The Public Of Their
terms of how it shaped our thinking, was the Hard Earned Dollar.
history seminar we were all required to take.
And perhaps the most important part of that Factory Girl Mediums Would Rather Sleep
seminar was being introduced to orality- Than Do An Honest Day’s Work. (R. Bow­
literacy theory through the work of scholars man, 2003, p. 25; see Fuller, 1982, p. 32)
like Albert Lord, Eric Havelock, Jack Goody,
Walter Ong, and Marshall McLuhan. The cen­ With the invention of literacy, the relations
tral idea of orality-literacy theory, of course, is between literature and performance changed.
that the technology by which we communicate No longer was it necessary to trust the knowl­
affects the way we think. While we are the edge and stories of culture to the memory and
inventors of our media, as McLuhan was fond display skills of the performer. Once knowl­
of saying, eventually our media turn around edge became separable from performance, it
and reinvent us. The invention of the phonetic also changed—and when knowledge changed,
alphabet brought about a seismic shift in the we changed as well. The history of perfor­
way people thought by making possible for mance that we studied was a story of the shift­
the first time practices of analysis, logic, and ing fortunes of the performer as chirography
reason as we know and practice them today. and then typography altered the regimes of
In Ong’s (1982) neat formulation, “writing knowledge, information, and communication.
restructures consciousness” (p. 78). While an “equal brotherhood and sister­
Orality-literacy theory was influential in hood” is the stated aim of the reformers
shaping how the field of oral interpretation who assemble at Blithedale, each proves to be
imagined itself. In the beginning—that is, in transfixed by his or her own reform agendas,
the old, preliterate days of Homer—the per­ such as women’s rights, penal reform, and,
former of literature was the Big Man of what­ in the case of Coverdale, enacting the “calm
ever tribe or community to which he belonged. observer” so as to “distil . . . the whole moral­
Without writing to serve as an artificial mem­ ity of the performance” (Hawthorne, 1852/
ory system, a culture’s history and, indeed, its 1986, p. 97). As the characters each pursue
very identity and existence depended on the what they see as their “natural impulses,” con­
living memory of those charged with keeping flicts arise and, in an effort to survive, they
and reciting knowledge, which was always reconfigure their reform desires in terms of
cast in the memorable forms of story, song, sexual conquest and monetary gain. The key
and dance. Literature did not exist in the strict tactic for success is to discover and then dis­
sense of that term. Whatever verbal arts the close to others the intimate secrets of one’s
culture produced were so intimately linked competitor or object of desire.
to performers and performances that their In one instance, the wealthy and exotic
domains were identical: no performance, no feminist, Zenobia, and the penniless city
poetry; no poetry, no culture. seamstress, Priscilla, are vying for the affections
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222 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

of the prophet of penal reform, Hollingsworth. wallows in these same sewers—and so does
When Zenobia discovers that Priscilla is also Hawthorne.
the renowned “Veiled Lady” of the mesmerist The implications of orality-literacy theory
stage, Zenobia attempts to discredit her by were especially fascinating to us, for if
performing the “legend” of “The Silvery Veil” McLuhan, Ong and the others were correct in
at a Blithedale parlor theatrical (Hawthorne, suggesting that communication technologies
1852/1986, p. 108). Veiled itself as fantasy, restructure consciousness, then the develop­
Zenobia’s tale of deception recounts how the ment of mechanical and electronic audiovisual
“famous . . . creature” vanished from the pub­ media, beginning with photography and teleg­
lic eye only to reappear “amid a knot of vision­ raphy in the early nineteenth century, marked
ary people” (Hawthorne, 1852/1986, pp. 108, the beginning of another shift in how humans
114). There, she attaches herself to a particu­ would communicate, invent, and think. We
lar “lady” (i.e., Zenobia), who learns from a were entering a postliterate age, the conse­
“Magician” (i.e., Priscilla’s former mesmerist- quences of which we were only beginning to
operator) that the girl “‘is doomed to fling a imagine.
blight over [the lady’s] prospects.’” To thwart
her efforts, the lady must take the Magician’s In a crisis one should observe three stages:
veil, throw it over her foe, stamp her foot, and perturbation, coction [literally “a cooking,
call for the Magician, and he will come and or coming to the boiling point”], and evac­
seize her (Hawthorne, 1852/1986, p. 115). In uation. (Mesmer, 1785/1958, p. 43)
both the tale and the telling, the lady and
Zenobia do just as the Magician-mesmerist
bids. They fling a veil over Priscilla’s head and
thereby unveil her. In the next chapter, GIRL FRIDAY: In etymological terms, hysteria
means “wandering womb.” In Mesmer’s time
Coverdale enacts a similar performance when
and thereafter, the prescribed treatments for
he “attempt[s] to come within [Priscilla’s] maid­
female hysterics, or “wandering wombs,” were
enly mystery” by taking “just one peep beneath bleeding, blistering, religious salvation, or
her folded petals” (Hawthorne, 1852/1986, marriage. The latter was based on the under­
p. 125). standing that a woman’s excessive behavior
Because such performances are common­ was due to her lack of sexual relations. As
place among the Blithedale set, it takes but Hollingsworth might have it, the woman was a
little time to realize that the great fluidium is “petticoated monstrosity” because she had
greatly askew at Blithedale. The main reason “missed out on woman’s particular happiness.”
for the errant flows, it appears, is that “social Of course, Mesmer’s cure was to induce that
harmony” is being attempted by individuals very state of “happiness”—an orgasmic crisis
who also embody the Jacksonian ethos of or climax—while those mesmerists who fol­
lowed quieted the wandering wombs by hyp­
competitive individualism. The romance then
nosis or, as the wary press implied, by means
is not about socialistic reform; it is about
of their penetrating will power. Since then,
capitalism and the distortions (e.g., of social electric shock therapies and the clinical
reform) that arise from its enactment. In the manipulation of the clitoris have been used in
lurid parlance of the penny-press, a befit­ severe to middling cases, while those who suf­
ting byline of the period might report: fer from mild displays of excess are becalmed
Sensationalist Reformers Wallow In The by the flow of the great fluidium through a score
Very Sewers They Attempt To Scour Clean of household appliances, exercise gizmos,
(Bowman, 2003, p. 32) sexual gadgets, and beauty parlor treatments.
Of course, by means of the narrative he uses (R. Bowman, 2003, p. 81)
to recount his Blithedale experiences, Coverdale
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On the Bias 223

In the first flush of excitement over the use of the suggestive force of language to
possible implications of orality-literacy theory, construct identities, disclose internal thoughts
as well as the energy surrounding the invention and feelings, and create imaginary worlds
of performance studies, there was some under­ that persuade the reader or audience of their
standable though misplaced euphoria. Ong’s literal or figurative truth. In his construction
belief that the postliterate age would be of Coverdale’s narrative, Hawthorne explores
characterized by a “secondary orality” seemed this aspect of mesmerism to such an extent
to augur a world where we would move that, in the end, the romance is about—as it
“beyond” the text to a place where perfor­ always has been—Coverdale, and his self-
mance would achieve greater recognition and entranced perspective. In the final chapter,
prominence. In the contemporary postliterate appropriately titled “Miles Coverdale’s Con­
or postmodern age, some critics believed, per­ fession,” Coverdale offers a brief critique of
formance would be where it’s at (Benamou & his narrative state before proceeding, in the
Caramello, 1977). This sentiment has been remaining pages, to prove its truth. He asks,
echoed in a number ways in various publica­ “What, after all, have I to tell?” In response
tions over the last 25 years, and widespread dis­ he answers, “Nothing, nothing, nothing!”
persal of “performance” as a metaphor and (Hawthorne, 1852/1986) p. 245). If concen­
critical tool for a variety of “studies” in virtu­ tered on Coverdale’s narrative, the verdict
ally every discipline of the arts, humanities, and of the novel is nihilistic and devastating.
social and “hard” sciences is touted as further However, on the refracted level of the narra­
evidence that we have left the age of reason and tive, the “nothing” of language is countered by
discipline and entered the age of performance its ability to recall of what it consists—of what
(McKenzie, 2001). came before—and thereby it always interrupts
But if Ong and the others are correct in sug­ the not-so-natural flow of itself, forward.
gesting that alphabetic thinking is now giving In teaching over the last few years, we have
way to cinematic/electronic thinking—that become increasingly aware that ideas, works,
literacy is yielding to “electracy” (Ulmer, and issues that are difficult to discuss and
2003)—then neither text nor performance will understand abstractly can be approached
be quite what it was in the conditions of either through simulation exercises—mimicry, imi­
literacy or orality. If we want to know what tation—based on more or less concrete
this new age of “electrate” performance will instructions. Extrapolating from Benjamin,
be, instead of looking back at what the old we might say that for us to teach is to com­
oral or preliterate world was like, we need to municate without initial conceptualizations.
figure out what “cinematic/electronic think­ So that, for example, if we want our students
ing” might be. But to put the question in that to understand something about texts and
way is to make it damnably difficult to performances, asking them to think about
answer. Perhaps, then, as Ulmer (1989, 1995) abstract aesthetic or theoretical categories
and others have argued (see Ray, 1995, 2001), seems less effective than giving them instruc­
the better approach would be to locate some tions about how to practice different kinds of
examples of it—to assume that some of the textual and performance activity. We can tell
newer forms of communication/”writing”/ them, for instance, that different textual prac­
“performance” are instances of it—and then tices develop by extrapolating from models
try to gain some experience of it by emulating found in some other field or discipline or
or simulating those forms. practice—about how a modern writer like
Like other literati of the period, Hawthorne Faulkner borrowed from philosophers like
was fully aware that in writing fiction he was Bergson, as well as from the cinema, to help
not unlike a mesmerist in so far as both make him conduct his narrative experiments; about
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224 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

how surrealism, which was an aesthetic/ you have chosen. Remnants are fine, as are
political movement, borrowed from Freudian nontextiles, such as an old bathtub or snow or
psychoanalysis, a medical practice. We can plants or that odd piece of sheet metal you find
give them things like N. Scott Momaday’s out back. If the materials don’t seem to go
The Way to Rainy Mountain or Laurie together, that’s okay—collect them anyway.
Anderson’s Nerve Bible and tell them to use it
3. Create your own fabrics and notions,
as their model for producing a performance,
too, by imitating or transforming some of
letting them know that imitation is as impor­
those you’ve collected. For example, weave
tant as imagination in both learning and the
yourself into the threads of a Girl Friday and
creative process. We can introduce them to
detail with detachable trims, such as Tour
Roland Barthes’s ideas about the “writerly”
Guide or Media Theorist or Snow Illusionist
text simply by telling them that Barthes
or Graduate Student.
believed that every text contains a set of
“instructions” for producing another, similar 4. Stand back (or move in close) and take
composition. Finding the “instructions” a look at your collection. Select a piece,
implicit in the model is the key, of course, and notion, or remnant you particularly like. For
that is where our reading and discussion are you, at this time and this place, it is the
focused. We usually tend to do this with the metonym, the model, the pose, or the figure
class, primarily to check our tendency to pro­ that best represents the costume you desire
duce an instruction like “write in such a way and also, perhaps, fear.
as to imbricate your authorial Self in a collec­
tive order, intertextually articulated in myth, 5. Use the figure to guide how you pattern
history, and personal experience,” an instruc­ your costume. Ask yourself what bits from
tion that we could not give to an undergradu­ your collection you desire to cut and stitch
ate class with a straight face. So, as a group, together to serve as the warp or foundation of
we come up with homelier things, such as: your costume. Ask yourself whether the filler
“write in very short anecdotes, none longer bits should woof loudly or softly through con­
than a paragraph” or “use a story told to you trast or analogy. Ask yourself what bias bits
by your parents or grandparents” or “include you will inevitably have to include in the cos­
pictures from a family photo album.” tume and how far askew you want to go.
In that spirit and in the spirit of our essay,
6. After you are satisfied with the initial
we offer a simple do-it-yourself guide for
layout of what you have designed, assume that
sewing your own performance composition,
it is wrong and try again. Another option is to
for those moments when you cannot help but
add in more bias bits that are just not “you,”
create something, however clumsy the result:
that you don’t look or feel good in. Like a jolly
fat man or woman, roll with the seeming dis­
1. Select the kind of costume you would tortions.
like to wear—e.g., social reformer, historian,
mesmerist, cultural critic, cynic, performance 7. Put your costume together, realizing
theorist, seamstress, or all of them rolled into that the various media of assemblage (every­
one, perhaps. thing from safety pins to heavy, high-tech
industrial machinery) will affect the pattern
2. Collect lots of different fabrics, pat­ and, hence, the figure in the costume that you
terns, and notions associated with the costume have made.
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On the Bias 225

MA: Belknap-Harvard University Press.

COVERDALE: And, so, after all is said and (Original work published 1928)
done, what have I to tell you? Binet, A., & Féré, C. (1901). Animal magnetism.
New York: Appleston.
Bowman, M. S. (1995). “Novelizing” the stage:
[Lights fade to black. In silence/the sound
Chamber theatre after Breen and Bakhtin. Text
of the seamstress planting her weeds, which and Performance Quarterly, 15, 1–23.
now cover the stage, at Coverdale’s feet.] Bowman, M. S. (1996). Performing literature in an
(R. Bowman, 2003, p. 82) age of textuality. Communication Education,
45, 97–101.
Bowman, M. S., & Bowman, R. L. (2002).
Performing the mystory: A textshop in autoper­
NOTE formance. In N. Stucky & C. Wimmer (Eds.),
Teaching performance studies (pp. 161–174).
*Section editor’s note: the essay employs tech­
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
niques of “performative” or “performance” writing
Bowman, M. S., & Kistenberg, C. J. (1992).
to address the challenge of documenting a theatri­
“Textual power” and the subject of oral inter­
cal production. Ruth Laurion Bowman staged her
pretation: An alternate approach to perform­
adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1852 novel
ing literature. Communication Education, 41,
The Blithedale Romance in the HopKins Black Box
287–299.
Theatre, Louisiana State University; public perfor­
Bowman, R. L. (Adapter & Director). (2003).
mances took place on November 12–16, 2003. The
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale
essay juxtaposes strips of text: passages from Ruth
Romance [performance script]. Baton Rouge:
Laurion Bowman’s script, quotations from histori­
Louisiana State University.
cal research for the script, narratives and syntheses
Brandon, R. (1983). The spiritualists: The passion
of this research, and reflections on the history of
for the occult in the nineteenth and twentieth
the academic discipline in which the research took
centuries. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
place. In the section introduction, above, I discuss
Brisbane, A. (1840). The social destiny of man;
in more detail the strategies that inform the essay’s
or association and reorganization of industry.
unconventional form.
Philadelphia: Stollmeyer.
Buranelli, V. (1975). The wizard from Vienna:
Franz Anton Mesmer. New York: Coward,
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13
Staging Paradox
The Local Art of Adaptation

PAUL EDWARDS

O ver the past half-century, Chicago’s

diverse theatrical scene has provided a
uniquely receptive setting for the work of direc­
form. It is hard to imagine any play that has
not adapted something, some kind of “pre­
text” (as I explore this term below). But com­
tors who stage original adaptations of narra­ ments by some of Chicago’s most celebrated
tive texts, or develop extreme “rewrightings” adapter/directors suggest that the art of adap­
(Dessen, 2002) of conventional dramas. Even tation in the local context of a city’s theatre
the Joseph Jefferson Awards and Citations— scene has reaccentuated (often in very indirect,
Chicago’s honors for Equity and non-Equity even accidental ways) important features of
productions—have recognized the category Breen’s paradoxical experiments.
“New Adaptation” alongside the older The first section of this essay, “Method and
classification “New Work.”1 Contributing to Margin,” establishes the terms for my discus­
Chicago’s reputation as a center of theatri­ sion of a triangulated relationship in an unique
cal “adaptation” is the tradition of staging academic setting: at Northwestern, a widerang­
“chamber theatre,” begun in 1947 by Robert ing sense of practice enjoys a complicated rela­
S. Breen in Northwestern’s Interpretation (now tionship not only to theory but to method.
Performance Studies) Department. Although Here, practice cannot be discussed apart from
no one working professionally in Chicago con­ its extension into the professional theatre com­
tinues to stage chamber theatre before public munity. I consider the case of the Lookingglass
audiences, many have learned techniques and Theatre, which has devoted much of its cre­
approaches—styles of creatively addressing a ative energy over its decade and a half of exis­
source text—from contact with Breen and his tence to the development of original works
students. and adaptations of nondramatic literature. The
No artist, group, or community can lay company began when David Schwimmer, prior
claim to having invented adaptation as an art to his successful television career, brought

227
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228 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

together a talented group of fellow Northwest­ public visibility in campus playhouses, civic
ern graduates; it has grown with the infusion and church assemblies, and school competi­
of other Northwestern-trained artists like the tions. Performers typically held manuscripts,
Tony-Award-winning adapter and director faced the audience, and sat on chairs or high
Mary Zimmerman. The educational roots of stools (hence the scatalogical epithet “stool
this group lead me to examine the beginning theatre” employed by theatre professors who
of adaptation coursework at Northwestern: took a dismissive view of oral interpretation).
the next section, “Chamber Theatre,” explores Characters addressed each other in the con­
the career of Breen and the staging form he vention of “offstage focus”: actors seated side-
invented. In the following section, “Adapting by-side would see each other “out front,”
Adaptation,” I employ interview materials to thereby diminishing the audience’s expecta­
discuss the accomplishments of three students tion that the actors would fully embody the
who subsequently became teachers of adapta­ physical business suggested by the text (see
tion in Northwestern’s Department of Perfor­ Coger & White, 1967, pp. 46–58; Maclay,
mance Studies: Zimmerman, Njoki McElroy, 1971, pp. 16–44). The aesthetic effect was that
and Frank Galati.2 The essay concludes with of an incomplete stage picture: a suggestive
reflections on how the theory and practice of stimulus to the audience’s imagination, rather
stage adaptation have changed at Northwest­ like an elocutionary platform reading with the
ern, and in Chicago theatre, since Breen first added variety of many actors’ voices.
experimented with staging short stories in the The goal of such performance was to deem­
late 1940s. phasize physical spectacle and direct the atten­
tion of actors and audience toward the
experience of the text. During the period of
METHOD AND MARGIN
interpretation’s greatest influence, the teaching
Within the context of interpretation, the teach­ of readers theatre fully aligned itself with the
ing of theatrical forms adopted several names desire to “cause” performers and viewers alike
in the second half of the twentieth century. “to experience literature”: readers theatre “dif­
“Interpreters theatre” and “group perfor­ fers from a conventional play in that it demands
mance” were common labels for a pedagogical stricter attention to the aural elements of the lit­
interest that embraced forms like “readers the­ erature” and “requires” its audience to “gener­
atre” and “chamber theatre.” The more famil­ ate its own visualization of the scenery, the
iar form, readers theatre, had deep roots in costumes, the action, the make-up, and the
the verse-speaking choirs of oratorical culture physical appearance of the characters” (Coger
(see Kleinau & McHughes, 1980, pp. 45–67; & White, 1967, pp. 8–9). As articulated by
Williams, 1975) as well as the theatrical tradi­ Robert Breen and elaborated by his student
tion of the staged reading. Coger and White Joanna Hawkins Maclay (1971), the goal of
(1967) somewhat fancifully trace readers readers theatre is to “feature the text” rather
theatre to the beginnings of western drama in than the spectacle of actors’ bodies in motion or
ancient Greece, and annotate a list of well- the machinery of theatrical illusion (pp. 3–6).3
known productions by professional actors Even in Breen’s own writing about chamber
in the postwar era that employed the form’s theatre (the more fully theatricalized form that
techniques and conventions (pp. 10–15). But I discuss below) the “proposition” to which
attempts like this to locate readers theatre student performers should dedicate themselves
in some kind of theatrical mainstream fail to is “the service of literature” (1978, p. 6).
convince. In its heyday, readers theatre was The characterization of illusionistic spectacle
a teaching technique. It enjoyed its greatest as somehow antagonistic to the appreciation
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Staging Paradox 229

and study of literature (even dramatic litera­ filled the pages of Werner’s Magazine during
ture) is a backward-reaching view: it relates the Delsarte craze of the late-nineteenth cen­
such staging forms to the idealistic theories of tury. This is not to suggest that the textbook
suggestion advanced in the late-nineteenth literature is theoretically unsophisticated.
century by “expression” teachers like S. S. Theatres for Literature by Kleinau and
Curry (1891, 1896). The virtue of “suggested” McHughes (1980) begins, for example, with a
scenery and costuming recurs in Maclay’s functional distinction between “work,” words
advice to designers (1971, pp. 46–59). The on the page, and “text,” the constant remak­
performing body should be similarly sugges­ ing of the “work” by performers (p. 2), that is
tive: actors’ gestures and vocal inflections are largely consistent with the famous distinction
significant merely as continuations and ampli­ by Roland Barthes (1971/1986). Maclay’s
fications of literary figures and images (1971, Readers Theatre (1971) sets off from a similar
p. 68). In language reminiscent of Curry nearly prying-open of “text” beyond the concept of
a century earlier, Maclay expresses the view printed “words” (p. 4). Even the conserva­
that the “presentational” simplicity of readers tive Handbook by Coger and White (1967)
theatre “tends to universalize” for an audience demonstrates a nuanced understanding of
the experience of a literary text, whereas the modernist theatre after Brecht and Piscator.
“representational manner” of conventional Breen’s belatedly published Chamber Theatre
theatre “tends to particularize the experience” (1978), written in the 1960s, is remarkable for
in reductive ways (1971, p. 20). In the text­ its interdisciplinary grasp of critical thought,
book literature that appeared from the 1960s from perception studies to film theory. Maclay
to the 1980s, the methodizers of interpreters (1971) is no less adept than her mentor Breen
theatre often contrast the representational aes­ at perceiving theatrical space and time through
thetic of a putative “conventional” theatre the lenses of aestheticians and phenomenolo­
with a presentational aesthetic that more fully gists, from Rudoph Arnheim to Maurice
engages audience members’ imaginations. Merleau-Ponty.
Kleinau and McHughes (1980) go so far as to “The choreographer who reads Merleau-
associate representational forms with “pictor­ Ponty,” however—as Shannon Jackson (2004)
ial space,” and presentational forms (those reminds us—“is not a ‘professional’ to the
friendly to the projection of literary texts) with theory professor” (p. 28). While teachers of
“acoustic space” (pp. 5–14).4 interpreters theatre borrowed elaborately from
If I tend to speak of readers theatre and theory and criticism, they failed to gain respect
chamber theatre in the past tense, I do so for the activity of stage performance itself
because both forms failed to find a receptive as an embodied form of theoretical or critical
setting in either academic or professional the­ inquiry. They failed to gain respect as well
atre. Their narrowed focus on embodied from a different kind of professional across the
performance in “the service of literature” con­ campus of many colleges and universities: the
signed them to the same fate as the art of inter­ theatre professor who trained students for
pretation itself. The photographs of student stage, television, and film careers, and mocked
productions that illustrate some of the text­ the theatrical pretensions of “stool theatre.”
books—guides to script-in-hand, presenta­ Jackson is correct, it seems to me, in her
tional staging, in a bare-stage world of “stools, assessment of marginalization by literary theo­
benches, and ladders” (Maclay, 1971, p. 53)— rists of those who “professed performance.”
seem as quaint, and almost as distant in time, Not only did dramatic literature often find
as the ghostly reproductions of group “poses itself “outside the literary canon” in this or
plastiques” and “tableaux mouvants” that that scholar’s estimation, but the teaching of
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230 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

interpretation never succeeded in becoming redundancy of drama coursework in multiple

more than a “marginal cultural expression”: locations across campus, both inside and out­
despite its alignment “with the dominant” and side the school.
“canonical” in literary studies, it struggled The string of accidents that brought two
unsuccessfully to find acceptance by literary highly visible, award-winning theatre profes­
“professionals” (2004, p. 24). In Jackson’s sionals to a department of performance studies,
narrative, which critiques the opposition of rather than theatre, is the focus of the section
theory and practice in institutional settings “Adapting Adaptation” below. My focus here
across the twentieth century, theatre and inter­ is the complicated relationship of those two
pretation find themselves equally outside the professional artists to the interpreters theatre
embrace of theory. Yet I would complicate this pedagogy that figured so significantly in the
narrative by locating interpretation pedagogy history of the department in which they now
outside the embrace of theatrical practice. teach. Both Frank Galati and Mary Zimmerman
Bound to both literary theory and theatrical studied with Robert Breen. Both teach courses
practice, the group performance of literature descended from the readers theatre and cham­
found itself marginalized by both. The dou­ ber theatre courses developed by Breen, and
ble bind of high-modernist interpretation both promote the value of textual study in the
studies produced a double rejection. If it is training of theatre artists. Yet in their profes­
true that every academician functions “as the sional work, as adapter/directors, both move
amateur to someone else’s professional” far beyond “the service of literature” or “fea­
(Jackson, 2004, p. 28) then the pedagogy of turing the text.” Creative artistry is not the
interpreters theatre was stigmatized as dou­ product of pedagogical method, and cannot be
bly amateurish. constrained by it. Galati’s adaptation of The
Yet the twentieth century narrative is more Grapes of Wrath (1991) and Zimmerman’s
complicated still, at least as it developed at adaptation of Metamorphoses (2002) are not
Northwestern University. My interest in the products of studying group performance
departmental and faculty “genealogy” at textbooks, however strong the influence of a
Northwestern (see Edwards, 1999) has led me messy, unmethodical tradition that produced
to view with great suspicion any notion of such textbooks. And what they teach in a pre­
inevitability or grand design in the growth sent-day “presentational aesthetics” classroom
of academic institutions. The grand design is creative artistry, not textbook method. Their
of Robert McLean Cumnock in the late- distance from textbook method is complicated
nineteenth century was to establish on North­ by their movement through, and beyond,
western’s young Evanston campus a course a certain tradition—one that was never
of study, and later a school, of elocution and embraced at Northwestern, in the increasingly
oratory. While the twenty-first century School professional postwar decades, by either the crit­
of Communication continues to celebrate ical theorist in English or the practicing artist in
Cumnock as its founder, almost nothing in that theatre.
school looks back to Cumnock’s design or Groups of talented students similarly have
pedagogical mission. That the school should moved through and beyond this tradition, on
have theatre professionals on the faculties of their way to forming theatre companies that
two departments—Theatre and Performance regularly stage original adaptations. Founders
Studies—is the product of accident and unpre­ of such critically acclaimed companies as
dictable growth. No one, a century ago, would Arden in Philadelphia, and Lookingglass,
have planned such seeming redundancy—just Redmoon, Lifeline, and About Face in
as no one would have planned the seeming Chicago, took coursework in the Theatre and
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Staging Paradox 231

Performance Studies Departments after Galati by us in the moment of performing it.” What
had joined the faculty, and during the years in distinguished the early Lookingglass work, as
which Zimmerman made the transition from I remember it, from the example of Grotowski
student to professor.5 Lookingglass presents (which several company members invoke) was
a unique success story. In June 2003, the the sheer audience-directed exuberance, the
15-year-old company opened an eight-million­ circus acrobat’s joy of being “in the moment
dollar theatre in a Chicago landmark, the of performing” before others.
Water Tower Water Works building on Lookingglass members describe the com­
Michigan Avenue. Formerly “a proud member pany’s founding as oppositional to, but not dis­
of the itinerant theatre community, renting missive of, aspects of institutional structure and
space where it could” (Houlihan, 2003), practice. Their collective origin myth exempli­
Lookingglass now invites comparisons to the fies Derrida’s “dangerous” supplement
venerable Goodman Theatre and more recent (1967/1976, p. 145) or, differently, the quality
arrivals such as Steppenwolf and the Chicago of “outsideness”—the “surplus of vision” that
Shakespeare Theatre—landed gentry in only an outside presence can supply, as a con­
Chicago’s theatre and entertainment districts. dition for “creative understanding” and true
To launch the new space, founding members dialogue—that Bakhtin explored in various
David Schwimmer and Joy Gregory adapted ways throughout his career (Bakhtin, 1986,
Race, the oral history of “the American obses­ pp. 1–7; Morson & Emerson, 1990, pp. 52–56).
sion” by Chicagoan Studs Terkel (1992). The But the conceptual language I find most help­
choice acknowledges several Lookingglass ful, in tracking their story, is a spinning of the
trademarks: the staging of original adapta­ term paradox that I remember first encounter­
tions, the centrality of storytelling in theatrical ing in my study with translator Richard
forms, the potential of live theatre for activism Howard of certain Barthes texts (see 1971/
and advocacy, and the company’s identifi­ 1986, p. 58). It is conventional to contrast the
cation with and commitment to a specific terms orthodox (straight or right in opinion,
community.6 doctrine, or doxa) and heterodox (of another
As Northwestern students drawn to the opinion, not in accordance with doxa). An
vision and, as they call it, “chutzpah” of early meaning of paradox (“beyond” doxa)
Schwimmer, the founders staged avant-garde reflects the sense of heterodox expression—a
“classics” (the term seems apt) like the Andre “statement or tenet contrary to received opin­
Gregory-Manhattan Project Alice in Wonder­ ion or belief”—but with the stronger sugges­
land (Gregory, 1972, 1973) and new plays like tion of something “marvelous or incredible,”
Steven Berkoff’s West (1985). Schwimmer and “absurd or fantastic” (OED, 2005). If I con­
company, producing their work in student trast orthodox and paradoxical positions, this
groups outside the Theatre Department, fea­ relates to the “marvelous” and “fantastic”
tured what company members described to me ways in which theatre innovators often posi­
in 1994 as “a poor theatre aesthetic,” in which tion themselves against or beyond the doxa of
“the body was everything.” This approach an academic discipline or what Brecht called
had almost no place in orthodox Theatre the “apparatus” of a theatre community
Department coursework at the time. The com­ (Brecht, 1964, pp. 34–35).
pany officially launched itself in 1988 with its Early in the professional life of Lookingglass,
own improvisational adaptation of Lewis Mary Zimmerman arrived from a different
Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass: “very corner of the Northwestern campus: the grad­
physical and very raw,” remembers founding uate program in Performance Studies. Her first
member Larry Distasi, “and very much driven collaboration with Lookingglass was the
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232 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

acclaimed 1990 production of The Odyssey. handful of established playscripts produced by

Zimmerman introduced a number of para­ the company. Lookingglass “has no interest
doxes into an already oppositional framework. in the play that was hot in New York now,”
Influenced by Zimmerman’s work with perfor­ Zimmerman tells me in the late fall of 2003.
mance art, the company shifted from a body­ “Even Steppenwolf and the Goodman do the
is-everything aesthetic to a focus on visual play that won the Pulitzer. . . . They vie
spectacle. With Zimmerman, Cox recalls, for who’s gonna get to do the already done
began the company’s search for “the stun­ play that everyone already likes. I mean,
ningly beautiful image” in show after show.7 Lookingglass is phe-nom-e-nal-ly” (she draw
Another innovation was Zimmerman’s this out in the manner of Dickens’s Mr. Tite
interest in the stage adaptation of fiction, Barnacle, giving it the air of a word of about
which she had studied for over a decade at five-and-twenty syllables) “risk-taking, because
Northwestern with teachers like Galati. almost everything it does is new work.”
Zimmerman recalls that with Galati’s Tony­ Zimmerman praises the company for a courage
Award-winning 1989 production of his script she helped to inspire.
for Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (Galati, The “adaptation” trademark had been
1991), adaptation “was just sort of in the air, firmly impressed upon Lookingglass by the
I think,” not just at Northwestern but in critical wing of the Chicago apparatus (see
Chicago generally—and perhaps nationally, for example Christiansen, 1990) when I inter­
since the Broadway decade that ended with viewed ensemble members in 1994. Why has
The Grapes of Wrath had begun with the tour the group focused so heavily upon adaptations
of the Royal Shakespeare Company Nicholas of narrative works? The question provokes a
Nickleby (Edgar, 1982/1992). Although the torrent of responses from the table. “There are
Lookingglass founders had participated in less rules,” says Hara, with a book than with
the culture of adaptation as Northwestern a play. One has the freedom to “create the­
students—“they had their mind open to that,” atre,” instead of merely “doing theatre.” Cox
observes Zimmerman, through “the experience describes the sheer thrill, the sense of chal­
of having taking courses” with Performance lenge, in seeking a theatrical way to make an
Studies faculty—it was Zimmerman’s arrival audience see the visions he saw while reading a
at Lookingglass that moved the company deci­ novel. Staging a book “immediately asks the
sively toward a trademark interest in produc­ question, How? And the answer to that ques­
ing original adaptations. The production tion is . . . ” Hara interrupts him: “is what we,”
history on the company’s current website fea­ as a company, “are about, almost.” Distasi
tures eighteen adaptations of narrative fiction adds, with a laugh, “And we got away with it.”
and nonfiction, including six by Zimmerman Laura Eason insists, moreover, that adaptation
(Homer’s Odyssey, The Arabian Nights, the “allows us to write, too.” It has become impor­
Sade fantasia S/M, the Grimm-inspired Secret tant for the company “to feel like we’re creating
in the Wings, Metamorphoses, and Eleven not just physically with our bodies, but also that
Rooms of Proust), two by Schwimmer (Race we’re contributing to the text.” Company adap­
and Sinclair’s The Jungle), and adaptations by tations are “loose” enough to accommodate
other company members of narrative fiction by expressive and rhetorical functions beyond
Hawthorne, Bulgakov, Dostoyevsky, Calvino, “just choosing” and arranging “words from the
and Dickens. When augmented by about a pre-existing text.”
dozen Lookingglass “original plays,” the list This impassioned response leads me to ask
of “world premieres” greatly overshadows the a potentially tedious question. If not to the
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Staging Paradox 233

letter of the text, then to what, exactly, does Cinthio, Lyly, Plautus, Seneca’s Thyestes,
the Lookingglass adapter remain faithful? It is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lodge’s Rosalynde,
not the author’s intent, they agree. “The idea is Harsnett’s Declaration of Egregious Popish
to tell the same story,” Hara suggests, “the way Impostures, plus whatever the Renaissance
it affected you. I mean, the things about the equivalent was for the magazine lying open in
novel or the story that resonate, that are still, the dentist’s office). The Shakespeare we have
like, banging off the walls of your ribcage” begun to reimagine, as a “highly collabora­
when you finish reading a novel or compelling tive” artist rather than early modernism’s soli­
work of nonfiction. “We want to be faithful to tary genius (Masten, 1997, p. 4), might have
that.” In translating a book to “the medium of been at home in a setting like Lookingglass: as
theatre” one cannot “choose all the scenes. But a “good thief” bringing his passion for stories
we want to tell the same story.” to the table with project after project, and
The director/adapter/auteur as storyteller: unrestrained by a pedantic fidelity to how the
this draws me back to the group’s description story was told before. The “true apprentice
of how it chooses projects. The ensemble knows how to steal,” Jerzy Grotowski
listens annually to director proposals. Persua­ insisted, to continue someone else’s earlier dis­
siveness in this forum relates to passion. coveries and “not just repeat” them (quoted in
“Somebody who’s on fire comes in with a pro­ Richards, 1995, pp. 3, 105).
ject and puts it on the table,” says Cox, “and The good thieves who inaugurated the
then the rest of us go, Yeah, that’s what I eight-million-dollar complex on Michigan
want, that fire is what I want. And then we Avenue were Schwimmer, who wanted to do a
vote and decide.” Hara agrees: “Without the production of Race, according to Zimmerman,
passion of the director for the project, there’s “basically since the day the book came out”;
nothing. . . . Why do you want to tell this and Zimmerman herself, who revised Secret in
story? Why now?” Zimmerman, nearly a the Wings for the new space’s second produc­
decade later, calls Lookingglass “a company tion. The two productions suggest to her the
of directors,” not of actors. The number of extremes of the company’s director/adapter/
ensemble members, by her estimate, who have auteur sensibility. Race, based on personal nar­
not yet “directed a play” constitutes a distinct, ratives collected by Terkel, is “almost a hun­
and shrinking, minority. dred percent . . . a real person naturalistically
As I listen to this, I recall what I first dis­ speaking to the audience. . . . It’s incredibly
covered when studying with Robert Breen: specific and direct.” Whereas “Secret in the
that adaptation is not a timeless theory or Wings is like, What the hell is going on? . . . It
set of techniques, but a succession of diverse never, ever speaks what it is always saying.”
embodied practices, driven by desire and even The content is “never in the language,” but
desperate neediness. The book I have just rather in the “structure, and gesture, and
read—this book whose scenes have banged off music, and the staging.” What unites the two
the walls of my ribcage—must be told again to as Lookingglass productions, Zimmerman sug­
my world, in my age. I would tell the story gests, is the fact that they are both “very much
myself, but my lone body is not adequate to ensemble pieces.” But the ensemble members
supply the visions that the book has projected I interviewed identify a different connection:
on my mindscreen. I must extend myself each was proposed by a storyteller, on fire with
through ten, twelve, fifteen bodies. This, I con­ a project, who made the entire ensemble feel,
fess, is my fantasy of “Shakespeare reading” That fire is what I want. (Why do you want to
(Froissart, Holinshed, Montaigne, Plutarch, tell this story? Why now?)
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234 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

A genealogical task I face is the tracing of twentieth century rediscovery, arising from
a connection, from Breen through Galati to such innovations as William Poel’s revolt
Zimmerman and the Lookingglass founders. against the grand manner of Victorian pro­
The most readily available statements by duction and E. K. Chambers’s pioneering
Breen, the interpretation teacher and textbook research on The Elizabethan Stage (1923).
author, admonish students to “feature” and Peter Brook speaks of having once been
“serve” the letter of the text. By the time the “gripped by living theatre” when a postwar
practice of adaptation reaches Lookingglass, Hamburg company performed Crime and
the service of literature has given way to the Punishment in the only available space, a gar­
service of storytelling, in one’s own time and ret; the sheer freedom of “the convention of
place, and the remaking of text. To pursue a novel” in an empty space leads Brook to
Jackson’s amateur/professional distinction: celebrate our fresh awareness
does such a shift constitute a rejection of
method by professional practice, located (in that the absence of scenery in the
figures like Zimmerman and Galati) both Elizabethan theatre was one of its greatest
inside and outside the university? Or does the freedoms. . . . The Elizabethan stage. . . just
a place with some doors . . . enabled the
professional adaptation of “adaptation” itself
dramatist effortlessly to whip the spectator
constitute a fresh telling of Breen’s story, in through an unlimited succession of illu­
new language? sions. . . . So it is that in the second half of
the twentieth century . . . we are faced with
the infuriating fact that Shakespeare is still
CHAMBER THEATRE
our model. (1968, pp. 72–73, 78, 87)
“He was the artist of the department when
I was there,” remembers Katharine Loesch, But Galati’s point is that two decades of
emerita professor at the University of Illinois Breen students—encountering Brook’s com­
at Chicago, who completed her PhD in ments in 1968 or racing to see his brilliant
Interpretation at Northwestern in 1961. “He demonstration of “plasticity” in the celebrated
was the artist.” Frank Galati, who began under­ Royal Shakespeare Company Midsummer
graduate study at Northwestern just as Loesch Night’s Dream that toured Chicago in 1971—
was departing, has similar memories of Robert already had grasped a powerful working sense
Breen. Actors in Breen’s campus productions of all this. The professional achievements of
and students in his staging classes were Galati and Zimmerman, or in a more modest
way the campus stagings of narrative by
learning from the novel, and learning from teachers like Njoki McElroy and myself, “have
narrative art, what the stage was—not just
what the novel was, but what the stage is—
all been, in these very profound, almost mysti­
when the assignment is to let that story live, cal ways, informed by” Breen’s achievements,
and to give voice to every syllable of its Galati insists, and his “marvelous way of
musical score. . . . I think we found out being in the world.”
more about how plastic and pliable and psy­ What I have called a culture of adaptation
chological physical space is, by virtue of
at Northwestern—Zimmerman’s sense of
Breen’s assignments, than we did by trying
to understand that Shakespeare’s stage had adaptation being “in the air” when the
just as much plasticity, and was just as much Lookingglass founders passed through—can
a psychological space. be traced to Breen, but perhaps through lines
of influence more “mystical” (as Galati sug­
What Galati calls the “plasticity” of the gests) than direct. Zimmerman remembers
Shakespearean stage was very much a taking only one course from Breen, called out
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Staging Paradox 235

of retirement, and gaining little from the After his return to Chicago in the postwar
“eccentric and sort of quiet” emeritus years, Breen’s involvement with the entertain­
professor. His very presence at a midwestern ment industry was sporadic. Galati, who is
university—inventing his “art form,” as his seven years older than I, remembers seeing
obituaries styled it, in his theatrical labora­ Breen during his years as a popular panelist
tory—remains a puzzle. Zimmerman jokes on the DuMont Network quiz show Down
with me, “Where did Bob Breen come from?” You Go, before it moved to New York:
When Breen (b. 1909) first studied theatre Northwestern’s star faculty member Bergen
at Northwestern, the program was one of six Evans was the “pompous” moderator, who
areas of instruction in the School of Speech “would say, ‘Now, Professor Breen, um, in the
that Dean Ralph Dennis had reshaped from Oxford English Dictionary, the word . . . ,’” in
the old “elocution and oratory” curriculum. response to which Breen performed “the
The others were public speaking and persua­ fuddy-duddy professor, who was very funny
sion, interpretation (the “fine art”), voice and and would make jokes.” Galati describes as
interpretation (personal studio instruction in well the wry persona that Breen often brought
platform skills), correction (the forerunner of into the classroom: the flip side of his other
the present-day Communication Sciences and persona, a virtuoso actor-demonstrator who
Disorders Department), and physical educa­ remains my model for what I understand to be
tion; a degree program in radio would not the quotational style of Brecht’s “Street Scene”
arrive for another decade. (The lines were (1964, pp. 121–129). Breen’s other television
more porous than they would be in the outing, an NBC summer replacement in 1951
“departmental” decades after World War II: called Short Story Playhouse, began to
the local legend Alvina Krause, hired after the good reviews but faded after two months.
arrival of C. C. Cunningham as a voice and Breen blamed the producers for abandoning
interpretation instructor, would transform literature of “quality”—Tolstoy and Sinclair
herself over a long career from a teacher of the Lewis—in favor of “popular magazine stories”
oral interpretation of drama to the school’s with no narrative interest, which “were frankly
best-known teacher of acting.) After graduat­ junk.” After the mid-1950s, Breen restricted
ing in 1933, Breen stayed on as an “assistant his creative life largely to another quarter-
in dramatic production” while pursuing his century of work with his brainchild chamber
MA degree (awarded in 1937); he also taught theatre on Northwestern’s campus, and to
at another Illinois college before heading to occasional roles in campus plays directed by
New York in 1938. Breen enjoyed some suc­ his colleagues.
cess as a professional actor and dancer, before So what did this brainchild look like?8 Call
resuming a teaching career and then joining to mind the image of someone performing a
the infantry in the war. He received the Purple passage of narrative fiction. It does not matter
Heart for a wound that ended his dancing if your image is an old-fashioned platform elo­
career (although dance would continue to cutionist, a parent reading a story to a child,
shape his sense, as a director, of dynamic stage Simon Callow or Anton Lesser imitating a
movement) and seems to have taken yet more Dickens public reading, Charlton Heston per­
steam out of his professional ambitions. forming the Bible on cable television, or Toni
(There were other Robert Breens in show busi­ Morrison reading a chapter from one of her
ness: he is not to be confused with the novels to a class at Princeton. To stay with the
Broadway director who helped reshape ANTA last example: Mavis sits in a strange kitchen
in the late 1940s, or with Hollywood child star and begins to make contact with the presence
Bobby Breen.) of her two dead children.
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236 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

Left alone Mavis expected the big kitchen MAVIS: laughing? singing?
to lose its comfort. It didn’t. In fact she had
an outer-rim sensation that the kitchen was NARRATOR: two of whom were Merle and
crowded with children—laughing? singing? Pearl. Squeezing her eyes shut
—two of whom were Merle and Pearl. to dissipate the impression
Squeezing her eyes shut to dissipate the
MAVIS: only strengthened it.
impression only strengthened it. When she
opened her eyes, Connie was there, dragging NARRATOR: When she opened her eyes,
a thirty-two-quart basket over the floor.
“Come on,” she said. “Make yourself use­ CONNIE: [Entering; to MAVIS.] Connie
ful.” (Morrison, 1998, p. 41) was there,
NARRATOR: [Indicating to MAVIS.] dragging
The reader performs all the voices, narrator a thirty-two-quart basket over
and characters. She projects a kind of unity, the floor.
that of the social storyteller: the confident
CONNIE: “Come on,” she said. “Make
image of full speech, emerging from a voice
yourself useful.”
and body that seem to “match,” in Wallace
Bacon’s specialized sense (1972, pp. 34,
133–137), the narrative omniscience.
Harder to imagine, for most readers, would When Breen rejoined the Northwestern fac­
be a chamber theatre scene using the same text, ulty after World War II, he began to experi­
which begins with an act of subject-splitting. ment with this technique in the interpretation
This approach does not dramatize the passage, classroom. He had many students who would
in the manner of either realism (viewed read passages of fiction formally similar to
through the conventionally invisible fourth Morrison’s first paragraph, and detect only a
wall) or epic drama. It does something much long block of narrative report, spoken by a sin­
stranger, which many viewers in the past half- gle voice. To encourage them to hear multiple
century have found intolerable; “untheatrical” voices encoded in passages of free indirect dis­
is the dismissive adjective that I have heard course, or to respond to literary language as
most often. Chamber theatre puts onstage a gesture and symbolic action, Breen would have
narrator no longer in complete control of the students script and stage chamber theatre.9 He
story. The narrator’s omniscient reports now would regard the script I offer above as only
seem mere suggestions that the characters must one possibility for bringing out the dialogues
complete. Familiar devices like narrated inte­ inhabiting language—even language that for­
rior monologue become interior “dialogue.” mally resembles monologue. Galati agrees that
The narrator often describes redundantly, Breen as a teacher “in his heyday” was far
highlighting gestures that characters also “act.” more improvisatory and playful, more commit­
And the characters also describe themselves, ted to the exploration of multiple options, than
straying into the space of narrative perspective the rather inflexible persona who narrates his
and third-person language. textbook Chamber Theatre (1978).
Breen remembers the first experiments with
the form taking place “in the spring of 1947, in
a little theatre belonging to the French depart­
NARRATOR: Left alone Mavis expected the
big kitchen to lose its comfort. ment at Northwestern” (Forrest & Loesch,
1976, p. 3). He credits his student Gerald
MAVIS: [Aside to NARRATOR.] It didn’t. Freedman, who would go on to a distinguished
NARRATOR: In fact she had an outer-rim career on Broadway and at the Great Lakes
sensation that the kitchen was Theatre Festival, with adapting and directing
crowded with children the first full-length production in 1949.
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Staging Paradox 237

Another Northwestern arrival in 1947 “clarifying,” “modernizing,” or “dramatiz­

was Wallace Bacon (b. 1914), the new chair ing” the style.
of the Interpretation Department where Breen
was an instructor. With the phasing-out of Breen concludes this “admonition” with the
the voice and interpretation staff and the image of adapters “drunk with power,” begin­
threatened departure of a disgruntled C. C. ning “to think of the work of fiction as theirs
Cunningham, School of Speech Dean James rather than the author’s” (1978, pp. 85–86).
McBurney faced a tough choice: either elimi­ At odds with such pronouncements was
nate the etiolated interpretation coursework Breen’s own practice. Over the years, I
(which had the closest ties to the school’s mis­ reviewed with Breen a number of his scripts—
sion at its founding) or find a leader who could ingenious two-hour reductions of thousand-
elevate its academic respectability. Bacon, page novels—and sometimes asked him how
a PhD in English from the University of his method squared with the advice in his
Michigan, inherited a program that had hov­ book. My favorite answer (in response to a
ered uneasily during Cunningham’s steward­ question about his script for Anna Karenina):
ship between a genteel “fine arts” emphasis “Well, the first cut is the hardest. After that
and an undergraduate “teaching of skills” cur­ it gets easy.” In fairness, the textbook told
riculum. Bacon succeeded in creating, among student adapters that if “their conscience will
other things, a credible graduate program: accept the aesthetic responsibility for the
where Cunningham had directed only two results,” they “are free to do what they please”
doctoral dissertations, he would direct over (1978, p. 86). Yet to our last conversations,
fifty, and his colleagues twenty more, before he defended his position about the self-
his retirement in 1979. The second disserta­ effacement of the performing body “in the
tion he directed was Breen’s (1950). service of literature.”
Here began a friendship that would result in Breen’s artistic practice, in my view, created
a coauthored book, Literature as Experience a long-running disturbance within the mission
(Bacon & Breen, 1959), and a cooperative but of Bacon’s academic department. Despite his
carefully negotiated pedagogical philosophy. admonitions about “service” and textual
Bacon’s respectful, even devotional approach fidelity, Breen handed the audience a paradox
to textual study through performed “commu­ every time he adapted a book, or invited his
nion” (see Edwards, 1999, pp. 85–93) pro­ students to stage a short story. Narratologist
vided the department’s doxa for three decades, Seymour Chatman speaks of the “anthropo­
and everyone on the teaching staff made morphic trap” of imagining the narrating agen­
orthodox pronouncements. “Chamber theatre cies in works of fiction (not merely their
is a technique, not an art,” we read at the “implied authors” but even their narrative
beginning of Breen’s textbook on staging. voices) as representations of human characters:
There follows the language about “the service he complains about critics who view any fic­
of literature”: chamber theatre “makes tional narrator as a talking body, having “liter­
manifest for an audience the structure, the ally . . . crossed the line from discourse to
theme, and the tone of literature” (1978, story . . . to go strolling with the characters”
p. 6). The book wraps up with a long “list of (1990, pp. 88, 120). Yet the practice of cham­
‘don’t’s’”: ber theatre on Breen’s terms requires falling
into such a trap every time out. Revisit my
don’t rewrite unless you absolutely have Toni Morrison example: when an omniscient,
to . . . ; don’t cut the descriptions just
because they are descriptions; don’t change
undramatized narrator, in the time-and-space
the indirect discourse to direct discourse; “scene” of discourse, literally steps into the
don’t alter the diction in the interest of “scene” of story to mirror and prompt the
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238 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

thoughts of the character Mavis, this defies our narrator “doesn’t really make a great deal of
commonsense experience of reading printed difference as long as we set up a dialogue rela­
fictions. Mavis was then, the storyteller (or tionship” within a private moment of self-
storytelling, as Chatman might insist) is now. awareness (Forrest & Loesch, 1976, p. 5).
With a chamber theatre scene, however, two Does so far-fetched an embodiment of
time-space relationships contaminate one metaphor (even dead metaphor) have any
another, in a weave or dance of actors’ bodies. verisimilar equivalents? When I interviewed
“Well, you ought to encourage the narrator to Breen in 1989, we had not spoken for a while.
enter into the dialogue with the characters,” In an attempt to frame my first question, I
Breen explains to interviewers in 1975, “even rehearsed a long list of concerns: the works of
though it seems that the narrator is a disem­ theory I had been reading, the staging prob­
bodied figure who can not be seen by the char­ lems my students had encountered. When my
acters” (Forrest & Loesch, 1976, p. 5). preamble reached fifteen minutes (I was there
However illogical this stage image might to tape-record him, after all) I caught myself
seem, there are real-life models for it. The and apologized. “No, no, no, no, no,” he reas­
image is familiar to anyone who has ever sat in sured me, “it’s important for you to be listen­
an acting class with an engaged teacher. Two ing to yourself.” Breen “in his heyday” was
students labor to stay “in the moment” as loved and feared for withering his students
Hamlet and Ophelia, or Elena and Astrov, with a deadpan sarcasm, usually apparent to
while this talkative body hovers around their everyone in the room except the witheree. Had
intimate scene and side-coaches. Such scene- the wearer of this patient face, mirroring my
work typically takes place before an audience. confusions, decided to leave me with one last
The acting coach inhabits the audience’s time demonstration? Or was this a demonstration
and place—a discourse “scene”—and in fact of a different sort—the nonidentical face of the
so do the two actors. But the actors strive to other, the narrator of a larger discourse, who
maintain the representation of their characters stares back when we talk to ourselves?
in another time and place—a “scene” of The great disturbance to interpretation’s
story—even while the acting coach buzzes orthodoxy was chamber theatre’s splitting of
instructions, over their shoulders or in their the human subject. Elsewhere I have argued
faces, on how to push and tweak their work­ that the odd, mirror-filled mise-en-scène of
in-progress.10 Far from being recondite or chamber theatre, inspired by Breen’s interest
obscure, such an example is commonplace for in the I/me dialogues of William James, bears
the acting students in my classes. I introduce striking resemblances to the revision of
these students to the chamber theatre narrator Freudian Ichspaltung that Jacques Lacan elab­
by asking them to think about the paradoxical orated in the 1940s and early 1950s, and
behavior of their acting teachers. mapped out in schematic form in his 1954–55
But Breen was interested in materializing seminar (see Edwards, 1999, pp. 95–98, 127).
more abstract psychological relationships. A But a simpler image will serve. The image
favorite example was the experience of dou­ of the elocutionary platform reader, which
bling and psychological mirroring at the heart Bacon’s interpretation pedagogy updated and
of such dead metaphors as “talking to” oneself even rarified, was drawn and quartered by
or “being beside” oneself. “Why not let the Breen’s technique for staging literature. Solo
narrator,” a nonidentical physical mirror, performance of literature, as it was known,
“stand in the locus of the self who is declined in coursework settings as the study
addressed?” Whether an utterance emerges of interpretation faded at Northwestern. Far
from the lips of the character or her mirroring more common today are courses that Breen
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Staging Paradox 239

inspired, featuring adaptation: the transforma­ product, the book on a shelf). “Text,” so
tion of interpretation’s literary text into a reversed, becomes a readerly process, a
group performance text. Chamber theatre was “methodological field,” a “network”; “the
the hybrid product, as Bacon (1972, p. 416) Text attempts to locate itself very specifically
called it, of an insistently cross-disciplinary behind the limit of the doxa . . . ; taking the
imagination. Bacon (1975) expressed a grow­ word literally, we might say that the Text is
ing concern about the “widespread interest” always paradoxical” (pp. 57–61). The literary
in phenomena like chamber theatre that had text of the old Interpretation Department at
moved the academic discipline toward “an Northwestern was the book on the shelf—but
increased emphasis upon performance” (one paradoxically the book that existed only when
of the “dangerous shores” that the student of “matched” by a performer’s living act. Breen
literature must navigate) and a “loosening of pushed this paradox even farther.
bonds” to the text (p. 223). And for good rea­ In recent decades, perhaps no conceptual­
son, as it turns out: chamber theatre helped ization of text has come under such assault
to open the pedagogical space for a range of as the view that a literary text (published or
courses, from narrative stagings to image- unpublished) precedes, and authorizes, all
based time-art and performance art. As seen in subsequent performances: every theatrical
my Morrison script, chamber theatre trans­ production, every reading at a lectern, will be
formed the storytelling subject from a unified an “instance” (version, variation, adaptation)
body image into many bodies, exploded into of a text that will remain finished, stable, and
relations of irreducible difference. Without in most cases available for future study. “One
intending to, perhaps, Breen uncorked the bot­ of the ways both literary and performance
tle. Michael Bowman (1995) aptly describes studies have misconceived dramatic perfor­
the genie that escaped: moving beyond Breen, mance,” argues W. B. Worthen (1998), “is
we have begun to explore literary adaptation by taking it merely as a reiteration of texts,
as a site of resistance, disobedience, perfor­ a citation that imports literary or textual
mative authorship, “misrule,” and reading authority into performance.” What is
“against the grain” (pp. 14–17). We have needed is an expansion of the “sophisticated
begun to celebrate the irresponsible reading, approach to performance” that considers “the
and we do it in groups, like the Lookingglass interplay between the scripted drama and the
Theatre Company. (actual, implied, or imagined) practices of
Bowman’s critique suggested my own need stage performance,” as employed for example
for a performance vocabulary different than in “Shakespeare studies—one corner of liter­
Breen’s, to describe the impact of his staging ary study where performance has had an
method beyond his own prescriptions. “Bob effect” (pp. 1094, 1098).
hated to write,” Bacon told me on several occa­ While taking exception to Worthen’s
sions: he struggled to find the simplest, most broad-brush portrait of the antitextual bias in
flexible terms possible to describe his own stag­ performance studies departments (I happen
ing experiments. But even seemingly transpar­ to teach in one) I appreciate both the need
ent terms are slippery. The etymology of “text” he perceives and some of the examples he
leads us to “woven thing,” a composition that employs to illustrate it. My own illustration
is closed and finished. After Barthes (1971/ of the interplay between literary text and dra­
1986), of course, we must pause to clarify that matic performance is the one I first learned, if
we mean composition, “weave” of words, and rather indirectly, from Breen. Moving beyond
not the sense obtained by spinning the term Bacon’s paradox of text-as-body, Breen cre­
into the opposite of “work” (the finished ated a “performance text” that—however
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240 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

much it claimed to “serve” or repeat a literary Yet what interests Joseph Roach (1985)
work—could not be pushed back into that in The Player’s Passion is the history of an
work once released. Rather than describing actor’s art, as influenced by science’s shifting
the performance as an instance of a literary conceptions of how the body works: the
text, I found it necessary to begin working art consists not of the variables, but of the
interactively (if not entirely in reverse): my successful repetitions. Even concepts so seem­
analytical description must set out from the ingly familiar as “spontaneity” have been
performance text, which validates the search construed variously: to mean either “free
for “pretexts” including (but not limited to) improvisation” or its opposite, “habituated,
the identified literary source. automatic response.” The paradox of acting,
Some readers will bristle at my reaccentua­ for Roach, relates to the interaction of these
tion of “performance text.” I now use the two meanings: “the actor’s spontaneous vital­
term to describe the orchestrated, “woven” ity seems to depend on the extent to
ensemble of materials and effects that an which . . . actions and thoughts have been
audience “reads” (see Edwards, 2003, automatized, made second nature.” Although
pp. 43–44). In the case of a scripted play (as “every night the actor’s experience . . . is
opposed to, say, long-form improvisation) somewhat different,” nevertheless “the words,
these materials and effects include the “liter­ gestures, and movements that the actor
ary text,” the words rehearsed and spoken by embodies are so nearly the same as to be indis­
actors. But they include as well the distinctive tinguishable from those of the night before.”
qualities of the actors’ voices and bodies, the Ballet dancers provide some of the most strik­
live or recorded music underscoring the ing examples of this (pp. 15–18).
action, the style and condition of the furniture I suppose that my use of performance text
onstage, the paint treatment on the walls of most successfully addresses this kind of repeti­
the set—even the smell of the burning incense tion—as well as the more mundane kinds of
wafting from the stage to the house, or the repetition, such as the set pieces or lighting
taste of the wine or coffee that the actors cues that remain insensibly the same from per­
invite the audience to share. The performance formance to performance (except when altered
text is not static, but plastic and temporal. Its by accidents or mistakes). In using the term, I
dialogue with an audience, as Patrice Pavis tend to focus on the elements of a production
has suggested, reveals a certain openness and that strike me as repeatable—or, more than
“play in the structure” (1982, pp. 138–139). this, as designed to be repeatable. Christopher
Richard Schechner has argued that perfor­ Innes (2000) provides a striking example,
mances are textual only in the narrowest and from the wildly improvisational Dionysus
most restricted cases. “Simply put, the text is in 69 that Schechner developed with the
there,” he declares in a 1997 interview, Performance Group: “even if the colloquial
tone” of the actors’ line-delivery “gave a spon­
taneous effect, all the variants were fixed.” So
but performance is not. Or maybe one or
two performances are—you take a class to dependent was “the Performance Group on
the theatre, you look at a videotape. But the script” that during one performance, when
these are only instances. . . . In performance a female spectator “bonded with the actor
studies, the text would be a performance playing Pentheus, . . . they left the perfor­
everyone has seen together or a videotape
mance space. The rest of the group were
of a particular performance. . . . But what is
most interesting to me is to point out the unable to continue, since no alternative had
variables possible. . . . (quoted in Harding, been rehearsed” (p. 71). Or to cast this in my
2000, p. 206) own terms: the interesting variables caused so
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Staging Paradox 241

great a disruption that the performance text greatest satisfaction in Chamber Theatre
(in this case, a text with enormous play in the comes from process rather than product,”
structure) could not repeat. Schechner’s own Breen confessed. “I would rather do a series of
anecdotes, such as an audience’s “kidnap­ scenes in different ways, trying this and trying
ping” of Pentheus, suggest that the show could that, than be concerned with some definitive
go on under extraordinary circumstances. But or final way that must be fixed for the sake of
even Schechner (1973) admits that the com­ performance” (quoted in Forrest & Loesch,
pany “began to resent participation especially 1976, p. 6). A few years before his retirement,
when it broke the rhythms of what had been Breen (1975) gave a melancholy assessment
carefully rehearsed.” By the time the produc­ of his strange invention’s failure to establish
tion closed, “most of the performers had had an identity in professional theatre, alongside
it with participation” (pp. 40–46). better-known Chicago exports like Paul Sills’s
Innes (2000) traces a specialized use of “pre­ “story theatre.”12 Chamber theatre must “set­
text” or “pre-text” to Artaud—“any preestab­ tle for its value” in the classroom: the form
lished dramatic ‘situations are only a pretext’ “may be and often is ‘entertaining’ and ‘the­
for performance”—and later Schechner, who atrically exciting,’ but these are fringe benefits.
would identify this or that literary text as If they are too directly pursued, the critical
merely “a source of ‘scenarios’ for improvisa­ function of Chamber Theatre may lose its cen­
tion” and appropriation (pp. 70–71). Susan trality and suffer the fate of most novelties”
Letzler Cole (1992) employs “pretexts” to (p. 207). While the liberating potential of his
describe the hodgepodge of sources, appropri­ experiments fired the imaginations of students,
ations, and paraphrases in the work of and students of students, Breen himself contin­
Elizabeth LeCompte.11 The term has led me ued to tinker with the rigorous practice of his
to reverse some tenets of my former teachers. method before small audiences at Northwest­
The stage—a “memory machine,” as Marvin ern. Galati, in February 2003, remembered the
Carlson (2003) has recently suggested—is not theatrical excitement. He reeled off the names
merely “the sensory illustration of a text of Breen productions—“Look at his As I Lay
already written, thought, or lived outside the Dying, look at his. . . ”—before I interrupted
stage” (Derrida, 1966/1978, p. 237). What it him. “Well, nobody did, that was the prob­
remembers and repeats, however imperfectly, lem.” Galati laughed, a little ruefully. “That
are its pretexts. Woven tightly or loosely (with doesn’t make it less great,” he reminded me.
more or less play) these pretexts are as various
as identified literary sources, random quota­
ADAPTING ADAPTATION
tions, recorded songs, and even actors’ bodies
that bear traces of our memories of them in How do the careers of Galati, Zimmerman, and
other roles. Pretexts include as well our memo­ Njoki McElroy exemplify a movement beyond
ries of social behavior: in my most faithful Breen and the “service of literature”? It is
chamber theatre staging of a short story, the important to stress movement, because each
reverentially handled source text shares the first wandered into Bacon’s Interpretation
stage with the “pretext” memory of an Alvina Department by accident. In the late 1960s,
Krause side-coaching student actors, or myself McElroy (b. 1925) was a public school teacher
in conversation with Breen. working with emotionally disturbed children.
Interpretation’s stable object of study was She had founded the Cultural Workshop of
the poem on the page. Its enduring paradox, North Chicago, which involved teenagers in
the performance text, is harder to describe as public performances designed to teach them (as
a fixed work or product. “I find that the the public schools, she felt, failed to do) about
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242 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

African American history and culture. Richard As McElroy describes her desire to make
Willis of Northwestern’s Theatre faculty saw students aware of their own voices, engaged in
the group, encouraged McElroy to study direct­ the public sounding-forth of another (literary)
ing with him, and later urged her to pursue a voice, I am reminded of the Lookingglass’s
master’s degree—but not in Theatre, McElroy desire in selecting storytellers as directors.
remembers with a laugh. Her ambition to inves­ Why tell this story? Why now? In her decades
tigate performance as a community-based of teaching, McElroy appreciated “text” as
teaching tool “would be accepted better” in Barthes reaccentuates the term: she wanted to
Interpretation. “The Theatre Department was show performers that a published book or fin­
done,” McElroy remembers—in words that ished script “is plastic, you know, it’s plastic,
recall Augusto Boal’s sense of the bourgeois the­ and you can work with it. . . . In adapting, you
atre as “the finished theatre,” reflecting the have an opportunity to use your own creativ­
desired image of a “complete, finished world” ity.” Students can apply such creativity not
(Boal 1974/1985, p. 142) rather than a world only to literature but to the “adaptation of
in process. “You came into that structure,” life.” McElroy demonstrated this in 2000 with
she remarks, “you fit into that structure.” She the compelling Everyday People: an imaginary
began her graduate work across the street, journey inspired by the storytelling she heard
therefore, in an academic structure with more among passengers on a bus trip through
play in it. Here she would complete a doctoral southern Indiana, and reset in the standstill of
dissertation, under Bacon’s direction, and in a terminal.15 The production begins with the
1970 inaugurate the pathbreaking Performance invocation of Sankofa, “an Akan word from
of Black Literature course that she would teach Ghana, which literally means, Return and pick
until 2003.13 it up.” The performance text “picks up” many
One of McElroy’s curricular innovations pretexts, ranging from a cappella relyrics of
was an annual group performance, staged by popular songs, to borrowings and rehandlings
her students in free-admission open classroom of material from Pearl Cleage, James Baldwin,
settings. Initially she used preexisting plays. and filmmaker Haile Gerima.16 It picks up
But her self-styled “adventurous” work with as well the techniques of chamber theatre,
teachers (later colleagues) Breen and Leland employed loosely to stage a given storyteller’s
Roloff—experimenting with “new media” and relationship to a scene of memory.
avant-garde performance—inspired her to The progression of narrators is not casual
stage adaptations and original material.14 or random—the kind of “any actor can nar­
McElroy would freely adapt texts of fiction rate” strategy seen throughout a stage adapta­
and nonfiction—and then hand a script to tion like Nicholas Nickleby. McElroy insists
groups in class, studying the source texts, with that we live in a world saturated with stories,
the invitation to shape and adapt the script of which only a few break through into our
even further. One goal was a lesson in empow­ everyday communication. It takes a hothouse
erment: students who typically “didn’t have atmosphere like a bus station, from which the
authority in any situation” became directors, stranded cannot escape, for some storytellers
writers, and designers of a public event. to grab and hold our attention. (Actors do this
During her last 15 years with the course, more aggressively at the beginning of the per­
scripts included career retrospectives of major formance; gradually we relax and accept being
African American artists (Josephine Baker, grabbed.) Travelers who might prefer to shrug
Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks) and off the passing stranger’s story, and move
portraits of literary and cultural movements away, are compelled to listen—just as we in
like the Harlem Renaissance. the audience (extending that crowded room)
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Staging Paradox 243

are compelled by the conventions of theatre to Theatre, as Galati observes, thought them­
sit and listen to the homeless man, the pris­ selves “cool kids” for aligning with this or that
oner’s sister, the sullen runaway. Like the teacher. The presence of a small department—
spirit Sankofa, we do not fly off: we “return supplementary in Derrida’s sense, practicing
and pick up” the story that, in other circum­ performance outside Theatre—created a fully
stances, we might ignore. credentialized space for a whole new camp of
More than this: no one, we learn, has the “cool kids,” bookish acting students “getting
whole story. We encounter character B in hip to” phenomena like “chamber theatre”
character A’s recollection—but character B’s and “media performance.” Zimmerman
story exceeds its narrowed life there, and remembers that the “tag line” for the under­
continues for our ears, outside character A’s graduate Interpretation student, twenty years
earshot. None of the characters, McElroy later, “was the Theatre major with a brief­
insists, is one-dimensional: “you think that case.” The perception of “cool” is relative, of
you’ve got this character all checked out, and course; by the early 1960s, in any case, a small
that character comes up with something that academic department had developed its own
says, No, I’m too complex for you to figure me theory of theatrical relativity.
out in that way, it’s not that simple.” So it is Galati credits this in large part to Bacon’s
that character A discovers she does not truly openness to faculty innovation. “I think one
know her own story, until it acquires the “out­ of the things that we all learned from him,
sideness” of an attentive stranger, or the “talk­ directly, or indirectly, was his advice to all of
ing book” that the stranger reads aloud. The us as teachers to be ourselves, you know, to
text of this performance is not a work, as teach to our strengths”: not every teacher’s
Barthes suggests, but a network. It not only “genius,” or “ability to ignite and inspire,” is
unfolds, but folds back. It is a weave of pre­ “right for every student.” McElroy praises
texts. It is very much a production, moreover, Bacon for the same qualities. The “unintimi­
of the polymorphous culture of adaptation dated” chairman “made me feel that I could
that Breen set in motion. really go without being all bound up in tradi­
Frank Galati (b. 1943) discovered this cul­ tion”—even when some “way-out,” “break­
ture when he transferred to Northwestern’s the-boundaries” activity went against the
Theatre Department from Western Illinois grain of Interpretation Department doxa. The
University. Alvina Krause took notice of his paradox of Bacon’s leadership is that, despite
talent, and he began “to sit in on her class every his commitment to the rigorous discipline he
now and then.” But the faculty “rivalry and elaborated in the several editions of his perfor­
competition” in the Theatre Department which mance textbook, he recruited teachers and
trickled down to student “camps” and a “kind students who would test the very limits he
of guruism,” drove the literature-loving actor seemed to impose. This made the old depart­
to seek another major. “I never took an acting ment an exciting place to study, if not always
course, and I never took a directing course,” a harmonious one.
remembers the award-winning actor and direc­ These stories remind me of Sofiya
tor. Preparing to transfer into English, he ran Gubaidulina’s anecdote about the encourage­
into an Interpretation student who knew he ment of Dmitri Shostakovich, in a far more
was an actor. “‘You know, Dr. Breen is having charged political context. Having taught
auditions for Anna Karenina, why don’t you himself to be creative during decades of
go over there?’ . . . The next thing I knew, I “correction” by Stalin’s cultural ministers,
was Levin in Anna Karenina,” and a major the composer would praise his most original
in Bacon’s department. Camps of students in students with irony: “Don’t be afraid of being
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244 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

yourself. My wish for you is that you should I knew I had to get the Joads to California
continue on your own, incorrect way.” before the intermission. And that’s not
Steinbeck’s job. And that’s not the Joads’
Continue, with my blessing, down your own
job. They’re struggling. . . . They’re doing
wrong path: “I am infinitely grateful to their job. My job was to somehow cross that
Shostakovich for those words. I . . . felt forti­ distance from the very opening to . . . “It’s
fied by them to such an extent that I feared California.”
nothing, any failure or criticism just ran off my
back” (quoted in Wilson, 1994, p. 306). If the study of adaptation had sharpened
The wrong path of chamber theatre, Galati’s “perception of story,” the job of
then—brushing one of Bacon’s “dangerous adaptation required him to unlearn the rigor
shores”—led Galati to direct his first depart­ of his teacher, who insisted on repeating all the
ment-sponsored production in 1970, an adap­ devices of novelistic narrative.
tation of Joyce’s Dubliners story “The Dead.” Mary Zimmerman (b. 1960) speaks simi­
Acting in that production gave me my own larly about the evolution of storytelling
first taste of chamber theatre. “I was a purist,” devices in her original adaptations. As a
Galati recalls, Theatre student at Northwestern, she took
many Interpretation classes (although she was
back when we did “The Dead,” you know, never a major until her graduate study) and
I absolutely refused to cut a single word. learned the chamber theatre method by acting
And I maintained that discipline even in
in numerous faculty-directed productions. She
some of the longer works that I cut, with
regard to internal sections that it seemed remembers being “very chamber-theatre-y and
to me needed to be preserved as they were very preserve-all-the-narrative” when starting
crafted by the writer. out as a director. But both creative growth and
considerations of audience have led her to a
Attempts to employ a Breen-like rigor came style that features “less frequent and lengthy
to an end with an adaptation of Anne Tyler’s appearances” of onstage narrators. “I found
Earthly Possessions staged at Steppenwolf other ways to hide the narrative in there?” she
Theatre in 1991. Galati’s last return to “the says to me in a faux-nervous rising inflec­
‘old way’ . . . split the ‘first person’ between tion—as if her bad faith had summoned the
two actresses, and it just didn’t work. ghost of Robert Breen, doom’d for a certain
. . . There wasn’t the sort of zest of simplicity, term to walk the night.
you know?” By that point, Galati had learned Our conversations in 2003 cover the vari­
a different kind of simplicity in abundantly ous ways in which she has reaccentuated the
complicated projects like The Grapes of practice of Breen and his students. Like Galati,
Wrath. In reducing the four-hour running time Zimmerman claims to have grasped a clearer
of Steppenwolf’s original production, Galati sense of story in the theatre through her prac­
made a “watershed” discovery about his tice of adaptation. In shaping texts far “larger
“job” as adapter-director. He had to steer a than can be done . . . in an evening,” Zimmer­
middle way between the temptation to drama­ man seeks those episodes and elements that
tize—to “find the play” in a novel by “wind­ will interact productively with other pretexts:
ing it up more tightly”—and “Breen’s “what my actors are going to be really good
invitation to let the novel play, to let it wander at, and what the space is going to accommo­
on its own way and let us follow after it.” date, and what the set suggests.” In much of
What he faced, while reshaping the production her work she gravitates toward “ancient liter­
for its long journey to Broadway, was the need ature . . . because I think performance is
to find the theatre’s story: embedded in it—they were oral texts, they
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Staging Paradox 245

were performed texts.” Stories from oral my text and David Slavitt’s” translation of
cultures “may be codified into an accepted Ovid (1994). And the much-revised Secret in
print text,” but “old things that survive have the Wings, inspired by a list of Grimm tales
proved their vitality and their immediacy and and Italo Calvino’s retelling of “The Three
their relevance by the fact of their survival.” Blind Queens” (1980),
More than this, the contemporary artist feels
“the security of joining a big chorus instead really shouldn’t even say “adapted by.” It
should say “written by,” because . . . there’s
of feeling, I’m the maker of this.” The old
not a word of deliberately copied language
story that might have received its first perfor­ from any particular text. It’s my own mem­
mances by a singer of tales must now speak ory, and a jumbling-together of stories from
in the hybrid language of a technologically childhood.
sophisticated theatre. Zimmerman speaks of
how she first came to appreciate this in adap­ Of Zimmerman’s two Chicago productions
tation classes, even though she might have in 2003, then, which was the more personal?
moved beyond most of the specific techniques
advanced there: “When the assignment is to That’s a really good question. . . . Trojan
take a work of art that was not constructed for Women was personal to me in terms of my
political convictions at the time, and I felt
space and time, you find out what ‘the theatri­ that the language of Seneca and David
cal’ is. Because that is the ingredient you’re Slavitt . . . was much stronger than anything
adding, or coaxing out of it, you know?” I could ever write.
The experience is “everything about perfor­
mance,” because the source text “wasn’t writ­ Daniel Ostling’s set for the modern-dress
ten with a convenience, the accommodations, production cruelly invoked the ruins of the
of the way a play accommodates its venue.” World Trade Center towers; staring almost
Her words recall Galati’s appreciation of straight down from the theatre’s highest
learning in Breen’s classroom exercises about gallery, I experienced some of the vertigo
the stage’s plasticity. and sheer faintness described by my friend
If not to the letter of the text, then to what, Kameron Steele, who watched unbelievingly
exactly, does the adapter remain faithful? and helplessly from a nearby building in
The question I posed to Lookingglass artists, Manhattan as the jumpers on 9/11 hit the
in 1994, receives a revealing answer from street. And although the actors, faithfully
Zimmerman in November 2003. She rehearses speaking the Seneca translation, said nothing
fidelity in a series of ratios. In her 2003 staging about America’s current adventure in Iraq,
of Seneca’s Trojan Women at the Goodman one could not ignore such details as the white
Theatre, the only writerly signature she added noise of helicopters, or Zimmerman’s casting
to David Slavitt’s translation (1992) was the choice of Fredric Stone—a ringer for Dick
lyric to a song composed for the production Cheney—in the role of Agamemnon. The
by her friend Philip Glass. In a very different adaptation of multiple pretexts produced a
way, the arrangement of quotations in The personal statement by Zimmerman that not
Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (in various all the performing bodies onstage necessarily
productions from 1989 to 2003)—”no matter needed to share. In more direct ways, Secret in
how kind of crazy my staging is”—presents the Wings is “the most personal of my plays,”
“one hundred percent Leonardo’s language, Zimmerman concedes, “because the language
zero percent my own.” By contrast, the script is most my own.”
of the celebrated Metamorphoses production Then perhaps the better way to ask the
(Zimmerman, 2002) is “fifty-fifty in terms of question is this: which of the two very personal
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246 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

adaptations is more faithful? Zimmerman which she received in 1998. At the top of
returns several times to the image of student Galati’s equally impressive list of honors is his
painters, election, in 2001, to the American Academy
of Arts and Sciences. McElroy, spinning the
those people that you see making those culture of adaptation toward community
exact copies in the Louvre. There’s some­ activism, has been recognized for perfor­
thing about that practice of your hand liter­ mance-based work in education going back to
ally going through that motion that teaches
you something general about representation
the 1960s; the honor she mentions with great­
or painting. . . . I think that’s how you learn est pride is an NAACP Living Legend Award
to write, just like the painter in the Louvre, in 2001.
or whatever. By having to, you know . . .

WITHOUT THE WORDS

She starts to say “memorize,” but reconsid­
ers. “By, you know, just dealing, dealing, deal­ The double movement within a local context
ing with the body of the text.” She invokes that I have tried to describe—from textbook
her experience in “jillions” of undergraduate method to professional practice, and from
Interpretation Department classes, where the featuring to fissuring a text—can be seen in
rigors of a typical assignment required the the ambitious Chekhov Cycle by Redmoon
student to memorize and embody a literary text Theatre’s Jim Lasko. The first installment,
in ways that were “not against-the-grain or Nina, which inspired my admiring report in
not fractured or not interwoven with other another essay (see Edwards, 2003, pp. 38–40,
texts” (three moves that characterize much of 52–53), reinvented Chekhov’s The Seagull as
Zimmerman’s most distinctive work). Such an almost wordless clownscape in a Chicago
precise engagement with “great literature” public park during the summer of 2002. The
(Zimmerman trills her voice like an elocution­ following spring, Lasko took many of the
ary lady, on her way to making a serious point) same artists indoors at the Steppenwolf Studio
“imprints in you internally a kind of deep struc­ to develop and stage Seagull, a second
ture of narrative and of storytelling” that pre­ “rewrighting” of the play. While installment
pares you to take your own path. Galati agrees, two restored free translations of much of
when I mention this a few days later: “We paid Chekhov’s text, the most memorable “lan­
our dues.” Such “disciplines of the text,” as guage” was visual and gestural.
Worthen (1995) expressed the matter, were not The Cycle’s Kostya, like Lasko himself, is a
the dead end of oratorical culture at Northwest­ puppeteer as well as a “theatre-maker.” Much
ern: they were the springboard for two artists of Seagull’s surprising spectacle, therefore,
who have moved compellingly beyond litera­ invokes contrasts of scale. Human actors often
ture in their best-known public work. behave like large-scale versions of Kostya’s
In taking their own “incorrect” ways—in puppets. The physical environment provides
moving beyond literature, interpretation, many of them with boxes to inhabit, when
chamber theatre—Galati and Zimmerman they are “put away” after a scene, and ele­
have helped shape the “local” art of adapta­ ments of the set permit transformation into
tion in Chicago, and have taken it to interna­ mise-en-abîme structures that echo the larger
tional stages. For their work as adapter/ dramatic world. Like the earlier Nina, Seagull
directors, both have won multiple Joseph expands the role of Masha. The production’s
Jefferson Awards, as well as Tony Awards. final image dramatizes her yearning, beyond
Notable among Zimmerman’s many achieve­ the moment of Kostya’s death, by transform­
ments is the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, ing her box into a life-size doll house: as she
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Staging Paradox 247

addresses the empty chair (presumably the I’m doing the adaptations we were trained to
one in which the Kostya “doll” would sit) she do” at Northwestern, “but without the words.”
bursts into tears. The production’s most mov­ The same work “but without the words”:
ing images, as well as its most comic ones this expresses the paradox of my title. The
(Medvedenko accompanying his tuba recital dues-paying student of text traces the hand
on a toy piano, which he plays with his free of a master like Chekhov before embarking
hand), are not in Chekhov’s play. In many on three panels of abstract expressionism.
cases they develop further possibilities of Toward the end of the session I conducted in
images from the Nina production. Nina, like 1994 with Lookingglass ensemble members,
Chekhov’s The Seagull, is a pretext for install­ Christine Dunford offered her own views
ment two. The text as network or method­ about books and actors’ bodies—competing
ological field: Lasko’s Chekhov Cycle presents pretexts—on stage:
its various texts, from literary source text to
performance text, as constantly in motion and One of the things that I’ve observed in
watching adaptations . . . is that they seem
capable of transformation. Installment three to get stripped down from the book. The
promises to reinvent everything once more, richness of the book seems to get stripped
beyond the plot, in a nontheatrical site.17 down. But then when I see actors bring that
As a PhD student in Northwestern’s stripped-down version to life, all the blood
Theatre and Drama Program, Lasko found the washes back into it. And it might not be the
same blood . . . as the book had, but it’s
most gratifying coursework at two institu­
now a full experience again.
tional extremes: the performance studies adap­
tation classes and the undergraduate acting One kind of “richness,” or “blood,” is liter­
courses in theatre. This gifted artist, who left ary language. Another is the theatre’s array of
his academic program to devote his full ener­ material languages, including actors’ expressive
gies to creative work, shares these thoughts: bodies. If the storytellers of Lookingglass are
“The culture at Northwestern promoted the correct, the retelling of a book in one’s own
belief that you can adapt anything to the stage medium, in one’s own time and place, is a kind
and, from there, that almost anything, literary of aesthetic transfusion: the “blood” is new,
or other, can be made to feel alive and pre­ but it courses through the same narrative veins.
sent” in performance. He remembers the
“fearless” risk-taking of students, and the abil­
ity of teachers “at their best” to encourage this NOTES
fearlessness. “The work I make now,” he says, 1. For information about Chicago’s “Jeff”
owes much to “a permissive and critical cul­ Awards, see http://www.jeffawards.org/.
ture” that encouraged “exploration”: 2. The essay cites transcripts of several per­
sonal interviews: with Frank Galati on February
10, 2003, and November 25, 2003 (both con­
I’ve moved toward objects, toward an ducted in Evanston, Illinois); with Njoki McElroy
intensely physical style. Neither physical on July 17, 2003 (conducted in Evanston); with
performance nor object work was being Mary Zimmerman on February 10, 2003, August
much explored at Northwestern when I was 20, 2003, and November 19, 2003 (all conducted
there. Most of the work was heavily text- in Evanston); and with six members of the
based. Lookingglass Theatre Company, Tom Cox, Larry
Distasi, Andy White, Doug Hara, Laura Eason,
and Christine Dunford, on October 4, 1994
But his current “success with this image- (conducted in Chicago). When useful, I have
based style” has deep roots in the “intelligence” distinguished between transcripts of two interviews
promoted by close textual study. “It is as though with Robert Breen: one conducted by David Wohl
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248 PERFORMANCE OF AND BEYOND LITERATURE

on June 6, 1973 (in Evanston), and another by me usefulness of chamber theatre, see Forrest and
on October 16, 1989 (in Evanston). Additionally, I Loesch (1976, pp. 2–3).
have cited personal communications by e-mail or 10. For many years now, in my staging classes,
telephone from Jim Lasko on December 4, 2003; I have discussed how the narratologist’s “story”
Katharine Loesch on February 3, 2004; Kameron and “discourse” might be understood as scenes
Steele on September 11, 2001; and Mary Zimmer­ when applied to the work of adapters. I have not
man on December 15, 2003. Unless otherwise seen this usage elsewhere.
noted, quotations from these individuals are drawn 11. “Pretext” appears in Cole’s complicated
from this list of unpublished sources. account of the Wooster Group’s Frank Dell’s The
3. The theme of Breen’s course in readers the­ Temptation of Saint Antony, directed (and to a
atre at Northwestern, as it developed during the large extent devised and composed) by LeCompte.
1960s, was “featuring the text.” As part of curric­ Cole borrowed the term, as she explains, from
ular revisions in the mid-1980s, the readers theatre David Savran (1986, p. 40), the author of a book-
and chamber theatre courses once taught by Breen length study of the Wooster Group’s early
became a two-part course in “presentational aes­ productions (1988). Her use of it often seems
thetics,” taught most frequently during the past interchangeable with “source text.”
two decades by Galati and Zimmerman. 12. Sills comments that the “narrative tech­
4. Other representative textbooks include nique developed by Robert Breen” was “very sim­
Haas (1976), Long, Hudson, and Jeffrey (1977), ilar to story theater where the actor could speak
and Pickering (1975). Although the popular about his character in the third person. Except
Handbook by Coger and White (1967) went they used a narrator. So I just cut out the narrator
through two subsequent editions (in 1973 and twenty years later and that was story theater”
1982) the approach of the textbook’s first edition (quoted in Sweet, 1996, p. 15). Breen remembers
(which I cite) remained substantially unchanged. that Sills became aware of chamber theatre after
Among the various bibliographies of books and seeing episodes of Short Story Playhouse; later,
essays, the most helpful is Peterson (1985). during his years at Second City, he met Breen
5. For information about these theatres, see when he came to Northwestern to lecture. “Story
the following websites: Arden Theatre, http:// Theater is a theatrical tour de force,” Breen
www.ardentheatre.org/; Lookingglass Theatre, observed to Wohl in 1973, “and is very successful,
http://www.lookingglasstheatre.org/; Redmoon but it’s got nothing to do with the critical analysis
Theater, http://www.redmoon.org/; Lifeline Theatre, of literature. . . . My entertainment of audiences,”
http://www.lifelinetheatre.com/; and About Face by contrast, “is kind of a secondary thing.”
Theatre, http://www.aboutfacetheatre.com/. 13. See McElroy (1975). Following McElroy’s
6. Few Chicago companies have taken more departure from Northwestern, the black literature
seriously their responsibility as members of a course continues to be taught by associate profes­
larger community, composed of theatregoers sor E. Patrick Johnson.
and nontheatregoers alike. Throughout the com­ 14. McElroy cites the example of George C.
pany’s history, the multifaceted Lookingglass out­ Wolfe’s 1989 adaptation “Spunk: Three Tales by
reach program has been one of Chicago’s most Zora Neale Hurston” (Wolfe, 1991) as a liberat­
distinguished, and has inspired the full-time com­ ing experience in her growth as both writer and
mitment of several ensemble members. For infor­ adapter.
mation, see the education page on the company’s 15. In May, 2000, the black literature class
website. produced two scripts, for which two student direc­
7. Zimmerman provides a valuable contrast­ tors made different selections from McElroy’s
ing perspective on her early work with Looking- Everyday People stories. I have chosen to dis­
glass in her doctoral dissertation (1994). cuss the performance text (preserved on my own
8. An earlier version of several paragraphs videotape record) directed by Jean Garrison, as
describing chamber theatre appeared in Unstoried performed in Northwestern’s Theatre and Inter­
(Edwards, 1999). I am grateful to the editors pretation Center on May 20, 2000.
of Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance 16. Songs range from the 1969 Sly and the
Studies, published by the College of William and Family Stone hit that suggests the play’s title, and
Mary in Virginia, for permission to include a “Big Brother” from Stevie Wonder’s 1972 album
selection of unmarked quotations. Talking Book, to Dionne Farris’s 1995 “Don’t
9. For Breen’s clearest description of how he Ever Touch Me (again).” The content of one scene
began to demonstrate to his students the critical echoes Gerima’s film Sankofa (1993); a racist
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Staging Paradox 249

father’s tirade paraphrases moments from the Brecht, B. (1964). Brecht on theatre: The develop­
horrific lynching scene in Baldwin’s “Going to ment of an aesthetic (J. Willett, Trans.).
Meet the Man” (1965/1995); and a character edu­ New York: Hill and Wang.
cates another about “the brothers” with an Breen, R. S. (1950). Symbolic action in the oral
extended quotation from Pearl Cleage’s Deals interpretation of Robinson Jeffers’ “Roan
with the Devil (1993, pp. 44–49). stallion.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
17. The program for Seagull, which opened Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
at the Steppenwolf Studio on March 20, 2003, Breen, R. S. (1975). Chamber theatre. In R. Haas
announces “another outdoor production, a site- & D. A. Williams (Eds.), The study of oral inter­
specific work, that activates a public space with pretation: Theory and comment (pp. 207–211).
the life of Chekhov’s characters”; in installment Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
three, the characters will “leave Chekhov’s story Breen, R. S. (1978). Chamber theatre. Englewood
behind” (Lasko, 2003, p. 12). Other Redmoon Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
productions have intervened. As of June 29, 2004, Brook, P. (1968). The empty space. New York: Avon.
installment three of The Chekhov Cycle has not Calvino, I. (1980). The three blind queens.
been announced for production. In “Drift” In Italian folktales (G. Martin, Trans.,
(Edwards, 2003, p. 39) I incorrectly identify the pp. 407–409). New York: Harcourt Brace
actress playing Masha as Vanessa Stalling, who Jovanovich. (Original work published 1956)
played Nina in Lasko’s productions of Nina and Carlson, M. (2003). The haunted stage: The theatre
Seagull; in both productions, Sharon Lanza played as memory machine. Ann Arbor: University of
Masha. Michigan Press.
Chambers, E. K. (1923). The Elizabethan stage
(4 vols.). Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
Chatman, S. (1990). Coming to terms: The rhetoric
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PART IV
Performance and Pedagogy
BRYANT KEITH ALEXANDER

I n Teaching Against the Grain: Texts for

a Pedagogy of Possibility, Roger Simon
(1992) offers a germinal construct that under­
present and future” (McLaren, 1998, p. 164).
A performance studies paradigm of pedagogy
capitalizes and situates these concerns by reveal­
scores the meaningful connection between ing, interrogating, and challenging legitimated
pedagogy and performance. He writes that the social forms of teaching, learning, and knowing
nature of pedagogy asks a series of questions: while working toward transforming social sys­
“‘What should be taught and why?’ with con­ tems to liberate the human spirit. Performance
siderations as to how that teaching should studies scholars understand that the processes
take place” (pp. 55–57). His orientation to the of socialization and enculturation are acts
nature of pedagogy questions issues of content of instruction, internalizing cultural scripts, and
and purpose. Yet the accomplishment of ped­ embodied performances.
agogy, the cornerstone of it’s meaning, is made Performance pedagogy as a theoretical
manifest in performance; in how teaching construct focuses both on the pedagogy of
should take place. Highly steeped in the possi­ teaching performance in performance studies,
bilities and politics of critical pedagogy, his and on engaging performance as a strategic
approach to describing teaching signals an pedagogy: performance as a way of knowing,
understanding of education as a cultural and performance as a strategic analytic; perfor­
embodied practice, a doing. It is the what, mance as a way of seeing and understanding
why, and how of teaching that establishes the the nuanced nomenclature of human social
links between self and society, between culture dynamics. In this sense performance pedagogy
and identity, between perpetuating the status also includes the nature of performativity in/as
quo and empowering a radical transformation pedagogy. In Articulate Bodies, Elyse Pineau
of knowing that can have material conse­ (2004) offers a good template on which to
quences as we strive towards a more democra­ tease at the notion of performativity and its
tic society. link to educational processes when she writes,
“Critical theorists see school as a form of
cultural politics; schooling always represents an In the performative dynamic, history and
introduction to, preparation for, and legitimati­ the ideological meanings it bears, operates
zation of particular forms of social life. It has along three temporal axes: it precedes and
creates the condition for action; it is instan­
always been implicated in relations of power, tiated anew in each moment, and it is car­
social practices and the favoring of forms and ried forward through each repetition. In
knowledge that support a specific vision of past, other words, if “performance” is the situated
253
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instantiation of historical meanings, living. The performance-pedagogy link is also

“performativity” is the sociocultural dynamic problematic and reductive if we resist seeing
that lends it longevity, power, and the
performance and pedagogy as they “relate to
appearance of inevitability. Thus, one might
attend to discreet performances within edu­ cultural practice and the materiality of bodies—
cational life while investigating the per- hence a displayed enactment of ideology and
formative trajectories in which they are enfleshed knowledge—influenced and moti­
embedded. (pp. 1–2) vated by the politics of race, gender, power, and
class in the forms of folklore, ritual, spectacle,
Pineau draws on the definitional heritage resistance, and protest” (Alexander, Anderson,
of performativity from J. L. Austin’s (1962) & Gallegos, 2005, p. 2).
speech-act theory as politicized in Judith Butler’s With this in mind, I press Roger Simon’s
(1995) phenomenology of gender to emphasize interrogative approach to discussing pedagogy
the ritualized repetition of communicative acts against Lawrence Grossberg’s (1994) query of
that have historical consequences. Thus, to look cultural studies. He writes that “the question
simply at the link between performance and of cultural studies is not so much who we are
pedagogy as a singular activity within the con­ speaking to (audience) or even for (represen­
fines of the classroom situation is problematic. tation), but whom we are speaking against.
It is problematic if performance is reductively And consequently, the resources we need, the
constructed as enacted behavior or aesthetic strategies we adopt, and the politics we
entertainment in the moment of its engagement attempt to define must always take into
without an accompanying recognition of its his­ account the particular context in which we are
torical, social, or cultural antecedents. It is prob­ struggling”; struggling to teach, struggling to
lematic if performance pedagogy coalesces into a inform, and struggling to transform the world
methods fetish in educational discourse and not (p. 9). Performance pedagogy as constructed
into a more humanizing pedagogical framework in performance studies is poised at a produc­
that helps teachers and students interrogate their tive intersection with cultural studies, where
collusion in the social construction of meaning performance is viewed not only as discursive
(Bartolome, 1996). It is problematic if the per- human behavior and methodology, as a set of
formance-pedagogy link is only used to examine critical tools, and as a paradigm of knowing;
the reductive metaphor of teachers as perform­ but also as a strategic illumination and inter­
ers and not teaching as an interpretive act, a per- vention in human social processes.
formative process that excavates new conditions Performance in the classroom is both a
of knowledge meaning (Edgerton, 1993, p. 220; behavior and a theoretical position. The
Pineau, 1994). behavior involves enacted practices of cultural
Further, it is problematic if the utility of per­ and intercultural contact magnified in the
formance as pedagogical method overlooks the materiality of lived experiences. These behav­
larger structures and ways in which the repeti­ iors always come into contact and conflict
tion of historical norms and enacted behaviors with the often privatized theoretical logics that
are translated through particular teaching prac­ guide the specific processes of teaching, nestled
tices. It is problematic if the performance- within the larger social constructs of schooling
pedagogy link is not also seen as a complex and and education. As a corrective Henry Giroux
productive site of possibility that both disrupts (2001) calls for a performative pedagogy or a
and transforms the processes of knowing in the public pedagogy, one that “opens a space for
reified location of the classroom and, maybe disputing conventional academic borders”
more importantly, in the broader social, and that reconfigures classroom space to all
cultural, and political contexts of everyday practiced places where the dynamism of
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Performance and Pedagogy 255

human social commerce effects knowing and pedagogy acknowledges that performance has
living (p. 8). Such a pedagogy raises questions always been used as procreative, protective, and
“beyond the institutional boundaries of the pedagogical agent beyond the confines of the
disciplinary organization of question and classroom and in the broader constructions of
answers” and gets at the core of how we know human social engagement in the form of ritual
what we know (Grossberg, 1996, p. 145).1 practices, pop cultural influences, and in the
Here, issues of authority, of who asks the arenas of politics and religion, among others.
questions, is based in a system of survival, and In the introduction to their book, Education
the answers are acts of liberation. Defined in and Cultural Studies: Toward a Performative
and through its performative functions, public Practice, Henry A. Giroux and Patrick Shan­
pedagogy is marked by its attentiveness to the non (1997) offer a construction of performa­
interconnections and struggles that take place tive pedagogy that I use to expand the notion
over knowledge, language, spatial relations, of performance from a tool of performing
and history. theory to performance as an embodied method­
In Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters ology: a mechanism that facilitates a theoretical
to Those Who Dare to Teach, Paulo Freire dialogue between students and curriculum,
(1998) has outlined the need for teachers to students and teachers, students and audience,
be cultural workers: public intellectuals who and students and society. They state,
work towards social change, not the remani­
festation of the status quo. Giroux (1996) cap­ The concept of the performative in this text
tures this sentiment well when he charges provides an articulating principle that signals
the importance of translating theory into
teachers to work “pedagogically and theoreti­ practice while reclaiming cultural texts as
cally to ensure the development of a socially an important site in which theory is used to
responsible citizenry and a critical, multicul­ “think” politics in the face of a pedagogy
tural, democracy” (p. 96). To center this pro­ of representation that has implications for
ject within the context of educative processes how to strategize and engage broader public
issues. Pedagogy in this context becomes
(in the classroom and in everyday life) is to
performative through the ways in which var­
engage in an insurgent critical pedagogy that ious authors engage diverse cultural texts as
begins to empower voice at the core level of a context for theorizing about social issues
social indoctrination and cultural practice. and wider political considerations. (p. 2)
And to engage performance as a strategic
mechanism is to also center such transforma­ This articulating principle does not merely
tive processes and ways of knowing the world translate theory into practice, because practice
through and in the body: the body as conduit and experience are always sites of complex
of being, the body as the materiality of pres­ ways of knowing. In fact, bell hooks (1994)
ence, the body as the nexus of need, and the says, “No gap exists between theory and prac­
body as a site of knowing. tice. Indeed, what experience makes more
Outlining a more concrete link between per­ evident is the bond between the two—that ulti­
formance and pedagogy Giroux (2001) writes, mately reciprocal process wherein one enables
“The performative nature of the pedagogical the other” (p. 61). And, while pedagogy may
recognizes the partial breakdown, renegotia­ turn to performance as a strategy of seeing and
tion, and reposition of boundaries as funda­ being seen, of calling attention to, and magnify­
mental to understanding how pluralization is ing that which is microscopic or so habituated
linked to the shifting nature of knowledge, as to go unnoticed, performance offers much
identities, and the process of globalization” more to pedagogy. As an embodied epistemol­
(p. 9). Performative pedagogy as public ogy performance is both the act of doing and
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256 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

the act of knowing. Performance becomes a kinesthetic sense with candid and thoughtful
core register of pedagogical discourse. consideration of the implications of those
bodily sensations. Every time that we ask
In positing performance as a form of peda­
students to perform across gender, ethnic, or
gogical discourse, I am suggesting that perfor­ generational lines we have the opportunity
mance is a critical process of sense making to unpack their resistance to the unfamiliar,
which meets and exceeds the pedagogical chal­ their stereotypic assumptions about how
lenges between teachers and students: to teach others move through the world, as well as to
and learn in meaningful, critical, yet creative confront their own habituated responses and
experiences. (p. 133)
ways. Instead of teachers solely construct­
ing traditional examinations in which students
And while I fully agree with Pineau, I also see
match their knowledge to expected standards
that critical performative pedagogy should not
of expressions, in performance students are
be limited to teachers “unpacking” and decon­
required to synthesize their understanding
structing student responses. This traditional ele­
through enfleshed knowledge, what Peter
ment of the educational equation, laden with
McLaren (1993) describes as “the building
power and dominance, risks reducing the act of
of discursive positionalities and economies of
performance and Pineau’s rich contribution to
affect from the discourses and material prac­
just another opportunity to critique. Far too
tices available and the histories and regulatory
often teachers, caught up in the power of their
practices of their operations” (p. 275).
own positionality, overlook what they can learn
Performance as pedagogical discourse sig­
in the process of engaging student performances
nals students to engage both their critical and
as a lesson in their own pedagogy, and in their
creative skills as well as their enfleshed knowl­
own dense particularity (Mohanty, 1989).
edge in order to display and present their
A critical performative pedagogy also offers
understanding of complex concepts grounded
teachers and other students in the class (the
in social, cultural, and political issues through
audience), the opportunity to see themselves
the body—and maybe more importantly
again through the performances of others; per­
through their experience. Their performances
formance as a barometer of truth or reality.
serve as products that evidence their under­
The performance can serve as critical reflexive
standing and their resistance. These perfor­
lens in order for teachers and students to see
mances also serve as demonstrations of how
and realize their own resistances, stereotypic
they came to their understanding, as well as
assumptions, habituated responses, and expe­
critical dialogic engagements with those who
riences relative to particular issues related
witness the performance. In constructing the
to the theoretical arguments that frame the
notion of performance as a pedagogical dis­
assignment and the person in performance.
course, I am suggesting that it offers the
This is especially important when teachers and
opportunity for a critical engagement of issues
students explore the complex intersections of
that go beyond pedestrian notions of experi­
race, sex, class, gender, and privilege; and how
ential learning to a form of critical performa­
the politics of these embodied practices blend
tive pedagogy. In her article “Performance
and bleed the borders between school and
Studies Across the Curriculum: Problems,
society.
Possibilities, and Projections” (1998), Elyse
Pineau comments on critical performative
pedagogy in this way:
CHAPTER OVERVIEWS

Critical performative pedagogy combines The chapters in this section explore the
acute physical awareness of one’s kinetic and productive relationships between critical
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Performance and Pedagogy 257

pedagogy and performance in diverse ways. are engaged in the performance studies
Each demonstrates that the production, con­ classroom? What are the values of perfor­
sumption, and dissemination of knowledge mance studies in the university and in liberal
are critical performances intimately linked to education? How is it that, when we ask ques­
activism as well as to the formation of institu­ tions about the efficacy, effectiveness, viabil­
tional practices and identities. While the ity, value, or importance of performance
authors of these chapters “do their own studies, we raise questions of class and privi­
thing,” they are consistent in their enunciation lege that have particular implications for
of the necessarily tensive elements of politics, university education? What values and for
possibilities, practices, and punctuations that whom? Most importantly, how is it that as an
mark the unique relationship between peda­ educational enterprise performance studies,
gogy, performance, and performativity in the especially as it is practiced in many institutions
specific context of the classroom, and in larger in the United States, participates in an ongoing
processes of schooling, education, culture, and experiment in social change? What is the trans­
society. formative capacity of performance studies to
In general ways, the two chapters that adjust to needs, to new circumstances, to
frame this section, offered by Nathan Stucky expand or contract, as conditions require?
and Norman Denzin, offer historical and the­ And how are those adjustments reflected in
oretical discussions of the current trends in performance studies pedagogy?
performance pedagogy, and the ethics of per­ In her chapter, “Ambulant Pedagogy,”
formance pedagogy that extend beyond the Mady Schutzman employs and deploys perfor­
narrow confines of the classroom. The three mativity as pedagogical tool, as a methodolog­
interceding chapters by Mady Schutzman, ical critique that enhances radical pedagogical
Greg Dimitriadis, and Kristin Valentine serve goals. Through a metaphorical use of “ambu­
as very specific case studies of the ways per­ lant pedagogy,” Schutzman weaves, dances,
formance pedagogy enlivens the pedagogical and choreographs an intricate and sophisti­
enterprise; how pop cultural phenomenon cated logic about a transitive pedagogy, one
such as hip hop can serve as artistic, political, that crosses the borders of staid teacher-
and educative medium; and the ways perfor­ student interactions and the classroom as
mance pedagogy might intervene in particular purely intellectual work space; one that
social conditions. These authors extend and crosses students into new realms of knowing
deepen theoretical logics that undergird the through an embodied epistemology of serious
performance/pedagogy link, while signaling play; one, she writes, where “a kin(a)esthetic
the reader to critique reductive ways of seeing sensibility advocates for a deeply implicated
the power and efficacy of performance. pedagogical organ, accountable and answer­
In his chapter, “Fieldwork in the able to powerful political agendas” that must
Performance Studies Classroom: Learning be critiqued on the level of the human and the
Objectives and the Activist Curriculum,” humane—thereby challenging the threats to
Nathan Stucky takes on the challenge of artic­ keep students and learning as immobile struc­
ulating, reinforcing, and delineating what we tures of social indoctrination; one where
know about the potency and efficacy of per­ teachers and students challenge their knowl­
formance as/in/with pedagogy and/or curricu­ edge of the known with the immediacy of the
lum. His chapter is based on addressing a altogether real.
series of interrelated queries: What are the In “Pedagogy on the Move: New
learning objectives in the performance studies Intersections In (Between) the Educative and
curriculum? What are the ideologies that the Performative,” Greg Dimitriadis charts
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258 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

his own understanding of the efficacy of State Prison. Her hypothesis is that “mind­
performance pedagogy through the shifting liberating activities generated by performance
terrains of his academic training, leading him and creative writing programs . . . increase
from the technocratic logics of the ivory tower effective communication skills that help
back to the more embodied politics of hip hop women avoid actions harmful to themselves
culture. Through his unique survey of litera­ and others.” In her project she offers a detailed
ture, he reinforces and extends views of per­ description of her own syllabus and pedagogi­
formance as a key site where texts are put into cal practices in working with, teaching, and
motion, where social, cultural, and material empowering incarcerated women, while also
constructions are articulated and rearticulated including a survey of other approaches. The
in new and (often) powerful ways. The “per- chapter ends with the particular hope “that
formative turn,” for Dimitriadis, gestures other performance scholars will help develop
toward an “interactionist epistemology” where and improve prison programs for incar­
context replaces text, verbs replace nouns, and cerated people in their communities.” She
structures become processes. The emphasis is grounds her optimism in the work of Dwight
on change, contingency, locality, motion, Conquergood (1998), who suggests “that the
improvisation, struggle, and how these are performance paradigm involves ‘immediacy,
implicated and interrogated at the intersec­ involvement, and intimacy as modes of under­
tions between race, cultural practice, perfor­ standing’” (p. 26).
mance, and pedagogy. In the chapter In the final chapter in this section, “The
Dimitriadis confirms that there are no safe Politics and Ethics of Performance Pedagogy:
spaces here, no alibis for our effectivities. The Toward a Pedagogy of Hope,” Norman
world is always already performative, always Denzin works outward from a series of
already in motion. assumptions embedded in a radical critical
This interactionist turn has critical implica­ performance pedagogy. He argues that the call
tions for pedagogy, decentering the privileged to performance in performance studies and
and delimited role of the teacher in the class­ in the human sciences requires a commitment
room. It forces us to look towards the new “in to a politics, ethics, and aesthetics of perfor­
between” spaces where culture is being “per­ mance, one that moves from critical race
formed” in the everyday. This means taking theory to a radical critical performance peda­
seriously the work done in and by nontradi­ gogy; one that works towards new models of
tional educational curricula (e.g., popular cul­ democracy. In his chapter, the ethics of per­
ture), programs (e.g., arts-based initiatives), and formance and the performance of ethics are
institutions (e.g., community centers). It means framed through a post-9/11 world in which a
looking towards artists as educators. It means radical critical performance pedagogy might
looking at educators as artists. Above all else, it help us recuperate from the devastation of
means seeing pedagogy always in motion. This physical destruction, as well as the psychic
chapter looks towards these and other phenom­ devastation always present and only laid bare
ena as it explores new intersections in (between) through terrorist acts. He advocates for the
the educative and the performative. empowering links between critical pedagogy
In “Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated and a critical pedagogical theatre, borrowing
Women Through Performance and Creative from and building on the discourses of indige­
Writing,” Kristin Valentine outlines and details nous peoples, whose theories of ritual perfor­
the specific application of performance as ped­ mance blend and blur with performative acts
agogical strategy and political engagement in that critique, transgress, transform, and bring
her work with women in Arizona’s Perryville dignity to human practices.
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Such a performance ethic refuses commodi­ power of critical pedagogy (pp. 229–252)
fication as it draws upon indigenous, feminist, (Reprint Series No. 7, Harvard Education
Review). Cambridge: MA: Harvard Graduate
queer, and communitarian ethical formulations
School of Education.
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Denzin argues for the intersection of the per- York: Theatre Communication Group.
formative and the political on the terrain of a Butler, J. (1995). Gender trouble: Feminism and the
praxis-based ethic. This ethic performs pedago­ subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
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It is rearticulated and redefined every time it is VA: National Communication Association.
reimagined; every time it is possibilized; and Conquergood, D. (2002). Performance studies:
every time it is performed. While Denzin works Interventions and radical research. The Drama
Review, 46(2), 145–156.
to retheorize the grounds of performance stud­
Edgerton, S. H. (1993). Toni Morrison teaching the
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performative and pedagogical terms, his work (Eds.), Race identity and representation in edu­
reconfirms Conquergood’s (2002) description cation (pp. 220–250). New York: Routledge.
of performance studies as an interventionist Freire, P. (1998). Teachers as cultural workers:
strategy; an embodied form of radical research; Letters to those who dare to teach. Boulder,
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Giroux, H. A. (1996). Doing cultural studies:
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Education and cultural studies: Toward a
NOTE
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McLaren, P. (1998). Life in schools: An introduc­ projections. In S. J. Dailey (Ed.), The Future
tion to critical pedagogy in the foundations of of performance studies: Visions and revisions
education (3rd ed.). New York: Longman. (pp. 128–135). Annandale, VA: National
Mohanty, S. P. (1989). Us and them: On the philo­ Communication Association.
sophical bases of political criticism. Yale Pineau, E. L. (2004.) Articulate bodies: Under/min­
Journal of Criticism, 2(2), 1–31. ing the trope of performance in pedagogical
Pineau, E. L. (1994). Teaching is performance: praxis. Unpublished manuscript.
Reconstructing a problematic metaphor. Simon, R. I. (1992). Teaching against the grain:
American Educational Research Journal, 31, Texts for a pedagogy of possibility. New York:
3–25. Bergin & Garvey.
Pineau, E. L. (1998). Performance studies across
the curriculum: Problems, possibilities and
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14
Fieldwork in the
Performance Studies Classroom
Learning Objectives and the Activist Curriculum

NATHAN STUCKY

I remember a childhood rhyme from my

primary school days, “We’re all in our
places with bright shining faces.” Looking
a teacher I enter my classroom with the expec­
tation of change or at least assuming the poten­
tial that both my students and I can explore
back now, I see this as an implied directive new possibilities. In the performance studies
pointing children to create particular perfor­ classroom, expectations of change are often
mances of classroom order—to join in a uni­ framed with concern for personal and political
form group activity, to be properly seated at issues, as well as social issues related to gender,
our desks, to hold our facial expressions in race, class, and ethnicity linked to the potential
demonstrations of willing attention, and to for individual growth and learning.
internalize these directives into attitudes of What I discuss as exploring new possibili­
compliant enthusiasm. Such directives partici­ ties with the expectation of change is similar to
pate in the dominant culture’s regulation of ways Joni Jones describes the performance
performances linked in this case to an ideology studies classroom as a space of resistance
that disciplines the bodies of students in the within the academy where she hopes to effect
classroom (Dolan, 2001; Hamera, 2004). The social change (2002, p. 175). It also recalls
elemental function of the classroom involves what Soyini Madison has termed “the perfor­
behavioral change, whether from an era of mance of possibilities.” Madison writes: “In a
regulated bodies or from a more recent one performance of possibilities, I see the ‘possible’
informed by critical pedagogy in which “the as suggesting a movement culminating in cre­
body is conceived as the interface of the indi­ ation and change” (1998, p. 277). I think I
vidual and society” (McLaren, 1995, p. 64). As sometimes back away from the “profess” part

261
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262 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

of “professor” because it can be confused with adjusts to needs, to new circumstances; it

dominating authority and with institutional expands or contract as conditions require.
hegemony. If I don’t want to tell my students How are those adjustments reflected in perfor­
what to think, but rather engage them with mance studies pedagogy? Without presuming
possibilities, the classroom dynamic requires that all teachers of performance studies or all
my own flexibility. If I hope for performances institutions are alike, the articulated purposes
of possibilities in my students I must start with (and assumptions) in performance studies
myself. As Madison puts it, this work must curricula may provide some insight.
begin by examining our purpose and assump­ As a preliminary exploration of these and
tions; those forces that motivate and undergird other questions I provide examples from rep­
what we do as teachers, as well as the role and resentative performance studies syllabi, perfor­
function of pedagogy (p. 278). mances, and other activities from universities
In this chapter I consider some of the broad across the United States. Through these
purposes and uses of performance studies examples, I describe performance studies
within university education by examining its coursework and examine the performance
place in the curriculum, and the pedagogy of work of scholar/artists whose teaching extends
performance beyond the classroom. I begin beyond the formal construct of the classroom.
with a set of questions that I hope to address In writing and producing works on and
both directly and indirectly in the following through performance, many teachers/scholars
pages: of performance studies carry their influence
from the classroom directly to the public. In
• What does performance studies teach? the final section I examine how performance
• What do students learn? studies does the work of social engagement
• What are the goals and objectives in the in the classroom and especially in public per­
performance studies curriculum?
• What ideologies are engaged in the perfor­
formances in traditional and nontraditional
mance studies classroom? performance spaces, including those staged in
• What are the values of performance studies in college and university venues.
the university and in liberal education? The final section of this chapter theorizes
the work of performance studies through what
Perhaps because performance studies is a I call “The Performance Studies Toolbox” by
field substantially engaged with personal and introducing a theoretical frame, identifying a
social discovery, with theory as well as artistic set of practices, and enumerating performance
practice, it inspires greater formal discussion studies’ pedagogical engagement in a list of
of its efficacy. When we ask questions about learning objectives. This preliminary study is
the efficacy, effectiveness, viability, value, or limited by four interrelated variables: the sam­
importance of performance studies, we are ple size of syllabi examined, number of perfor­
raising questions that are connected to issues mances, the selection process (initial judgment
of class and privilege in ways that have partic­ about diverse program scope, geographic dis­
ular implications for university education. tribution, availability, and institutional vari­
What values do we teach and for whom? As ety) and the parameters of the literature
an educational enterprise, especially as it is review. My provisional conclusions, therefore,
practiced in many institutions in the United derive from empirically generated data as well
States, performance studies participates in an as my years of experience as a teacher, as a
ongoing experiment in social awareness and performance studies scholar, and as the chair
illuminates possibilities for social change. The of a department that hosts a performance
metamorphic capacity of performance studies studies program.
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Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom 263

Because different university structures place persuasion. We don’t expect to turn people
performance studies in diverse administrative 180 degrees in a single speech, an evening’s
units, the discussion of courses and curricula performance, or a class lecture (although let’s
here should be read as indicative, not exhaus­ not discount those possibilities). In persua­
tive. Performance studies may be housed in sion we’d measure success in increments.
such departments as theatre, communication, Possibilities are realized. How do you measure
English, speech communication, or anthropol­ that moment? I remember once in a theatre
ogy; it may exist as a stand-alone department; history seminar many years back, the venera­
as an undergraduate, masters, or doctoral spe­ ble Oscar Brockett discounted the prevailing
cialization or as an interdisciplinary program; idea that the medieval European church grad­
it may be administered in colleges of fine arts, ually developed a revised western theatre
communication, liberal arts, humanities, or incrementally moving from within the church
arts and sciences. My objective here is not to to without to larger and more elaborate script,
conduct a census, but rather to point toward notions that are still widely held by many his­
the territory where performance studies prac­ torians. Dr. Brockett simply stated, “All it
tices are located. I hope to show something of takes is for somebody to have an idea.” Once
how the performance of possibilities is already you have the idea you can jump from two
“reaching toward light, justice, and enlivening actors to twenty instead of stepping up to
possibilities” wherever it is located (Madison, three, then four, then five. You can skip from
1998, p. 284). simple to elaborate scenery. And in the perfor­
mance studies classroom you can act on possi­
bilities in that moment because there are
CHANGING SOCIETY ONE STUDENT
no other moments. All moments are now.
(AND ONE TEACHER) AT A TIME
Teachers can help create possibilities for them­
Much of performance studies pedagogy over selves and their students, but they cannot con­
the past few decades (and, in various forms, trol change. Change, when it happens, always
over centuries) can be viewed as balancing the happens in the moment of its engagement, the
goals of enlightening individual students on now.
one side, and influencing society on the other. One of the more provocative advocates of
Performance is “revelatory to the performer performance as a means of affecting change in
. . . [and] to the listeners” (Long & HopKins, the social world has been Augusto Boal. His
1982, p. xiii), and it may also participate in adherents, now scattered widely, have adopted
emancipatory political discourse in the ser­ and adapted his work, promulgated these
vice of furthering progressive utopian ideals variants in diverse circumstances, and found
(Denzin, 2003). Some teachers, perhaps most, multiple successes. Boal is de rigeur in many
move toward reforming society by starting performance studies curricula these days. In
with change of the individual. As Joni L. Jones his course “Empowerment Through Theatre,”
puts it in the description of one of her courses at the College of William and Mary, Bruce
at the University of Texas: “The course rests McConachie named the following goal in the
on the basic assumption that performance syllabus: “By exploring the political and the­
changes the performer, thereby changing the atrical ideas and techniques of Augusto Boal,
world” (2002, p. 176). students will learn ways of empowering
When we talk about change, or the perfor­ themselves and others” (McConachie, 2002,
mance of possibilities in the performance p. 247). McConachie found that “modest pro­
studies curriculum, it might be helpful to take gressive work centered on the goals and strate­
a page from communication scholarship about gies of Boal can occur in academic settings if
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264 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

one can negotiate the immense gap between (e.g., writing and critical thinking) consonant
Boal’s Marxist assumptions about oppression with expectations in many university classes.
and the student’s lack of experience of oppres­ The instructors articulate the following course
sive situations” (p. 247).1 The course objec­ goals:
tives included empowering the students and
also helping “students learn ways of empow­ By the end of the semester . . . we hope
ering others” (p. 249). Here one can clearly students will have
see the dual interests of performance studies
courses as socially involved on two levels: 1. increased their familiarity with a variety
of dramatic forms;
change of the individual student and change in
the larger social context. 2. learned to integrate theoretical materials
Some courses take an oblique approach to into various forms of expression;
social change in which the articulated focus
centers on exploring the self. Others take a 3. enriched their understanding of the
more direct approach in which the underlying relationship between artistic products
and cultural agenda;
assumption is that critical and reflexive aware­
ness is the intended purpose. For example, 4. examined societal patterns of power and
the description of “Topics in Critical Theory: assumptions about suitable roles and
Critical Race Theory” at New York University behavior for women;
states: “This course will offer students
5. increased their ability to read and
methodologies to think critically about race
critique a visual text;
and ethnicity. Fundamental phenomenological
questions about the relationship between ‘self’ 6. developed their skills as critical thinkers
and ‘other’ will launch our inquiry” (Muñoz, and “resistant readers”;
2003). The expectation that students will
“think critically about race and ethnicity,” 7. strengthened their skills as seminar
participants; and
projects a shift in the kind of critical thinking
students presumably bring with them into the 8. expanded and improved their writing
classroom. It is also a direct intervention in skills.
the types of traditional curricular and instruc­
(Howard & Harrison-Pepper, 2003).
tional processes that often avoid critical think­
ing about race and ethnicity. The activity
implied by the offer to “think critically” impli­ The course begins by asking how women
cates possibilities. In this case a particular kind have been presented on stage. In questioning
of thinking is itself a site of performance, the the quality of those representations, it pro­
pedagogical center. poses to
Performance studies courses routinely
address critical thinking, as well as oral and prompt examinations of the ways in which
gender is a performed cultural construct,
written communication skills, along with made up of learned values and beliefs. The
objectives oriented to the specific course. The course also introduces ideas about race, eth­
following course objectives from “Women nicity, and sexuality, and the ways in which
& Theatre: The Politics of Representation” these contribute to the cultural construction
at Miami University, can serve as a typical of identity.
example. While the topic centers around a
feminist approach to theatre, the objectives Similar goals can be found in performance
include broad individual development goals studies classes across the country. A course at
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Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom 265

Arizona State University announces that it patterns, and the implications of gender
is “about communication, performance, and socialization. (Pineau, 2002b)
sexuality. Its goal is to challenge our under­
standing of human communication and sexu­ During the semester students learn what
ality through the examination of aesthetic it means to “act like a man” or “act like
performance texts” (Linde and Zukic, 2001). a woman” through critical readings and dis­
cussion, as well as through performance. As
is clear from Pineau’s directive in coming to
Performance as Subject and as Method know through embodiment, performance
Many performance studies classes involve itself is the means of discovery.
performance as a way of knowing; they fur­ Performance studies teachers routinely ask
ther the objective “to understand performance critical questions to articulate course objec­
as a method of inquiry” (Pelias, 2001, p.1). tives and to further the students’ engagement
While some performance scholars focus with the material. Howard and Harrison-
on performances as a subject of study, others Pepper, for instance, explore ways in which
view performance as epistemological. “Perfor­ gender, race, and ethnicity are performative
mance epistemology locates performance itself cultural constructs. They question whether
as a site and a method of study. In practice theatre is really a “mirror held up to nature”
these two approaches ‘interanimate’ each and if so, how representative are the images of
other” (Stucky & Wimmer, 2002, p. 12). women that the theatre holds. Madison (2002)
Descriptions of course expectations, for organizes her course, “African American
example, may bring together embodied imme­ Literature and Performance,” around a cluster
diate performances with writing and reflecting of related questions:
on the performances of self or others. A range
• What is the cultural and literary signifi­
of classroom behaviors may be specified as
cance of autobiography?
learning objectives that operationalize and
clarify performance epistemology. In a • What does autobiography tell us about
course in “Performance as Cultural Criticism” history and social context?
for example, students were expected to:
“Begin composing and linking their own • What is revealed about African American
emerging performance art sensibility to both life and culture in the four autobiogra­
social science and philosophical perspec­ phies assigned for the class?
tives on communication theory and culture”
• What are the unique contributions that
(Gingrich-Philbrook, 1996). In some cases
these five autobiographies, in particular,
the link between subject and performance add to our understanding of African
may be stated even more directly. Pineau’s American and American life, art, politics,
“Performance of Gender” class syllabus and culture.
advises that,
In this case the objectives of the course are
We will explore . . . through the act of per­ implied by the questions asked. The context
formance. That means using embodied and course objectives are realized in the col­
rehearsal as a method of discovery and aes­ laborative process of instruction. At the end of
thetic performance as a means of communi­
the term, one would expect students’ ability to
cating what we’ve learned. By experimenting
bodily with our own and others’ gendered provide answers would have developed. The
performances, we will work to gain experi­ pattern of using questions to establish course
ential understanding about the process, the goals can also be seen in Pollock’s “Problems
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266 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

in Contemporary Performance Theory: Excess” The pedagogical practice of asking questions is

class. Pollock first establishes a background a time-honored technique one that is not lim­
for her class through an introductory descrip­ ited to performance studies classes. Asking a
tion of issues that revolve around surplus value question makes relevant a response—that is, it
and normative identity practices (Pollock, invites a performance (whether that is an inter­
2003). The implied learning objectives in nal thought or culminates in some outward
Pollock’s class emerge from a series of addi­ expression). Perhaps performance studies
tional questions in her syllabus: teachers sow many questions in order to
harvest abundant possibilities in the form of
• Beyond discourses of transgression and performances or cultural critiques of social
subversion, is it possible to exceed with­ enactments.
out reproducing and consolidating norms
of identity and practice?
Disciplining Classroom
• When is excess good fun, hysterical plea­ Performances in Performance Classes
sure, superfluity, and loss beyond mea­
sure, unheralded desire, the premise and Performance studies teachers in the present
supplement of disciplinary constraints? study often specified ways in which students
were expected to encounter the material; in
• How does excess figure in economies of
this form they described particular desired
consumption articulated in the perform­
ing body (when shopping becomes eating behaviors. To the extent that performance
becomes fat becomes “the fat lady” epistemology centers especially on experiential
becomes waste and wasting away)? learning, the performance studies curriculum
places weight on classroom behavior. Chal­
• To what extent is excess the surplus value lenges to the mind/body split have practical
of a kind of intellectual production, what classroom realizations. This may not differ
Barthes considered the need to speak
“excessively” about reality? How do
from other disciplines in kind, but it is likely a
we evaluate the “excess” of any given shift in degree. Unlike some university courses
practice? that are structured around lectures and exams
(e.g., large lecture hall classes and electroni­
The questions performance studies schol­ cally scanned objective tests), performance
ars frequently ask in teaching a course point studies classes typically involve an array of
toward broad issues in complex ways. The pur­ required in-class behaviors.
suit of answers inevitably reaches across disci­ Linda Park-Fuller (2003) provides specific
plinary lines. Pollock’s reading list, for instance descriptions of three categories of behavior
includes literary theorists, philosophers, perfor­ that garner credit for participation in her
mance studies scholars, sociologists, anthropol­ narrative performance class: cooperation and
ogists, and an array of cultural theorists. consideration, responsibility, and creativity
This strategy of laying out what a student and intellectual ideas. Park-Fuller explains
will learn (or is expected to encounter) implies likely behaviors in each category. For
a set of pedagogical procedures that, while example,
ultimately centering attention on the student’s
relation to the course material, begins with For creativity and intellectual ideas points
are earned by coming up with good ideas as
invocations of ongoing scholarship. The over-
discussion participant, performer, audience
arching questions drive the course, provide the member, or workshop member, by acting
central focus, and become the measure of what on those ideas, watching for opportunities
the professor expects of students in the class. to improve something, taking risks as a
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Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom 267

performer, sharing insights about the read­ Far from being trivial, requirements such as
ings, making intellectually strong contribu­ asking students to turn off cell phones says in
tions in discussion and written exercises.
effect, this academic discipline values perfor­
mances, including those of other students—
It is worth noting that Park-Fuller gives spe­ pay attention! Because many performance
cial attention to particular kinds of enactment: studies courses are theoretically oriented to
not just “coming up with good ideas” but act­ an epistemology of embodied performance,
ing on them. She privileges doing. She goes the performance behaviors envisioned in
to some length to describe a host of proactive classes can be central to the course objectives.
behaviors she especially values. Park-Fuller My high school government teacher explained
specifies “taking risks as a performer” as an that, in teaching how the United States gov­
example of a valued behavior. Risk-taking in ernment worked, his course was intended to
performance may involve personal vulnerabil­ make us better citizens. We might ask what
ity and it may raise the stakes of both success sort of citizens, or what expectations for
and failure. Helping students learn to monitor future social behaviors, are fostered in perfor­
a group’s activity and to assume an active mance studies classrooms. These expectations
response points toward an additional, though go beyond knowledge of particular subject
only implicit, objective: the classroom provides matter. What Park-Fuller is teaching, when
a model for students to carry outside the class­ she expects students to take action, has more
room. It says in effect, “When you see some­ to do with particular kinds of socially per­
thing that needs to be done, take action! It is formed engagement than with the content of a
your responsibility.” What that may mean given text. Take risks and watch for opportu­
when translated into other arenas is impossible nities to improve something—these are life
to predict, but the value clearly honors action, skills that extend beyond the classroom.
“making contributions,” not sitting idly by.
Expectations of specific classroom perfor­
Radical Pedagogy and
mances are found throughout the course mate­
Traditional Expectations
rials of performance studies classes; students
are instructed to wait for applause to enter The relation of radical pedagogy to the
when arriving late on a performance day, to traditional operation of a class can result in
pay attention to other students’ presentations, specific determinations of class performance
and even such explicit admonishments as: “Do regardless of course material. I am using the
not eat, drink, smoke, or chew in class. Turn term “radical pedagogy” to suggest a peda­
off all cell phones and beepers” (Eckhard and gogy dedicated to widespread change and
Corey, 2003). Such rules, though apparently reform. Without wishing to assume the same
deriving from practical experience (problems territory, my sense of radical pedagogy
in previous semesters result in rules appearing borrows heavily from the critical pedagogy
on subsequent syllabi), reflect the institutional­ of Augusto Boal, Paolo Freire, and Peter
ized disciplining of bodies implied by “We’re McLaren. As McLaren explains: “Developed
all in our places with bright shining faces.” In by progressive educators and researchers
essence, part of the learning in any class is attempting to eliminate inequalities on the
about the nature of learning itself in a given basis of social class, [critical pedagogy] has
culture (e.g., this university classroom, this sparked up to the present a wide array of anti­
academic field). What can appear to be merely sexist, anti-racist, and anti-homophobic,
trivial issues of classroom etiquette may indi­ classroom-based curricula and policy initia­
cate substantial methodological processes. tives” (2000, p. 35). The need to transform the
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268 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

educational apparatus is frequently connected of the course taught “how the enactment (per­
to issues of social change to which educational formance) of personal sexual identity shapes
processes are always reflexive and projective. societal and cultural norms of sexuality”
Catherine Walsh contends, “issues of democ­ (Linde and Zukic, 2001).
racy, justice, and social vision are at the base Performance studies courses frequently
of our work as educators, and, as such, pro­ address particular social, political, or cultural
vide a contextual framework for educational concerns through the lens of performance.
and pedagogical reform” (1996, p. 228). For example, the course description for Diana
No matter the subject, few professors Taylor’s “Topics in Latin American Perfor­
appear to disregard the institutional constraint mance: Performance and Conquest,” at New
of assigning grades as a validation of knowl­ York University includes this statement: “Per­
edge and learning. These are extrinsic valua­ formance was fundamental to both indigenous
tions of social process that are somatically felt and European colonial epistemology, and was
and known, and are not always validation of a primary means through which both cultures
what students know, and how they know it. maintained or contested social author­
Elyse Pineau offers insight on how one might ity . . . we will try to gain an appreciation of
negotiate this difficult terrain: “only through the complex function of performance in the
means of performance . . . can liberating peda­ political drama of new world conquest and
gogies be developed that will enable students colonization” (Taylor, 2003). Performance
to construct meanings that are lived in the studies pedagogy frequently links performance
body, felt in the bones, and situated within outside the classroom with the classroom as a
the larger body politic” (Pineau, 2002a, p. 53). cultural performative arena. Given the under­
Admittedly, the outline of a course expressed standing that “Global events and transna­
in a syllabus does not always speak to the tional movements such as colonialism and
daily possibilities of transgressive pedagogical contemporary evangelism have uniquely local
strategies. It can and does identify overarching consequences that are often manifested, and
expectations that serve as direction for experi­ sometimes transformed, through perfor­
ence, criteria for experience, and the ground mance” (Kisliuk, 2002, p. 108)—it is not sur­
on which both intrinsic and extrinsic evalua­ prising that performance studies teachers
tions might occur. conceptualize the classroom as a site where
Performance studies courses typically consequential issues can be explored, and the
(although not necessarily) assume humanistic classroom as a space where issues are already
and pluralistic values in identifying their objec­ manifested as regimes of social and cultural
tives. The changes expected from students practice can be manifested in curriculum. The
range from shifts in intellectual and critical enormous ambition of many performance
understanding to felt bodily knowledge to studies courses raises questions about how to
demonstrable behavior differences as students assess their success.
move through the world. A number of perfor­ Measuring efficacy and effectiveness in the
mance studies courses address issues specifi­ university classroom conjures a host of ques­
cally related to understanding sexuality or tions. Effectiveness for whom? Who is mea­
gender. At Arizona State University, for suring and for what purposes? What values
example, a course entitled “Communication are involved? Jon McKenzie discusses efficacy
and the Performance of Sexuality” was in the dominant paradigms in performance
designed to “challenge our understanding of studies by tracing the “transformation of effi­
human communication and sexuality through cacy from transgression to resistance, the shifts
the examination of aesthetic performance in models from theater to theory and from
texts.” During the spring 2001 term, sections ritual to performance art” (McKenzie, 2001,
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Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom 269

p. 44). In a description of performance studies’ objectives, and occasional theoretical writings.

shifting value systems, McKenzie contrasts the For some, the performance studies classroom
“valorization of theory” that has “displaced “becomes a borderland, a liminal space capa­
theater as a guiding model of performance ble of disrupting the social order” (Jones,
studies; theory is what scholars produce, not 2002, p. 175). Others assume a more benign
theater, etc.” (p. 45). In order to resolve these relationship among institutions. William
differences McKenzie argues that we need not Beeman describes the effectiveness of his per­
select one over the other: formance studies class in relation to the disci­
plinary affiliations of his students: “Students
Rather than choose between these two read­ from the performing arts regularly come to see
ings, we might instead draw them together the interconnection of performance activity
and understand the paradigm’s reevaluation
with ‘real life,’ and students from the social
of efficacy and its own institutionaliza­
tion as two mutually reinforcing develop­ sciences and humanities gain an appreciation
ments. That is, performance scholars have of the power of performance to transform
responded simultaneously to changes in the society and culture” (2002, p. 96). A number
performances they study and in their own of critical self-reports of performance studies
performances of study. Again, both of these classroom efforts provide some descriptions
developments must be situated within a
broader sociopolitical context. Let us recall
of efficacy (Bowman and Bowman, 2002;
Blau’s memory of the late 1960s’ libidinal McConachie, 2002; Jones, 2002). Many uni­
thinking which “subverted the repressive versities have assessment procedures in place
text and disrupted, along with the universi­ that are designed to provide some helpful mea­
ties, the institutions of literature and the­ sures usually at the end of a given term. But it
atre.” Performance scholars’ suspicion of
is not so easy to know the long-term effects of
institutions and discursively based methods
and their theorization of embodied trans­ a given class or experience.
gression were responses to normative forces
at work both outside and inside the halls of
the academy. (p. 45) TEACHING BEYOND
THE CLASSROOM
The core tension McKenzie identifies lies The university performance studies enterprise
between a performance studies that creates frequently extends beyond the traditional
institutional legitimization professionally and classroom to additional performance venues.
within the academy, and a performance stud­ Formal college-credit instruction and research
ies that challenges “the Establishment, the occurs in developing, directing, and producing
Ivory Tower, the university lecture machine, theatrical productions on university stages and
and all the paradigms that shift about in in community locales. An essay by Linda Park-
them” (p. 48). The ultimate success of a given Fuller and Ronald Pelias surveys alternative
performance studies curriculum thus must be and experimental performances, noting that
framed by larger questions of disciplinary def­ many classroom performances derive from
inition and purpose, and those in turn may be personal or autobiographical sources (Park-
framed in relation to institutions. Fuller & Pelias, 1995, p. 126). In these
One finds varied responses of performance performances one often sees the student’s per­
studies educators within particular institu­ sonal negotiation with social issues and pres­
tional contexts. For the most part the para­ sures. Stories of coming out as gay, lesbian, or
digms or value systems of the curricula (and transgendered; stories in response to societal
the teachers who teach within them) are expectations of beauty (too fat, too thin, too
implied, not specified, and must be deduced blonde, too bland); stories of ageism and
from various statements of purpose, goals, racism, stories in which the performer deals
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270 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

with personal loss—these and similar experi­ exploits of the Mickee Faust Club, a cabaret
ences fill performance studies classrooms and performance troupe in Tallahassee, Florida,
public performances. help to illustrate performance’s potential
In many university settings the classroom’s range. The group “performs an eclectic mix of
permeable borders extend into productions low-brow humor, literary and cinematic paro­
staged for the public. Whether formal credit is dies, political and musical satire” that poke
assigned for working on these performances, and fun at liberal and conservative groups alike
regardless of whether faculty members get course (Schriver & Nudd, 2002, p. 196).
releases or other acknowledgment for their work, One can find examples of engaged social
these venues often provide the most intense and performance at universities across the nation.
involved instruction. When performance studies Indeed, performances crafted to address specific
work moves from the classroom per se to more local issues, as well as those that may also have
public venues—social critique, challenges to broader implications, mark a major vein of per­
action, and calls for change may become more formance studies work in many programs. By
explicit. These performances are typically written way of illustration, I will note just some of those
(or scripted) locally and designed for specific com­ from one university—The Kleinau Theatre
munity audiences. In these instances the potential at Southern Illinois University where I teach.
“classroom” extends to different publics. Instead I use these examples here because I am well
of students enrolled in a college course, the pro­ acquainted with them, and I know how they
duction, whether radical street theatre or a more address social issues. I expect that similar
traditional form, may more directly impact the examples could be found at other universities.
community. Indeed, some practitioners design
their productions specifically to address local con­ • Walking on Our Knees (Bragg, 1989) col­
cerns for local citizens. lected oral histories and personal narratives of
In 1993 at the University of North Carolina coal miners in southern Illinois and Kentucky,
at Chapel Hill, for instance, Soyini Madison then crafted them into a formal performance.
staged a production about the cafeteria work­ Drawing on her own family history and her
understanding of this group of workers,
ers’ strike that happened on the UNC campus Bragg’s production spoke directly to issues
in 1963 (Madison, 1998). Madison’s produc­ of class for audiences that included miners
tion, based on the personal narratives of strike as well as the university community.
leaders and other workers, found many of • Do You Sleep in That Thing? was created by
those workers and their friends and family Jim Ferris (1992) about his experiences and
those of other self-identified “differently
members as special guests of honor in atten­
abled” students, who presented their own
dance on opening night. Madison writes that stories as well as excerpts from literature to
the performance was “revolutionary in enlight­ a mostly “temporarily abled” audience. The
ening citizens to the possibilities that grate bipeds who attended had to duck under
against injustice” (1998, p. 280). crutches, braces, and wheel chairs suspended
Performance studies scholar/artists have from the ceiling to find their seats in the
auditorium while those on wheels rolled right
addressed such subjects as: Hmong refugee through, easily clearing the various devices
concerns (Conquergood, 1992), breast cancer dangling above their heads. The show specif­
survival and the woman’s body (Jenkins, ically critiqued university and community
2002; Park-Fuller, 1995), the McCarthy era awareness and resources devoted to accessi­
communist witch hunts (Jeffrey, 1977), farm bility issues as outmoded and inadequate—a
particularly pointed criticism for a campus
crisis narratives (Carlin, 1992) and many
that had for many years identified itself as in
others. Linda Park-Fuller (2003) catalogues a the vanguard for its disability services.
broad range of socially engaged performances • Breaking the Cycle (Montalbano, 1993),
under the rubric of Playback Theatre. The built on the experiences of women in a
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Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom 271

domestic violence shelter, dealt with the seemed to me, as an interested party, among the
power of personal narrative in helping most directly connected to clearly identifiable
abused women escape the cycle of victimiza­
social issues. No less significant are those that
tion and become survivors.
• Promises in Pink (Ford-Brown & Glaspie, speak to issues perhaps more obliquely, that
1994) addressed issues related to breast cancer address circumstances important to the human
awareness; it was developed out of the per­ situation without explicitly naming the condi­
sonal narratives of breast cancer survivors, tion addressed. In this category one might find
their friends, and family members. Staged in many adaptations of literary work, or thematic
part as a public service, a professional health
performances that seek to change attitudes or
counselor was on hand to provide pre- and
post-show information and contact and to address questions of deep importance. Theatrical
help with the potential responses of audience approaches to social concerns may be more
members. or less direct. For example, Angels in America
• Get Up, Stand Up (Rich, 1994) used tech­ speaks directly to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, to
niques derived from Augusto Boal to deal
witch hunts of communists and homosexuals,
with a variety of local student concerns:
discrimination, campus safety (especially for and to other specific issues, while the contextual
women), date rape, and other topics. relevance of a production of Hamlet may be less
• Putting your Body on the Line (Alexander, obvious but equally relevant.
1995) was a one-person show that explored Performance studies practitioners also move
various images and representations of black beyond university settings to other sites: com­
male identity through use of narrative,
munity gatherings, theatres, nightclubs, schools,
poetry, song, and movement.
• Nursing Mother (Pineau, 1998) developed houses of worship, businesses, shopping malls,
in performance a response to the death of and city streets. By taking her performance of A
Pineau’s mother and the birth of a child con­ Clean Breast of It to women’s groups, hospitals,
cretized in critique of the medical establish­ conferences, and schools, Linda Park-Fuller
ment for its treatment of people at both ends
(1995) enacts a committed social engagement
of life.
• The Menstrual Show (Charlesworth, 1999) performance adapted to local needs. She mar­
explored the commercialization and com­ shals the resources of performance to serve par­
modification of cultural values relating to ticular groups by taking performance to the
women’s bodies, especially the proscriptions people. By enacting her own resistance Park-
regarding the dominant culture’s response to Fuller furthers dialogue that brings people
women’s reproductive cycles.
together and serves as a catalyst for others who
• Beautiful Body: My Journey as a Fatty
(Howell, 2002) critiqued the dominant cul­ need to tell their own stories. I conceptualize the
ture’s obsession with the “perfect body,” and classroom as social and cultural space both
in so doing invited the audience to reevaluate inside and outside of the literal parameters of
their own conceptions and prejudices. the university and in the community, and, thus,
• On Becoming Japerican (Tankei, 2004),
a practiced place, where the pedagogy of engag­
developed from stories told by trans-national
students and Tankei’s own autoethnographic ing social issues becomes classroom space.
work, grappled with questions of prejudice, Although it is commonplace for some to
misunderstanding, and identity for those no separate the university from “the real world,”
longer completely Japanese, nor completely that type of valuing buys into a problematic
American. distinction. What impacts students in my
classroom does not happen in an ivory tower
Perhaps this listing of just a few representa­ vacuum; it happens in our real world. Just as
tive examples from one university can serve the scientific work of professors in university
to indicate a range of productions with the uni­ laboratories may be highly regarded, the
versity as a site of performance. I’ve only noted performance work of university professors
some of the productions in one venue that should not automatically be considered less
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272 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

significant than work in nonacademic a common interest in pedagogy, in teaching

venues. (Some academic theatre journals, for performers and audiences something of value,
example, will not accept essays that address in encouraging social change.
university productions.) Craig Gingrich-
Philbrook, whose one-person performances
frequently deal with an array of social issues PRAGMATICS, POSSIBILITIES, AND
often centering on gay identity in a dominant PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES TO
heterosexist culture, has toured to audiences PERFORMANCE PEDAGOGY: THE
across the country. He negotiates complex PERFORMANCE STUDIES TOOLBOX
theoretical perspectives within very accessible AND AN EXTENDED CONCLUSION
frames of human experience. As he reflects In the following section I organize some of my
on the performer-audience relationship he findings and discuss ways that socially engaged
writes, performance studies links the conditions of the­
orizing with artistic and scholarly praxis and
Having performed in smaller, ‘name’ with pedagogy. The categories below revisit an
spaces and at universities, I began to won­
der about the politics involved in maintain­
argument I initially developed for an audience
ing that performing for 40 people in of Japanese educators. At that time I developed
Manhattan was somehow more important a case for a pragmatics of performance studies
or valuable than for a hundred in St. Peter, as “equipment for living,” a phrase evoking
MN or Canton, NY. Such a perspective Kenneth Burke’s literature as equipment for
highlights the performance as a product
living (Stucky, 2003). In what follows I want to
that’s made it into a “good market” rather
than as a process of social engagement. revisit what I called “the Performance Studies
(C. Gingrich-Philbrook, personal communi­ Toolbox” in order to extend the discussion in
cation, January 6, 2004) the context of a socially situated performance
studies. I address performance studies peda­
Such a concern for performance as gogy by, first, outlining a two-part description
social engagement characterizes much of the of a theory of socially engaged performance
work of performance studies artists who are studies involving its characteristics as theoreti­
scattered around the globe, this whether cal inquiry and disciplinary praxis, and second,
within or beyond the narrow confines of by introducing a list of learning objectives com­
New York. piled from a selection of university courses.
Over the past several decades in hundreds I imagine there are two main compartments
of other college and university productions in the Performance Studies Toolbox. For con­
across the United States, teachers and students venience I will label these Characteristics of
have engaged the resources of performance Theoretical Inquiry, and A Set of Practices. Of
studies pedagogy in pursuit of personal as course I recognize that any particular set
well as progressive social change. Whether of practices might also belong in the theoreti­
modestly or radically envisioned, performance cal compartment and I understand that theo­
studies pedagogy is characterized by an ethical retical inquiry itself can be a practice. These
social conscience, an active search for better categories, though, should help to keep this
ways to think and live, an objective to change toolbox organized even if the division is some­
the world. Even as these productions vary what arbitrary. What do we find if we take a
widely in subject matter, style, relation to their look at these tools? The following is an initial
audiences, connection to the formal class­ naming of some equipment for living observed
room, and performance situation, they share in performance studies practice.
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Fieldwork in the Performance Studies Classroom 273

Performance Studies Toolbox

Characteristics of Theoretical Inquiry in Performance Studies

Performance Epistemology. Performance studies is interested in what we know through perfor­
mance and how we come to know it.
Diversity. Performance studies is interested in the phenomena of performance in any setting; it
encourages multicultural perspectives; it participates in cultural and intercultural studies.
Interdisciplinarity. Performance studies draws strength from cross-disciplinary work and the use
of multiple methodologies.
Metamorphosis. Performance studies adjusts, adapts, develops, and changes; the field continu­
ously redefines and transforms itself.
Self-reflexivity. Performance studies is self-aware; it theorizes its own theories and processes.

Practices in Performance Studies: A Preliminary Set

Performance as a Way of Knowing. Performance itself is both the subject of knowledge and a
core method of discovery.
Embodiment. Performance knowledge is located in the body whether that is specific artistic skill
or everyday behavior (e.g., dance, movement, gesture, habit, routine, play).
Critical Observation. Among the more familiar practices are ethnographic and artistic methods.
Theoretical Frames. Performance studies involves new ways of organizing information and
perceptions.
Citation. Performance practice includes description and special vocabulary to develop terminol­
ogy and ways of naming what is learned through and about performance.
Social Engagement. Performance studies fosters certain kinds of interaction among individuals
and with institutions. There is often an overt sense of values and social responsibility in perfor­
mance studies practices.
Theatrical Resources. Performance studies and performance practice utilize theatrical techniques
and knowledge from diverse cultures.
Ritual Practices. Religious, social, and personal rituals are honored both as subjects for study
and for their transformative potential.
Intercultural and Cross-cultural Communication. Performance typically requires an engagement
with “the other,” frequently involving communication among multiple cultures. Such engage­
ments may problematize the subject/object relationship; and they may be intra- as well as inter­
personal, intra- as well as intercultural.
Imagination and Invention. The creative and critical processes of performance studies rely on
and develop imagination.
Written Communication. Writing and reading are both utilized as modes of performance.
Oral Communication. From singing and formal speaking to spoken poetry and ordinary con­
versation, orality is a fundamental performance phenomenon.
Interdisciplinary Practices. Performance studies encourages free borrowing across performing
arts, sociology, anthropology, ethnography, cultural studies, history, music, communication,
psychology, literary studies, philosophy, and other disciplines. Through its intentional interdis­
ciplinarity performance studies vigorously blurs the boundaries.
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274 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

One can see in these two broad lists some that performance studies tools foster specific
of the basic equipment in the performance behaviors. The following list is an initial orga­
studies toolbox. Performance studies teacher/ nizing of some of the uses of the tools of per­
scholar/artists carry some version of this tool­ formance studies when employed in education.
box when they enter the classroom. Individual It is not an exhaustive list nor given in order of
teachers may have packed their own special­ importance. We might think of these as some
ized tools as well, or left some others behind ways the Performance Studies Toolbox is made
since flexibility is a hallmark of this work. operational. The eighteen items below are
Just as Kenneth Burke felt that poetry had “performance studies learning objectives” that
practical real world value, we can also see could be found in typical classrooms.

Performance Studies Learning Objectives

After completing performance studies courses, students should be better able to demonstrate
understanding of or engage in the following activities within the context of the particular
course.

1. Engaged in critical observation of self and others.

2. Increased openness to self and others.
3. Learned subject knowledge (related to the discipline or course).
4. Gained theoretical and critical knowledge.
5. Increased humility and respect for difference.
6. Improved abilities in teamwork.
7. Improved abilities in problem solving.
8. Experienced project completion.
9. Engaged in performance (including procedures and kinesthetic knowledge).
10. Developed interpersonal communication skills.
11. Improved public presentation skills (speaking, discussing, performing).
12. Gained analytical and critical thinking skills (including performance analysis, evaluation,
and critique).
13. Enhanced writing skills.
14. Strengthened oral communication skills (including empathy and listening skills.
15. Enhanced intercultural awareness and intercultural communication skills.
16. Examined social and cultural values.
17. Discovered interdisciplinary practices (including research skills and methodologies).
18. Developed adaptability, flexibility, and creativity.
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Of course I am not suggesting that every with cultural contexts, values, and issues, and
course in performance studies does each of confidence in their own opinions” (Stucky &
these things all of the time. Because the Wimmer, 2002, pp. 9–10). Although perfor­
performance studies program that I am affili­ mance studies pedagogy cannot be limited to
ated with is located in a speech communication teaching skill sets alone, these are abundant in
department, my list may emphasize the com­ the curricula and may develop even in the more
municative aspects of performance more than a theoretical and critically oriented courses.
list that might be developed by a colleague The power of performance (and its discipli­
located in a different academic unit. However, nary subject area performance studies) derives
this listing of eighteen learning objectives indi­ from its breadth, variety, elasticity, and its
cates actual practice in existing curricula fundamental significance. Annette Martin cat­
housed in various academic structures. alogues some of the elements that compose
In order to clarify the range of possibilities performance: the importance of relationships,
in the list of learning objectives, I will expand and curiosity, the way performance challenges
one example. Let us consider number twelve, and problematizes the assumed “fixity of our
writing skills. As evidence for the writing skills identities,” the way performance encourages
developed in performance studies courses, growth through risk and personal discovery
one can turn to the first collection of essays (1993, pp. xii–xiv). One challenge for perfor­
on performance studies pedagogy, Teaching mance studies in the academy lies in articulat­
Performance Studies edited by Stucky and ing its value, a value that exists in the tension
Wimmer (2002). Contributors to that volume between its immensity and the intensely per­
describe eighteen different kinds of writing sonal and private scope of its potential subject.
they teach in their courses, and that number is We can talk about skill sets and subject knowl­
only indicative of the possible range: edge more easily perhaps than personal growth,
deepening values, empathy, risk, and curiosity;
formal paper writing; research paper writ­
ing; analytical essay writing; script writing which both challenges and limits traditional
from research on current issues; script writ­ curricular and pedagogical methods.
ing through sampling auto/biographical I conceptualize my own performance studies
and/or historical material; script writing classroom as a site for fieldwork. I am a par­
for performance of self (stories to be told, ticipant, an observer, an active agent, both
sermons, speeches, presentations, reports);
script (re)writing from literary texts; script
performer and audience. As an educational
writing without words, or image scripts; enterprise, performance studies, especially as it
scenario writing; book writing; more formal is practiced in many institutions in the United
performance autobiography writing; lesson- States, invokes possibilities and encourages
plan writing; journalistic writing; poetry responsible change in individuals and society.
writing; narrative writing that is poetically
The objectives address issues of nationalism,
crafted; and ethnographic writing. (Stucky
& Wimmer, 2002, pp. 9–10) postcolonialism, race, class, gender, and eth­
nicity in ways designed to shift the social order.
Although writing clearly can be an integral Performance studies teaches flexibility and
part of the performance studies classroom, it innovation. It supports increased global under­
generally supports a more fundamental skill set standing, it enhances cross-cultural education,
that is unique to performance studies educa­ it provides theoretical insights, artistic experi­
tion: “the most crucial skill set students have ence, and practical knowledge. The Perfor­
an opportunity to discover is a way of embod­ mance Studies Toolbox provides equipment
ied thinking that encourages self-reflection and for those seeking individual transformation,
critical distance as well as empathy, concern social change, and expanding possibilities.
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276 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

NOTE Hamera, J. (2004). Exposing the pedagogical body:

Protocols and tactics. In B. K. Alexander, G. L.
1. Cited in Stucky & Wimmer (2002). Anderson, & B. P. Gallegos (Eds.) Performance
theories in education: Power, pedagogy, and
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15
Ambulant Pedagogy
MADY SCHUTZMAN

W hen performance studies reached

disciplinary status, the notion of per­
formativity as an analytic, as a way of reading
designed to foster conservative or radical ideol­
ogy, whether abiding by traditional or alterna­
tive teaching models), there is always a
cultural phenomena, began to permeate dis­ performative dynamic at work. But I am not
courses in cultural studies, the humanities and interested here so much in an analysis of the
social sciences. Students enthralled by perfor­ classroom per se—that is, in classroom as
mance theories and practices were not limited stage—as in how performativity as critique
to investigations of traditionally defined staged enhances radical pedagogical goals. By “radical
events. Instead, the very components and tropes pedagogical goals,” I am presuming a critique
of performance—embodiment, play, rehears­ of intransitive learning and “narration sickness”
ing and scripting, improvisation, masquerade, that characterize “schooling” (Freire, 1986,
illusion, liveness—to name just a few—became p. 57);1 according to Augusto Boal (1992), a
lenses through which to interrogate, document, colleague of Paulo Freire, “Pedagogy is transi­
and theorize cultural production. Innumerable tive. Or it isn’t pedagogy” (p. 238).
arenas became subject to such performative Within progressive formats that foster
scholarship—from courtrooms to street pro­ dialogue, peer critique and assessment,
tests, from initiation rites to gender passing. student-driven syllabi, interdisciplinary agen­
Gender itself, along with identity, has subse­ das, and praxis, learning happens within the
quently been deconstructed and rewritten ever-shifting terrain between social markers of
vis-à-vis performance research. race, gender, and class and their various man­
The classroom itself as site of institutional­ ifestations in embodied voices, interpretations,
ized power dynamics has been one of many and languages. Pedagogy itself is revealed as
cultural spaces revised through a performative the ever mutable and dynamic mystery that it
analytic. Regardless of the strategies and struc­ is—an array of nonreproducible (always dif­
tures employed in a classroom (i.e., whether ferent) performances, the meaning of which

278
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occurs in elusive spaces between all partici­ (racialized and/or eroticized groups, queers,
pants who are subject not only to information women) but also into the bodies of historical
per se but also to how information, ideas, subjects that we write/teach about and the
texts, personal stories, etc. are rendered aes­ bodies of those who write. Through ambulant
thetically. scholarship, Foster seeks to animate written
Just as audiences leave the theatre recuper­ discourse with an embodied sense of agency;
ating different meanings from the inescapable she wants writing to do what human bodies
collision of form and content in any staged do—to move, to perform.
performance, digesting the content vis-à-vis The etymological root ambi means to wan­
the representational style in which it was con­ der. Performance studies—as a growing field
veyed (melodrama, musical comedy, natural­ of thought—provides an ambling, wandering
ism), students learn subject matter from how analytic from which to read cultural phenom­
lectures, presentations, and discussions are ena. It couples the exploratory curiosity of
aesthetically performed (ironically, tragically, wandering with a focused intentionality of dis­
indifferently). Education is the unquantifiable covering the unknown through bodily experi­
outcome of different people assembling differ­ ence. Put another way, performance studies
ent meanings from these pedagogical perfor­ has affected the very way in which we theorize
mances but also from a mess of unruly by foregrounding kin(a)esthetics. In harness­
intentions, unconscious performances, endless ing motion as a way to perceive, we discover
mis-takes and mis-readings. It is impossible motion in what we study; in allowing thought
to map or predict the pedagogical enterprise, to stray, we discover invaluable deviations
though of course we enter pedagogical space and digressions. Kin(a)esthetics marries kinet­
with a set of tools, goals, data, methodologies, ics (action, transition, force) with aesthetics
and expectations; we come prepared only to (strategy, style, perception). Employed as a
recognize that preparedness launches but does critical tool, it provides a way to discern the
not constitute meaning, effect, or affect. We unrecognized aesthetics of performances of
would all be genuinely humbled to acknowl­ everyday life (whether they be material, emo­
edge that teaching and learning do not happen tional, or ideological) as well as the movement
codependently or contiguously: what I think I hidden in seemingly static aesthetic representa­
am teaching is not necessarily what students tions of the real.
are learning.2 In my discussion of movement through­
But within this already dynamic landscape out this chapter, I am not speaking exclusively
of pedagogy, performativity provides yet of physical movement. However, I would
another tool, one that proffers a uniquely like to cite here the work of Rudolf Laban
“ambulatory” approach to the ambiguous (founder of choreutics, the art dealing with the
interactions we call teaching and learning. analysis of movement) who does focus on
I borrow the term ‘ambulatory’ from Susan bodies moving through space and time, pre­
Foster’s (1995) discussion of “ambulatory cisely as ground from which to speculate
scholarship” (pp.11–17). Foster coins the term on kin(a)esthetics as a dialectic. Laban (1974)
to critique how canonical scholarship neglects tells us that we must overcome the illusion
the language of the body as a means of of standstill, of snapshot-like perceptions of
marginalizing those discourses that intervene mind. Movement, he says, is in a continuous
in patriarchal and logocentric value systems. flow within the locality itself; the illusion of
The body as a discursive category invites standstills creates an artificial separation of
inquiry not only into stigmatized social bodies space and movement (p. 3). “Bodies moving in
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280 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

space” is reconceived as visible aspects of We have learned from Judith Butler (1990)
space (movement) interacting with invisible that “the body is not merely matter but a con­
features of movement (space). (Empty) space tinual and incessant materializing of possibili­
authorizes bodily movement; bodily move­ ties” (p. 272). Under her influence, I imagine my
ment reconfigures space. Laban also devised corporeal life awash in the effects of “unlived”
a system of notation, a highly encoded written experiences, the ephemeral stuff of dreams and
language to register the effort and shape of imagination. Much of that unmanifested stuff,
bodies moving in space. The hieroglyphic and however unnameable, inscribes my bodily pro­
gestural language is a kind of bridge between nouncements with significance all the same.
word and performance. It is an unstable in- How and where does the body express personal
between text that is a moving writing as well a memories, family legacies, and historical stories
writing of movement. Albeit metaphysical and turned mythical from constant retelling? How
positivist, it provides a readable map of bodies and where does my body express the provoca­
in space that defies snapshot cognition. tive characters I have consumed from books and
This chapter is a reflection on motion. I popular culture? And then, so many of these
have chosen a handful of performance tropes characters consumed have bodies marked so dif­
through which to explore kin(a)esthetics as an ferently from my own. Yet, they too inscribe my
orientation to our pedagogical endeavors. I do being significantly, even if by way of a reaction
not provide exercises or models, though I do against, a fear of, a desire for, or a power with.
suggest that we reinvigorate the classroom, any To counteract the stress on my very organs,
classroom, with the performance theories and muscles, and bones that are moved by these
practices we study.3 I am not providing here a presences, both the physically proximate and
linear argument but rather a movement through the hypermediated ones, that I cannot help
a series of thinkers, thinkers whose writings but encounter, I keep my “identities” porous,
speak to kin(a)esthetics in some fashion and open to that intimate otherness that borders
which, together, constitute a survey of sorts in me. I assume that by manipulating, recon­
performance theory. In each section, I pair two structing, the nature of identity—something
theorists to foster a more dialogic approach. I consequential and authoritative yet far more
invite readers to imagine the possible relation­ malleable than my physique—I can literally
ships between the various texts cited and the keep myself bending and not breaking. I keep
pedagogical approaches they suggest.4 the notions of mutation and ambling pulsing
through the very skin of the characters and
scripts to which I (often unwittingly) cathect,
IDENTITY AND THE trying to ward off fixity and habit, trying to
EQUIVOCAL GIFT OF THE SIGN keep at bay the forgetfulness that eases the bur­
“One does one’s body.” den of critical awareness and its incessant bid
to be accountable to changing circumstances.
—Butler, 1990, p. 272 Meanwhile, practicing routine and indulging
the comforts of its limits, orders, and security
With good reason postmodernism
are seductive, even necessary. “We act and
has relentlessly instructed us that
have to act,” says Michael Taussig, “as if mis­
reality is artifice, yet . . . we nev­
chief were not afoot in the kingdom of the real
ertheless go on living, pretending
and that all around the ground lay firm”
that we live facts, not fictions. . . .
(1999, p. 15). After all, the world turns on
Some force impels us to keep the
wheels that we simply can’t afford to reinvent;
show on the road.
no matter how strong our penchant for decon­
—Taussig, 1999, p. 14 struction, we too, need to ride the bus.
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The fundamental precept of performance as signs. The author—from autour, enlarger—

an unstable ground upon which all actors are critically deciphers and creatively recodes on
subjects and objects at once sets the pedagogi­ the spot, improvises, in the act of commanding
cal stage. We assume scripted positions but meaning.
we play them knowing that we are not what
that position denotes. As we study Butler, Claude Levi Strauss (1963) tells the story of
the markers of identity—expressed in gesture, Quesalid, a Kwakiutl Indian, who did not
believe in the power of shamans. Desiring
speech, ideology, argument, action, gender,
to expose them for their deceptive tricks,
race—are riddled by the crooked nature of Quesalid first begins to associate with
signs. Signs lie but they are all we have to work them, to learn their curious techniques of
with. We rely upon them as defenses and prestidigitation, simulation, the art of ner­
as weapons. For instance, feminist writers vous fits, how to induce vomiting, and the
Gayatri Spivak (1996) and Chéla Sandoval use of spies. After working many months as
an apprentice for an experienced shaman,
(2000), speaking of the performances of gen­ all his suspicions confirmed, he himself was
der that signify sanctioned femininity, recom­ called upon to treat an ailing person.
mend “strategic essentialism” (p. 214) and Knowing all the tricks, he performed a
“tactical subjectivity” (p. 58), respectively.5 treatment and successfully “cured” his
Identities-as-signs can be embodied and patient. Quesalid never abandoned his crit­
ical faculties and yet he became more and
paraded for politically activist purposes with­
more intrigued about the “false supernat­
out submitting to the potential tyranny of ural” (p. 176)—those techniques that were,
those signs. We play the fabrication critically. performatively speaking, much less con­
As we become more literate about the nature vincing than his own, in which he spits out
of signification, the “lie” is retrieved from its the illness in the form of a “bloody worm.”
censure as betrayer of truth and becomes, Fully aware of the really made-up, Quesalid
fights for and perfects a more real magic,
instead, the new paradigm for understanding and the word spreads of his remarkable
precisely what truth is made of. We use “fic­ style. People come to him sick and leave
tions” as provisional platforms upon which cured. And so Quesalid becomes a great
to exercise agency. shaman, seemingly “[losing] sight of the fal­
Signs are the constructions we build our laciousness of the technique which he had
so disparaged at the beginning” (p. 178).
lives on, the social facts that postmodernism
Levi Strauss concludes his tale saying,
tries to deconstruct but cannot make disap­ “Quesalid did not become a great shaman
pear. It is in “this silly if not desperate place because he cured his patients; he cured his
between the real and the really made-up” that patients because he had become a great
we function as creative beings (Taussig, 1999, shaman.” (Taussig, 1997, p. 180)
p. 15). It is also where we function as critical
beings. One lesson of kin(a)esthetic awareness In spite of Quesalid’s critical agenda founded
is that it points to where this conjoined cre­ on clear evidence of the legerdemain of
ativity and criticality resides and vibrates. We Kwakiutl “healers,” he became a living sign of
act and watch ourselves act; we are subject what he was determined to debunk. Once he
and object at once; we look in two directions took on the body of the sham-man, albeit only
and write the difference. The constantly shift­ (at first) as a disengaged substitute, the aesthetic
ing change of perspective—doing, thinking power of the performance he mimicked trans­
about doing, redoing, rethinking, on and on— formed him into a shaman. The actual effect he
recasts notions of authority. That is, authority had on patients—i.e., healing them—attests to
becomes founded not on a constancy of power an inescapable kin(a)esthetic interplay between
and control and knowledge but on the ability Quesalid’s physical body, the convincing
to navigate a complex terrain of equivocal performance Quesalid gave as he perfected the
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282 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

(artful) techniques, the longing of the patients, transgression, organic structures

and the physical bodies of the patients. Facts are in danger of dying from their
and fictions dance, so to speak, through the own articulation.
ambivalent terrain we so glibly call cause and
—Hyde, 1998, p. 258
effect, recasting the seemingly linear relation­
ship as a multidirectional and itinerant one. Jokes occur because society is
Everyone involved is well aware of magic, of structured in contradiction; there
the representational container being used to are no jokes in paradise.
perform healing, and there is finally no reason
to replace it with something more “real.” —English, 1994, p. 9
Everyone seems to know it is a construct which,
as Taussig tells us, “cannot be name-called out
of (or into) existence, ridiculed or shamed into Lewis Hyde (1998), writing about the trickster
yielding up its powers . . . For in construction’s character in mythology and literature, asks
place—what?” (Taussig, 1999, p. 15). the question of “how to stay in motion when
I would be remiss to not point out how the world puts barriers in your path”
those in the business of propaganda—corpo­ (p. 266). His answer is through joint work,
rate advertisers, the state, ideologues—employ translation, and rearticulation. The etymolog­
the very same aesthetic tools to magically ical root of “articulation” is from articulus, ar,
endow certain self-serving fictions with truth to join, to fit, and arthron, a connecting word
functions. Any content, any story, any image, in language, a joint. Tricksters are boundary
any fact is prone to a shape-shifting existence dwellers: they move boundaries, make bound­
in the hands of signifying strategists. What aries porous, point to boundaries just at the
was yesterday’s absolute is tomorrow’s mis­ moment of violating them. They engage these
take, what had been denied is suddenly strategies, in large part, in order to redistribute
avowed, what was stolen is refabricated as an power from those who have to those who do
original, what teaches you you’re deficient then not, announcing their political goals through
sells you the cure. The gifts of performativity indirect means (lying and deception are their
are always prone to abuse in ethical terms— trademarks). The very nature of the new
that is, its tropes can be engaged to lie away boundary constitution is transience; it is not
others’ very existence. As marginalized people intended to withstand time but rather to
perform (false) essentialism to fight the erasure, respond to its vicissitudes. By embracing
it is important to remember that such perfor­ and harnessing the virtues and tactics of
mances can and will be used as a weapon to nomadism—of refusing any one identity but
magically demonize the group all the more. playing all, and employing motion as a way of
The exchange is slippery. Standing one’s life and a mode of interaction—they reshape
ground is a performance often worth staging. and respace the social terrain. The way to keep
moving when the world puts obstacles in your
path is, for Hyde, to shape-shift, to play the
JOINT WORK, THE
wild card, or joker, assuming whatever value
TRICKSTER, AND THE JOKE(R)
is called for in order to trump the challenger.
Before a body can come to life, In this way, one “slips the trap of culture.”
every separation, every bound­ The genius of the trickster character—the
ary, must be breached in some anti-archetype archetype—derives from a
way . . . Unless [bodily organs] belief that designs of all sorts are revitalized by
can incorporate internal forces of contact with all that they normally exclude
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Ambulant Pedagogy 283

(p. 266). This contact is a humored rather when we laugh at jokes “we do not know
than a rigid one. Humors of the body keep the what we are laughing at . . . While humor
body fluid, keep the joints oiled. Similarly, seeks to shore up identifications and solidari­
humor itself as a performative trope, while ties, it does so by working on those very con­
it frees us from sobriety and preciousness, also tradictions of ‘society’ which assure that all
provides a “joint space,” a common space for such identifications and solidarities will be
those who would normally refuse company provisional, negotiable, unsettled” (1994,
together. Literary theorist James F. English p. 10). Jokes, he continues, would cease to
(1994) says, “Humor often makes us laugh exist if we could clearly delineate lines of iden­
with those whose psychical organization is tity and difference. It’s the combined pleasure
radically irreconcilable with our own” (p. 14). and discomfort of something being unresolv­
Another way to understand this displacing and able that makes us laugh. Through the perfor­
yet conjoining value of humor is to consider, mative event of a joke, the framework of
briefly, jokes per se and how they offer an inside/outside, antagonist/protagonist, oppres­
ambulant way to act and to theorize. sor/oppressed is refused for its oversimplifica­
There are many kinds of jokes. The ones tion and its stagnancy.
I am interested in here author a unique and Certain jokes demand listeners to reposi­
disquieting space between common sense and tion themselves in relation to the issues raised.
uncommon sense, between assumed values In the joke about the elderly man, we are sum­
and transgressive behavior.6 They oscillate in moned to laugh at the blatant refusal of a
the uncharted territory between them, demand dying man’s wish, something we would other­
that we, as listeners, reconsider our own wise treat with deference. Other jokes require
boundaries of propriety, question our long listeners to navigate ambivalent space created
held moral codes, and discover, in spite of by a play with language itself. This punnish
ourselves, a new and unstable relationship format characterized many of Groucho Marx’s
between what is safe and what is offensive. quips: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best
friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
An elderly man was at home, dying in bed. Or, “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like
He smelled the aroma of his favorite choco­ a banana.” Television’s ditsy darling of the
late chip cookies baking. He wanted one last
1950s, Gracie Allen, employed this same ludic
cookie before he died. He fell out of bed,
crawled to the landing, rolled down the sensibility in a more politicized context—that
stairs, and crawled into the kitchen where is, as a woman wriggling out of any responsi­
his wife was baking cookies. He crawled to bility and befuddling just about everyone she
the table and was just barely able to lift his encountered.7
arm to the cookie sheet. As he grasped a Gracie Allen’s entirely unselfconscious com­
warm, moist, chocolate chip cookie, his wife
suddenly whacked his hand with a spatula.
ments function as delinquent pointers, aberrant
“Why?” he whispered. “Why did you do signs. In the space of her jokes, the audience
that?” must attend to the uncomfortable disparity
She replied, “They’re for the funeral.” between the obvious and the odd—to the very
lapse created by a verbal approximation. It is a
This kind of joke keeps us on the edge of speculative space, a place of instability. But it is
our comfort zones; it makes our comfort zones also a place of challenge and dissent. In refusing
uncomfortable; it wakes us up to our defini­ predictability—that is, in missing the point—
tions of “us” (vs. them), and in the best Gracie forces us to wonder, what is the point
scenario, keeps us vigilant regarding the hard­ anyway? Is it deserving of our trust? How did it
ening of our positions. English contends that come to be taken as fact? Who benefits from our
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284 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

complicity with it? Her joking is a compelling story may not make evident an abuse of
albeit subtle way of questioning the reliability of authorial power—he is strict but not necessar­
evidence and the apparatus of belief itself by ily oppressive—it nevertheless renders vividly
interjecting tension, a stirring, in proximity to a how the nomadic quality of trickster can
previously held value. While she is never on tar­ rewrite ambiguous territory (language, repre­
get, neither does she make shots in the dark; sentation, symbols) for potentially liberatory
she takes listeners always within range of the agendas. Brazilian theatre director and social
intended response—the “right” answer—and activist Augusto Boal (1979) designed an entire
offers instead a critique of “rightness.” theatrical language known as the Joker System
(a precedent to Theatre of the Oppressed for
It was the final exam for an English course which he is well known) that enacts many of the
at the local university. The professor was principles of joking and trickery for activist and
very strict and told the class that any exam pedagogical purposes.
that was not on his desk in exactly two
The original Joker in Boal’s system was
hours would not be accepted and the
student would fail. A half hour into the a director who intervened in all perfor­
exam, a student came rushing in and asked mances and played everyone’s part at different
the professor for an exam booklet. moments, offering commentary and critique on
“You’re not going to have time to finish the story and the performances, giving lectures
this,” the professor said as he handed her a and rousing the audience to action, interview­
booklet.
ing the characters, and serving as general mas­
“Yes I will,” she replied. Then she took a
seat and began writing. ter of ceremonies. The Joker belongs nowhere
After two hours, the professor called for in particular and yet oversees everything, he or
the exams, and the students filed up and she moves into and out of the action, reveals
handed them in. All except the late student, the spaces between characters and actors, and
who continued writing. A half hour later,
never takes on any one role or position. Similar
she came up to the professor who was sit­
ting at his desk preparing for his next class. to the joker in a deck of cards, Boal’s Joker is a
She attempted to put her exam on the stack wild card with no identity of its own and yet
of exam booklets already there. able to loan its value to whatever it chooses.
“No you don’t, I’m not going to accept The Joker System privileges polyphony, non­
that. It’s late.” linearity, carnivalesque ruptures and reversals
She stared at the professor looking
incredulous and angry. “Do you know who
in time and space, resonance, and ambiguity
I am?” over identity and precision, all in the service
“No, as a matter of fact I don’t,” replied of destabilizing institutions that dam up the
the professor. flow of human and natural resources and
“DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?” she that aggregate power in highly fortressed
asked again.
ideological and literal enclaves. It seeks to cre­
“No, and I don’t care,” replied the
professor with an air of superiority. ate an alternative order in which boundaries
“Good,” she said as she lifted the stack are called upon as temporary signatures or
of completed exams, placed hers in the endorsements that maximize rather than
middle, and walked out of the room. delimit access to agency.8

Tricksters capitalize on slipperiness to

PRESENCE AND ITS TRACE
reconfigure a power relationship. In the above
anecdote, a student jokes her way out of a hier­ I propose then a theater in which
archical trap that threatens her autonomy, her violent physical images crush
desire to bypass the rules. While this particular and hypnotize the sensibility of
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Ambulant Pedagogy 285

the spectator seized . . . by a dumbfounded reactivity. In the pursuit of

whirlwind of higher forces. entertainment, a Spielberg-like manipulation
of the senses liberates viewers from unresolved
—Artaud, 1958, p. 83
conflicts, fears, and a sense of social and polit­
ical impotence. Brecht (1964), of course,
The shadow of writing falls across
taught us to precisely exploit this alienation, to
the illusion of presence.
disengage from the roles we play (on and off
—Fuchs, 1996, p. 75 the stage) as socialized beings, to live in the fer­
tile terrain between thought and action, reality
and illusion, actor and character, the familiar
When mainstream theatre practitioners (but and the strange. Presence can be experienced
also Joseph Chaikin, Julian Beck, and others with pleasure but it must serve, not nullify,
among the experimental avant garde) speak of agency.9
the concept of presence their language tends to In the 1970s, deconstruction ruptured the
wax somewhat quixotic and yet positivist, as if metaphysical, the aura of presence. Under the
describing a condition whereby some ineffable influence of Derrida’s differánce (from
denizen has arrived, like a divinity, to occupy defer—to put off), the wholeness of presence
an otherwise abandoned body. Whether this cracks in space and time: hovering around
presence oozes from the cells or alights from and within presence are trace-structures—that
the spirit, the body thus possessed is ascribed which presence displaces, everything that is
a kind of libidinous glow—afire, wild, and not itself. Theatre practitioners began to stage
untouchable. Artaud’s (1958) mystical theories not presence but the trace. One way in which
and their influence on western theatre incarnate the trace was staged, explains Fuchs (1996),
this visage of artists “like victims burnt at the was to introduce writing per se into perfor­
stake, signalling through the flames” (p. 13), mance.10 Written words—visually legible
his ideal of the performing body a prelinguistic text—destroyed the illusion that the drama
or postlinguistic total signifier of the refusal of being consumed was composed of sponta­
death and dualism between matter and mind, neous speech (p. 74). Audiences were forced
idea and form, action and reflection, concrete to remember that there was a rehearsed text,
and abstract. In a fashion, the Artaudian sign is that presence as an absolute truth in present
a sign utterly liberated from its representational time obfuscated a far more complex way of
chains and transmuted into pure revelation, seeing and reading and making meaning of
released into a superabundant wholeness, or the performing self. Writing on the stage
presence. “Everything in this theater,” says destroyed the ideal of pure self-presence
Artaud “is immersed in a profound intoxica­ (p. 73).
tion which restores to us the very elements of How does conventional theatrical presence
ecstasy” (p. 65). and its subsequent displacement into disem­
The kind of presence that characterizes bodied spaces (the space of writing on stage, in
Artaudian aesthetics invites surrender from this case) relate to kin(a)esthetic ways of think­
audiences more than it does agency; it over­ ing? Ironically, both formats challenge the
whelms the mind’s penchant for critical reflec­ western duality between body and mind and in
tion in favor of an empathic bonding and so doing undo the rigid and overdetermined
cathartic purging. In contemporary perfor­ tension between them. On the one hand, citing
mance and popular culture, such techniques of Balinese theatre as an ideal, Artaud (1958)
“presence” have been harnessed as a kind of imagines a theatre in which the actor is “a
emotional sorcery, casting audiences into a moving hieroglyph” (p. 61), a body so encoded
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286 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

with cultural writing and thought that every lights come up, all actors disperse except for
symbolic gesture is a physical abstract. those playing prisoners, and the set starts to
be dismantled. A guide announces: “Señoras
Through the body, culture and mind are not
y señores, qué esperan? La función ha termi­
reduced but exalted. In place of a polarity, nado” (Ladies and gentleman, what are you
Artaud does not posit an easy fusion between waiting for? The show is over). The audience
body and mind but rather a complex intimacy members linger briefly watching the contin­
that vibrates and screams meaning. uing action, then most head haltingly toward
On the other end of the continuum, the vis­ the door. As they exit, police sirens wail and
other actors rush in and interact with the
ible moving presence of words/written text
prisoners. Most audience members turn
in performance (Fuchs cites Foreman, The back toward the stage to watch the action.
Wooster Group, and Stuart Sherman among Most stand restlessly, shuffling, confused.
others), forces us to see the “body of the text.” (Postma, 1980, pp. 35–45)
Text becomes an actor; like all other aspects
of performance, it happens now (Fuchs, 1996, In Información, Gambaro stages the
p. 89). But as it acts, it creates a new kind “traces” of authorial leadership in Argentina in
of presence characterized by interruptions, 1972, and audiences unaccustomed to noticing
lapses, memories, tellings and retellings; it is them, no less experiencing them, as embodied
a presence devoid of absolutes. This text- realities, struggle to move through the disori­
character reveals traditional character to be enting space. Throughout the piece, spectators
“an error” (Foreman, as cited in Fuchs, 1996, are made uncomfortable, their movement
p. 84). While Artaud condemned the western through the sets made purposefully difficult,
stage for productions that “seem like so much frightening, and unsafe. Spectators become
stuttering,” this vision of “presentable writ­ actors in a sense, stumbling and faltering
ing” gives stuttering itself a presence that can through the script. At the end of the piece, they
be recognized as the undulating tissue between are left with the responsibility of interpreting a
language and body. confused message: “the performance is over”
communicated in voice over, “the performance
In her play, Información para extranjeros is not over” conveyed by bodies continuing to
(Information for Foreigners), Argentine act on stage. They are not only unsure of their
playwright Griselda Gambaro invites audi­ role (to leave or not to leave) but, more impor­
ence members to enter into a collage of tantly, unsure of how to define a role for them­
vignettes, episodes, and spectacles in twenty-
selves in the absence of clear direction. The
one scenes. They are led by two actors
through a labyrinth of compartments, play’s game is to immerse spectators into the
offices, storage rooms, bathrooms, and nar­ action, but then in the hands of untrustworthy
row hallways. The guides are incompetent; leaders, recognize their ill-fated dependence and
they repeatedly confuse audience members, the need to become not just witnesses but also
abruptly change directions, and walk people writers, critics, and evaluators of their own des­
into dark and obstructed spaces. There is no
plot development and no character develop­
tiny. They are forced to ask themselves who and
ment: in the tradition of fellow Argentine what they believe in, on what criteria they make
playwright Osvaldo Dragún, there is, rather, choices, and how they reconcile conflicting
a presentation of character underdevelop­ desires. By staging the stuttering and the traces
ment—characters have no names, roles are that haunt a more conventional presence, the
ill defined—which dissuades audience identi­
performance, although a pretense, makes reality
fication. One eventually becomes oriented
to disorientation. In the last scene, everyone more real, more pronounced physically than
gathers in a large room and several prisoners audience members had perhaps previously
are brought in and beaten. Suddenly the allowed themselves to experience it.
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Ambulant Pedagogy 287

The practice of pedagogy is also always (“ambulatory scholarship”) and writing as

located in real space. While learning is performance (“performative writing”), respec­
happening on multiple and complex levels and tively. Foster reminds us that the historian, the
informed by many unnameable kin(a)esthetic theorist, has a body and that that body is
processes, the classroom itself is a well involved in writing. Once we are alerted to the
rehearsed text. How a teacher performs value and meaning in kinesthesia, she says, we
knowledge is inextricably linked with how she cannot dis-animate how the bodies we sense
performs authority. And in spite of attempts (including those we study) effect us, create
to work against authority’s lustrous presence, meaning in us. Our physicality affects how we
instructors contend with students’ often unwit­ think and how we write, and the page is a
ting projections as if authority belonged, stage upon which those physical meanings
inevitably, to the instructor. The enactment of are put into motion. Pollock is interested in
authorial presence as a hierarchical privilege making writing perform (p. 75). She argues for
is predicated on an ongoing dialogue, often a writing that makes things happen, material­
unspoken, between teacher and students. As izes possibilities, cites and re-cites, follows the
Laura Mulvey (1975) made evident in her body’s restlessness and transience, articulates
exploration of the pleasures derived from nar­ the not-me, presents and disappears, encoun­
rative cinema, critical audiences take delight ters the reader, moves “as if,” and is aware of
in constructs that under scrutiny might betray itself as a practice that displaces rather than
their better critical judgment; students and makes meaning. Reading Pollock, I am inspired
instructors too, in spite of apparent aspirations to enter writing, to bring my inconstant body
for a more radical pedagogy, chose a comfort­ and mind—a veritable force field of subjectivi­
ing (re: culturally sanctioned) presence over ties, tensions, consequences, recollections,
a challenging trace. Locating ourselves in less materialities, images, and indecipherable other
stable terrain requires renunciation of what stuff—to the page. I become a writer perform­
traditional presence as an aesthetic perfor­ ing which subsequently manifests as a writing
mance makes easier for everyone; such reloca­ that performs.
tion casts a shadow on the seductive illusions As a teacher of performance studies there
we have come to enjoy and forces an uneasy is an implicit bidding, certainly a justification,
engagement with ignorance. to transmute the written texts we read and
explore into “performance texts.” Actually, we
do this all the time without necessarily being
PEDAGOGY AS WRITING, AND aware of it. We bring texts onto the classroom
THE PERFORMATIVE LESSON stage, though we are not always conscious of or
To speak the body, the writing accountable to the aesthetic choices that come
itself must move. to bear on those texts as they “act.” What are
the default aesthetics of our unrehearsed per-
—Foster, 1995, p. 9
formative lessons? And once we recognize the
importance of aesthetic choices, how might we
Writing becomes itself, becomes
choose to teach Brecht compared to Foucault?
its own means and ends, recover­
Might we designate an interloper to alienate our
ing to itself the force of action.
Brecht lesson and rearrange the seats panopti­
—Pollock, 1998, p. 75 cally when discussing Foucault? Perhaps. More
to the point is to reflect upon the movement
Susan Foster (1995) and Della Pollock (1998) that happens in and around and through the
take on the question of writing the body text as it moves off the page and becomes a
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writing performed in time and space. Pedagogy singular authority—it becomes public, a
itself is a writing; performance studies suggests public body.
that it is a bodily writing. Texts already written If the lesson is conceived as a collaborative
are rewritten with our bodies, made active in dialectical writing in time, it suggests improvi­
space. The lesson—that odd container that pre­ sation, with the shared text as the melody
tends to hold teaching and learning—becomes, or structure from which an unpredictable
for our purposes here, a kin(a)esthetic terrain, rewriting will happen. Benjamin (1966) says
an active casting of a written text into perfor­ of improvisation: “The task here is not to
mative space. decide once and for all, but to decide at every
First, of course, we must note that the text moment” (p. 425). Randy Martin (1999)
already lives off the page by what we bring to addresses how improvisation (in the classroom
it as we read. Perhaps we read through the sad­ in particular) makes not only the text, but the
ness of a loss, the excitement of an interaction context renegotiable. He refers to improvisa­
with a loved one, the frustration of a project tion as the moment when a response to a text
unfulfilled, the distractions of past memories or (or content) restructures the very field in
future projections. Then, we might consider which that response takes place. “Obviously
how the written texts themselves perform on in these incidental changes,” Martin suggests,
the page: what bodies wrote those texts? How “the rules, the relations of authority as such
were those bodies made visible in the texts? do not disappear . . . but their appearance
What does the text’s “presence” (in style as becomes noticeably contingent on the very
well as content) tend to displace, make invisi­ activity that the students engage in” (p. 199).
ble? How did our bodies, as readers, partake in Casting the text as a kin(a)esthetic per­
rendering meaning to the text? former is an opportunity to revise on the spot
Second, how does the text take on new the over-rehearsed script of pedagogical tradi­
meaning when cited by others? It is precisely tions. The performative lesson foregrounds
through this embodiment that new informa­ and exploits the very paradoxes of pedagogi­
tion, even new paradigms, are uncovered.11 cal space by indulging in play—an incessant
We bring our own authorship to it; we re­ rewriting not only of ideas, bodies, and infor­
authorize aspects of it and discredit others, mation but of the very frame, or structure,
revealing the way texts come to live as intrap­ within which they are happening. Play, as
ersonal dialogues—as sites within us. As we compared to games, as compared to display,
re-cite it now we also expose how texts made allows and encourages change at any time in
performative move through time—that is, the rules of the game being played—creating
through citing comes a negotiation of text read both a pleasure and a tension.
then and text cited now. This re-iteration puts
the text in motion. The text can also be under­ Every spring Jews around the world cele­
stood as a kind of mask that can be taken on brate Passover with a ritual dinner, or seder.
The Passover story, which commemorates
and off like a role, an action that articulates the Jews’ freedom from the Egyptians, is
the very space between itself and the one who read aloud in both Hebrew and English from
speaks it. Finally, the text functions as a the Haggadah before dinner is served. In my
medium of sorts that channels the exchange of extended family, the reading, replete with
bodies in space and time, a context for (and prayer and song, is done with only
a modicum of formality and earnestness;
not an end in itself of) whatever is to be
amidst the ceremonious atmosphere, there is
learned. And because this exchange is riddled the typical fare of joking, arguing, acting-
with interruptions, digressions, quotations, out, boredom, and frustration that marks all
and constant reauthorizations, it loses any of our family gatherings. One particularly
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Ambulant Pedagogy 289

memorable seder occurred in 1990. It started fact, recipients of a mitzvah—an act of giving
out with the usual bantering: my father dictated by Jewish law.
wanting to explain (in depth) the meaning
Second, while Russell may have been
of seder (again) and to read every section of
the Haggadah; my mom anxious to move embodying his cultural values as a way of
the service along quickly so that the food claiming some autonomy and visibility within
wouldn’t be overcooked. Approximately 20 an already overdetermined family spectacle, he
minutes into the ritual, it was time for the was also reflecting back to his elders their own
recitation of The Four Questions, an oral performance of ambivalence about the holiday
exchange of questions and answers per­
proceedings and its meaning. My mother’s
formed traditionally between the youngest
son at the table and his father. The task that anxiety about her culinary role and my con­
year fell to my nephew, Russell, who was 13 stant correcting of the gender biased language
at the time. But when asked to read the first of the Haggadah had inflected every Passover
question he refused. After some laughter and for more than a decade; these interventions
gentle mockery, most of us merely amused
were now part of what Passover was for all
by his adolescent defiance, he was asked
again to read. But Russell would have noth­ of us. Russell, in a rather ingenious performa­
ing of it. The tension around the table tive move, played back to us our own cultural
increased, the usual frivolity and indifference practice: rewriting, renaming, redirecting, and
now infused with some anger and exaspera­ even a degree of disrespecting were already
tion. But when the third request was refused, always par for the course.
there was no hiding the agitation, particu­
larly from my brother who felt publicly
embarrassed by his son’s obstinacy. “What
will it take Russell,” asked my brother with
PLAYING IN/AS PEDAGOGY
controlled rage in his voice, “for you to read There is no possible reason for
the Four Questions?” And for the first time
climbing except the climbing
that night, Russell’s face lit up in an impish
smile as he answered, “If I can do them in itself; it is a self-communication
rap.” And so he did. And, as it turned out,
—Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, p. 54
seder 1990 kept that thirteen year old com­
ing back for many years hence.
This phenomenon, play, could
only occur if the participant
Russell’s performance is interesting in a
organisms were capable of some
few registers. He demonstrated how tradition
degree of metacommunication,
withstands time only by changing, and how
i.e., of exchanging signals that
performance serves as a bridge between the
carry the message “this is play.”
antiquated and the contemporary. Tradition—
as a set of rules, expectations, structures, and —Bateson, 1972, p. 179
written doctrine—survives the cultural vicissi­
tudes of new generations by, in fact, being
performed, lived, and thus reclaimed, albeit When Gregory Bateson (1972) declares,
altered in the process. Ironically, performance “human beings have evolved the metaphor
with all its quintessential variability and imme­ that is meant” (p. 183), he is referring to
diacy becomes a vehicle for strengthening and humans’ granting a truth function to represen­
disseminating conventions. Russell’s innova­ tations—the primary process in which map
tive improvisation kept an anachronous cus­ and territory (representation and the thing
tom honest and relevant, not only for him but being represented) are equated. In secondary
for everyone around the table. However much processes of the mind, people can discriminate
they whined and rolled their eyes, they were in between the two. In play, a third-order
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290 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

functioning, they are both equated and Four New York University students headed
discriminated (p. 185). For Bateson, aware­ to the Staten Island ferry in New York City
to do invisible theatre on littering. Their
ness and active exploitation of this cohabita­
goal was to engage ferry riders on the envi­
tion is what he calls play. Augusto Boal (1995) ronmental hazards of discarding their trash
describes a similar phenomenon of play on the open-air deck. After purchasing hot
as metaxis: “the state of belonging com­ dogs, pretzels, popcorn, and various other
pletely and simultaneously to two different, fast foods from the concession, one of the
autonomous worlds: the image of reality and four proceeded to eat and litter, casting
wrappers and Styrofoam cups, napkins,
the reality of the image” (p. 43).
and food-remains recklessly onto the deck.
The kin(a)esthetic value of play and metaxis Several passengers sitting nearby watched in
derives from its very paradoxical nature. We disbelief, one of them in particular, growing
live our representations as if they are real and more and more irate. Eventually, unable to
knowing they are not. In fact, play’s metacom­ contain himself, he confronted the litterer. A
debate ensued, the other students chiming in
municative message (“this is play”) articulates
either pro or con, along with other passen­
the very space in which we can act “as if” and gers drawn into the arguments being pre­
reap its experiential values. For example, we sented (some highly researched and
can be aggressive in play without suffering the informative, others incredulous but perhaps
consequences of what such aggression would popular), e.g., littering is environmentally
mean if acted outside the play frame: the play­ corrupt vs. littering provides jobs for people
on the janitorial staff. The “performance”
ful nip is not the bite, as Bateson reminds us.
was successful in that it created a site, a
The performative frame allows the actions that public event—fabricated and yet real—
happen within them to be real forces of change through which to furnish environmental
in dimensions of communication, perception, data and social hypotheses. But this one
structure, and ideology. Ironically, the change irate man would have nothing of it. As the
conversation proceeded, he disappeared
is potent precisely because when we know con­
temporarily only to return with Security.
ceptually “this is play,” when engaged in it we Seeing the litter on the floor, the policeman
don’t know it. asked who was responsible. Several passen­
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls this phenom­ gers pointed to the culpable student. “Did
enon “flow,” an autotelic experience which is you do this?” the policeman asked. “Yes,
an end it itself. He describes it as an immersion but no,” the student muttered, anxiously
miming a time-out to the other students to
into a “field of force” in which there is an
indicate that the performance was now
active role for self and a loss of consciousness over. “You see, officer, we are NYU
of self simultaneously; the self expands its students doing an invisible theatre perfor­
boundaries precisely by losing consciousness mance. I did throw this stuff on the deck but
of itself.12 This immersion into “enjoyment” is it’s not real litter, it’s make-believe litter.”
Staring at the trash on the floor, the Security
active, not passive; it is characterized by for­
guard looked incredulously at the student,
ward movement and the delicate balance and wrote out a ticket, a real $100 ticket,
between challenge and skill. It is only when for littering.
the risk of play itself becomes too difficult
(beyond the player’s ability to meet the chal­ The experiment on the ferry was an appli­
lenge) that self-consciousness breaks “flow” cation of Augusto Boal’s invisible theatre, a
and saves us from an experience of failure. The format he advanced in Argentina in the early
paradox of “flow” experiences lies in provid­ 1970s during the reign of a brutal military
ing a complex pleasure that derives from regime. As an activist and director, Boal
effortless movement just on the brink of a wanted to raise vital political issues with
breakdown. audiences through theatre but realized that
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overt, staged drama—that is, acting that “staged” actions did the audience have to face
clearly announced itself as such—would have the impact of being played. Everyone got a
been politically inopportune if not downright glimpse (appreciated or not) into the complex­
dangerous. The goal of invisible theatre was ities of invisible theatre’s pedagogical profun­
to stimulate a discussion and to educate dity. Students acted as unmarked teachers of
others about issues affecting their lives by cap­ sorts, provoking a “real” dialogue and raising
turing the attention of people who did not consciousness in a way that disallowed ferry
know they were watching a planned perfor­ goers to find refuge in structures—i.e., theatre
mance. At the time of its inception, perform­ and classroom—that ordinarily sanction pas­
ers were trying to stay out of jail; in being sivity for nonactors. The students engaged
invisible, they escaped being “disappeared.” play as pedagogy, a radical pedagogy at that.
In the case above, NYU students as well made There is always a dimension of performance
invisible the frame, “this is play,” and (alongside the real) in play, and performance
exploited the fusion of theatre and real life creates a particular spatial tension, a transitive
that invisible theatre allows. space. The term “transitive” is defined as “of
Of course, the stakes were far less serious in showing, or characterized by transition.” In
1990s New York City than in 1970s Argentina. showing, in the act of requiring a space in
Rather than avoiding disappearance, they were which something can be shown, transitional
merely protecting themselves from being dis­ space is created. Augusto Boal (1995) calls the
missed as “actors” and, accordingly, freeing the space created by performance “aesthetic
audience from the safety of being theatrical space.” He defines aesthetic space as “a space
spectators. Within the manifest frame of a play, within a space, a superposition of spaces”
audiences are more prone to say, “It’s just the­ (p. 18). It is created by the interpenetration of
atre” (re: not real) and assume a more passive the platform or stage and the space of the spec­
role as observer only. While the manipulation tator, whether present or imagined—that is,
that characterizes invisible theatre has been the space created between actor and spectator
challenged on ethical grounds—the students can occur, thanks to our imagination, within
live in “aesthetic space” (they are acting) while the same person. Boal’s aesthetic space is tran­
the unassuming spectators (who are not acting) sitional space, it is kin(a)esthetic.13
are taken unawares—perhaps one of the impor­ While the actual classroom is always a
tant conceptual lessons of invisible theatre is kin(a)esthetic space, kin(a)esthetic space also
that acting off the stage happens constantly in exists between representation and thing, map
every day life, every time we chose to speak, not and territory, play frame and play itself.
speak, act, not act. And, obviously, there is Pedagogy is situated at the borders where
always an element of the real in such play—it is these pairings meet and therein lies its radical
inescapable. It is amusing to consider how the potential. We look both ways and play in the
students sought to use “play” to trump the real­ difference. We act within the frame “as if,” we
ity of “the real trash” to avoid the very real notice ourselves acting, we alter the frame
$100 ticket, all within their understanding of (sometimes unwittingly) and we act within the
the efficacy of the invisible theatre performance, frame “as if” again differently. This ambulant
and all to the utter incredulity of the security pedagogy—kin(a)esthetic pedagogy—keeps
guard. transfiguring itself and the content it holds,
While invisible theatre avoids the final and in so doing highlights the ethical and
reveal (the ferry case is an exception), it is political dimensions of cultural performances
interesting to note that only when students of all kinds. Fake and real are forever wed in
had to face the real consequences of their a political dance, discernible and negotiable
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292 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

only through another complex dance—that of one’s feet, recovering enough balance only to
analysis and critical thinking which has the risk losing it once again. In imagining this risky
power to rematerialize. ambling—setting forth with both promise and
The more astute we become to the nervous, ambivalence—I can’t help but to see clowns
paradoxical, morphing dimensions that char­ with their awkward and precarious gait. The
acterize aesthetic spaces, the more we learn incessant tripping and slipping seems to cast
to act according to their wisdom. They into question prevailing values of stability,
become not merely dimensions we negotiate or depicted as two feet planted firmly on the
spaces we inhabit, but the modes in which we ground. Pedagogy might learn something from
think. Rather than conceiving of our bodies a study of how clowns move on their feet.
moving through kin(a)esthetic space we come But this begs a bigger question. There are
to experience kin(a)esthesis moving bodies, different ways to move, motivated by different
identities, ideas, boundaries, and representa­ goals, while passing through different land­
tions of all kinds. scapes. Being ambulant itself demands aes­
thetic qualification. How do we amble and
why? My initial attempt to answer this ques­
AFTERTHOUGHTS: THE AESTHETICS
tion provoked a roster of kinds of travelers:
AND POLITICS OF AMBLING
the flaneur strolls aimlessly in covert search
While the term ambulant is associated with of adventure; the nomad relocates as cultural
wandering, the term ambulatory—sharing the practice; the explorer travels with deliberation
root “ambi,” to amble—is associated with to discover something new; the tourist goes
recuperation. Recuperation means to get or elsewhere to validate his or her own identity;
bring back, recovery, restoration. To be ambu­ the trekker moves laboriously on foot, intimate
latory is to be “back on one’s feet” which with the changing landscape; the hiker moves
implies a return to justice as well as to health; for pleasure and to overcome her physical lim­
losses and damages are recovered as well as itations; the commuter crosses back and forth
strength. One is now able to hold his or her to bridge physical or economic needs; the
own, is solvent, poised and ready to go. Just as vagrant ambles out of destitution, the refugee
the concept of ambulant has provided a lens to to flee, the pilgrim in search of an answer, the
recognize and reassess how pedagogy moves, passenger not necessarily of her own will, and
so might the concept of ambulatory. Through the fugitive to avoid responsibility.
its lens, pedagogy might be understood as a And yet this panoply of movers begs yet
confluence of efforts, forces, styles, signs, another question. How, aesthetically speaking,
histories, languages, and bodies whose interac­ do we embrace the ambulant spirit in relation
tions are defined by the desire to recuperate to social and historical circumstances? What
knowledge one from another, i.e., to recuper­ political investments drive our ambling and
ate bodies from history, efforts from signs, what kinds of movement forward our agen­
histories from styles, languages from bodies, das? The very same questions inflect ambulant
etc., in various and complex affinities and pedagogy per se. How does our pedagogy
reverberations. Pedagogy is ambulant because change in pace, weight, vibration, urgency,
it is always and endlessly improvising— direction, style, and effort on the first day of
improving upon itself and functioning within a teaching after September 11, 2001, on subse­
landscape without clear horizons; perhaps it is quent 9/11s, when our government attacks
ambulatory because it merges the notion of Iraq, or on Election Day? We shift more than
solvency—stability and balance—with the just the content of our classroom discus­
predication of moving again, being back on sions on such occasions (and on many others
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Ambulant Pedagogy 293

of perhaps less dramatic import). The entire Freire proposes dialogue which grants pedagogy
pedagogical “theatre” has been transformed its subversive force. Seeking a revolutionary lead­
ership, he proposes “co-intentional education.
whether we choose to pay attention to it or
Teachers and students (leadership and people), co­
not; the field of play has been littered with intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the
new obstacles, reconfigured by new rules, task of unveiling that reality, and thereby coming
consequences, and responsibilities. And the to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating
classroom, as an organ of the social body, par­ that knowledge” (p. 56). Freire’s radical pedagogy
ticipates necessarily in the new show. To speak is transitive rather than intransitive; students are
active participants in their education by teaching
of pedagogy we must speak of its placement
what they know.
and function within the social body and its 2. See Schutzman (2002) for an essay that
social movements; pedagogy is both an interweaves a description of a course taught at
inscription of and a risk to the body politic. A CalArts, excerpts from student papers, performa­
kin(a)esthetic sensibility advocates for a deeply tive writing, and a self-reflexive analysis of the
class experience that brought the author to these
implicated pedagogical organ, accountable
pedagogical speculations.
and answerable to powerful political agendas 3. While the discipline of performance stud­
whose classic plays have been overrehearsed, ies inspires the pedagogical speculations of this
well-endowed, pervasively distributed, and essay, the notion of kin(a)esthetics as a way to
far too readily consumed. If our pedagogy approach the classroom is by no means restricted
remains dutifully ambulant and ambulatory— to the performance studies classroom. Whether
teaching European history, semiotics, or calculus,
socially agile and recuperative—the classroom
the interactivity that constitutes and dynamizes
may survive the immobility and superfluity the classroom transcends (and, as suggested, trans­
that threatens it. forms) the subject matter per se.
And amidst all the complex movement that 4. The sources cited in the following pages
may characterize ambulant pedagogy—of shift­ constitute approximately one half of the readings
I assign for a year-long course I teach at California
ing frames of play, between performed and real,
Institute of the Arts, entitled Performance Theory
in endless re-citations of texts, of slippery signs, and Practice. I employ them here as a textual
and in the very active joints of our bodies—there remapping of the class and as the basis of the per-
are also limits and hazards and high stakes. An formative agenda of the in-class lessons. This class
acknowledgement of kin(a)esthetic processes is is the most current “data” from which I theorize
not an acquiescence to unbounded relativism. and speculate on the subjects of this essay.
5. These concepts recognize the temporal
Rather, it bespeaks the aesthetic dimensions of
aspect of identity-based methods employed as
all critical, political, and material performances subversive acts without falling into a generalized
of which taking hard and fast positions are essentialism that denies the internal differences in
options—strategic immobility is a kin(a)esthetic a group.
choice. It warns against subscribing to habitu­ 6. Jokes function on many levels and some
clearly reinforce prescribed cultural boundaries—
ated, seemingly harmless, performances as if
insult jokes, for example, that intensify or humili­
they too were not marked aesthetically, often ate our allegiances.
with blind and contemptuous privilege. 7. The format of the television series on
which Gracie performed with her real-life husband
George Burns contained Gracie linguistically
NOTES in an ineffectual domestic space; her verbal antics,
no matter how “liberating,” were framed at begin­
1. Freire is often cited for his critique of the ning and end by George’s denigrating narration
“banking” concept of education whereby knowl­ of Gracie as a hopelessly stupid woman. Nonethe­
edge is deposited, so to speak, by self-proclaimed less, her verbal trickery illustrates a performative
experts (teachers) into the heads of those who strategy of escape, a way to “slip the trap of cul­
know nothing (students). In lieu of this concept, ture” that Hyde speaks of. The following is an
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294 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

excerpt from the film A Damsel in Distress written understood in contemporary practice. Many of the
by P. G. Wodehouse (1937) and produced by roles of the original Joker now belong to the spect­
RKO Radio Pictures. (GB is George Burns, GA is actors, the audience members who take part in the
Gracie Allen): action of TO.
GB: (on phone). You’ll have to talk to my sec­ 9. It is interesting to note that much of the
retary. She’s not in yet. You better call about inspiration for Artaud’s concept of presence came
12 o’clock, she’ll be in then to go out to lunch. from Balinese theatre, while Brecht, far more
GA: (entering office). Hello. aligned aesthetically with a deconstructive and
GB: You should have been in two hours ago. Derridian impulse, was inspired by a study of
GA: Why, what happened? Chinese theatre. The allure of nonwestern systems
GB: What happened? If you’re not here on time provided, perhaps, a conceptual crystallization of
I’ll have to get myself another stenographer. their respective critiques of western theatre, each
GA: Another stenographer? Do you think seeing in these highly coded and ultimately strange
there’s enough work for the two of us? aesthetics what they needed to see—Artaud, a
GB: Look, I mean I’m gonna fire you! highly volatile presence characterized by height­
GA: Fire me? Why if it wasn’t for my father . . . ened ritualistic unity, and Brecht, a highly referen­
you wouldn’t be here in London now. tial presence characterized by alienated social
GB: If it wasn’t for your father, you wouldn’t tension.
be working for me for two weeks. You wouldn’t 10. I owe much of the following discussion
even be working for me for two days. Not even about the inclusion of writing into experimental
two minutes. performance of the 1970s to E. Fuchs (1996).
GA: Well, a girl couldn’t ask for shorter hours 11. Students in my Performance Theory and
than that. Practice class at CalArts select particular readings
GB: Did you type that letter I dictated last night? that they “perform” in class. For example, on the
GA: Well, no, I didn’t have time so I mailed day that we will be discussing Foucault’s (1979)
him my notebook. I hope he can read my short­ article “Panopticism” in Discipline and Punish,
hand. one or two students do a five-minute performance
GB: You mailed your notebook? You know of the article as they understand it. Students find
Gracie, I’m beginning to think that there’s nothing that the attempt itself is almost always a way of
up here. (He points to his head.) giving interiority to the theories being read. One
GA: Oh, George, you’re self-conscious. student put it this way: “Theory resides in a kind
(phone rings). of outer space and embodiment of the theory
GB: I’m not in. gives it an inner space as well” (Milly Sanders,
GA: He’s not in. 2003).
GB: Find out who it is. 12. Susan Foster (1995), cited in the previous
GA: (to George). It’s a Hawaiian. section, sees the corporeal dimension of this
GB: A Hawaiian? immersion experience when she says, “The author
GA: Well, he must be. He says he’s brown from loses identity as the guiding authority and finds
the morning sun. him or herself immersed in the process of the pro­
GB: Look, the man’s name is Brown. The ject getting made. This is not mystical, it’s really
Morning Sun is the newspaper he’s working on. quite bodily” (p. 83).
But tell him I’m not here. 13. Boal (1995) describes the characteristics
GA: He’s not here (pause). I tell you he’s not and properties of aesthetic space in his book The
here (pause). Ah, you don’t do you, well you can Rainbow of Desire: (1) plasticity (“time and space
ask him yourself if you don’t believe me. (to can be condensed or stretched at will, and the
George). George, will you tell him you’re not here, same flexibility operates with people and objects,
he doesn’t believe me. which can coalesce or dissolve, divide or multi­
8. Boal discusses the Joker System in his book ply,” p. 20); (2) it is dichotomic and it creates
Theatre of the Oppressed (1979, pp. 159–194). dichotomy (“the people and the things which are
This system was developed when Boal worked in this place will be in two spaces” p. 23); (3) it is
with the Arena Theater of Sao Paulo and precedes telemicroscopic (“like a powerful telescope, the
the joker of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) as stage brings things closer” p. 27).
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Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum.
Artaud, A. (1958). The theater and its double. (Original work published 1970)
New York: Grove Press. Fuchs, E. (1996). The death of character: Perspec­
Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. tives on theater after modernism. Bloomington:
New York: Ballantine Books. Indiana University Press.
Benjamin, W. (1966). Briefe. Frankfurt, Germany: Hyde, L. (1998). Trickster makes this world: Mischief,
Suhrkamp. myth, and art. New York: North Point Press.
Boal, A. (1979). Theater of the oppressed (C. A. Laban, R. (1974). The language of movement:
McBride & M. Leal McBride, Trans.). A guidebook to choreutics. Boston: Plays, Inc.
New York: Urizen Books. (Original work pub­ Levi-Strauss, C. (1963). Structural anthropology
lished 1974) (C. Jacobson & B. G. Schoepf, Trans.).
Boal, A. (1992). Games for actors and non-actors New York: Basic Books.
(A. Jackson, Trans.). London: Routledge. Martin, R. (1999). Leaping into the dialectic:
Boal, A. (1995). The rainbow of desire: the Boal Etudes in materializing the social. In A. Kumar
method of theatre and therapy (A. Jackson, (Ed.), Poetics/politics: Radical aesthetics for
Trans.). London: Routledge. the classroom (pp. 191–200). New York: St.
Brecht, B. (1964). Brecht on theatre: The develop­ Martin’s Press.
ment of an aesthetic ( J. Willett, Trans.). New Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual pleasure and narrative
York: Hill and Wang. (Original work pub­ cinema. Screen, 16(3), 412–428.
lished 1957) Pollock, D. (1998). Performing writing. In P. Phelan
Butler, J. (1990). Performative acts and gender con­ & J. Lane (Eds.), The ends of performance
stitution: An essay in phenomenology and fem­ (pp. 73–103). New York: New York University
inist theory. In S. E. Case (Ed.), Performing Press.
feminisms: Feminist critical theory and theatre Postma, R. (1980, Fall). Space and spectator in the
(pp. 270–282). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins theatre of Griselda Gambaro: “Información
University Press. para extranjeros,” Latin American Theatre
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology Review, 35–45.
of optimal experience. New York: Harper and Sandoval, C. (2000). Methodology of the oppressed.
Row. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
English, J. F. (1994). Comic transactions: Schutzman, M. (2002). Guru clown, or pedagogy
Literature, humor and the politics of commu­ of the carnivalesque. Theatre Topics, 12(1),
nity in twentieth-century Britain. Ithaca, NY: 63–84.
Cornell University Press. Spivak, G. C. (1996). Subaltern studies: Decon­
Foster, S. L. (1995). Choreographing history. In structing historiography (1985). In D. Landry
S. L. Foster (Ed.), Choreographing history & G. MacLean (Eds.), The Spivak reader:
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Press. (pp. 203–236). New York: Routledge.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The Taussig, M. (1999). A report to the academy.
birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). In A. Kumar (Ed.), Poetics/politics: Radical
New York: Vintage Books. (Original work aesthetics for the classroom (pp. 13–16).
published 1975) New York: St. Martin’s Press.
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16
Pedagogy on the Move
New Intersections in (Between)
the Educative and the Performative

GREG DIMITRIADIS

I took my first academic position in fall of

1999 as an assistant professor of educa­
tional foundations. The move was only the lat­
people understood the texts I had worked with
and through for most of my adult life. In
the end, I came to see popular culture (such as
est in a long line of disciplinary transgressions. hip-hop) as an alternative curriculum and
I had BA degrees in economics and English, community-based organizations (such as the
MA degrees in English and American studies, one I worked at) as alternative learning set­
and a PhD in speech communication. Like tings. I found a disciplinary and intellectual
many my story was uneven, emergent, driven home in education, though I had to remove
by personal circumstance and accident as these constructs from their more familiar tra­
much as intellectual planning and foresight. ditional moorings to do so. I found myself in a
Nevertheless, there seemed a particular logic complex space, one that forced me again and
to this latest move. I had spent the better part again beyond the prescriptive confines of
of the decade interrogating the cultural phe­ schools walls. Indeed, though I found a home
nomenon of hip-hop music and culture. While in education, it was only opened up through
my object of inquiry remained largely the the “performative.”
same, my approaches were disparate, moving As Dwight Conquergood (1998), Della
between the textual and the ethnographic Pollock (1998), and most recently Norman
(Dimitriadis, 2001a; 2001b; 2003). Denzin (2003) have made so very clear, perfor­
I had spent the four years previous to 1999 mance is a key site where social, cultural, and
working at a community center in the urban material constructions are put into motion, are
Midwest, trying to understand how young articulated and rearticulated in new and (often)

296
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powerful ways. The “performative turn” looks “texts,” as a modern-day poetics. This meant,
towards an “interactionist epistemology,” one of course, looking past the cultural distinctions
where “context replaces text, verbs replace that had buttressed my formal education—
nouns, structures become processes. The distinctions between what I had to study in
emphasis is on change, contingency, locality, school (so-called “high” culture) versus what I
motion, improvisation, struggle, situationally consumed for leisure (so-called “popular” cul­
specific practices and articulations, the perfor­ ture). For me the burgeoning hip-hop world
mance of con/texts” (Denzin, 2003. p. 16). suddenly seemed as important as any social or
There are no safe spaces here and no alibis for political movement which had been enshrined
our effectivities, both in their enabling and con­ in the academy. The hip-hop recordings I was
straining dimensions (Lee, 1999). The world newly exposed to suddenly seemed educative
is always already performative, always already and serious—profoundly so. In many respects,
in motion. This interactionist turn has critical this interest spoke to the moment in hip-hop
implications for pedagogy, decentering the when I first began to engage it—the mid- to
privileged and delimited role of the teacher in late eighties.
the classroom, forcing us to look towards the The mid- to late eighties was a moment
new “in between” spaces where culture is when rap artists like KRS-One and Rakim
being “performed” in the everyday. rejected their roles as popular icons, drawing
This chapter looks towards these and other on a new density in language and word play
phenomena as it explores new intersections in and, perhaps most importantly, foregrounding
(between) the educative and the performative. a self-defined tradition, concerned with, among
More specifically, I focus here on key moments other things, the origins of the art form
when the performative forced me to decenter (Dimitriadis, 2001a). This was a key moment
my own interpretive parameters and open of critical validation for hip-hop—the moment
myself up to new ways of thinking about texts when it moved from being “just” a party music
and practices. More broadly, I will argue that to a music with seeming depth and complexity.
these new, perhaps more unstable understand­ It was a moment when rap articulated with the
ings of texts and practices necessitated new deep embodied sense of “artistry” so enmeshed
ways of thinking about the ethics and politics in the academic imagination. The self-
of pedagogy and educational inquiry. This professed trappings of artistic and pedagogic
chapter, then, will be necessarily personal and complexity came hand in hand with a focus on
autobiographical, an effort to think through the individual artist. I recall here Rakim rap­
my own interpretive trajectory by way of the ping on “I Know You Got Soul” (Eric B. and
performative, highlighting its ethical and polit­ Rakim, 1987), “I start to think and then I sink
ical demands and responsibilities. into the paper, like I was ink / When I’m writ­
ing, I’m trapped in between the lines / I escape,
when I finish the rhyme.” This stress on lan­
TEXTS
guage, on the textual, on the creative process,
My fascination with hip-hop took hold during stood in some distinction to the earlier rap
my college years and quickly became an acad­ texts that tended to be party oriented.
emic project. As with many other scholars, my Judged from my own interpretive criteria,
interest in popular culture seemed to find a nat­ the music of Rakim and KRS-One seemed
ural home in the humanities (in general) and intensely complex and worthy of study.
English departments (more specifically). My Suddenly music, which had always been there
impulse was to examine hip-hop recordings as for me, seemed more serious and important,
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298 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

more worthy of academic study and inquiry. throughout these singles is partying, getting
In many respects, I took the cue from the crowds involved in the unfolding event. Lines
artists themselves who took on these trap­ like “Come alive y’all and give me what you
pings. Rappers were no longer only entertain­ got” abound throughout, flowing in and out
ers but self-professed poets, artists, and of the more structured narrative sequences,
intellectuals (in ways I will discuss below). We as in a live show. Concurrently, the pronoun
see a key parallel here with the move from “you”—i.e., the live hip-hop crowd—reveals
swing to bop in jazz. As Amiri Baraka (LeRoi a familiar and friendly relationship between
Jones) noted in his still classic discussion of the artist and audience. This holds true for
shift, early swing music was a dance music and “Rapper’s Delight” by The Sugar Hill Gang
a “functional” music propelled by the imme­ (1979) as well as for nearly all early singles,
diate demands and needs of ever-changing including “Spoonin’ Rap” (1980) by Spoonie
audiences (1963). The birth of bebop signaled Gee, “Money (Dollar Bill Y’all)” (1981) by
a shift in music and style. Denser and more Jimmy Spicer, and “Supperrappin’” (1980) by
intricate arrangements became the norm, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. In all
while symbols of seeming sophistication, the these examples, the “you” indexes the partici­
“goatee, beret, and window-pane glasses” all pants necessary to sustain the event, active
became part of evidencing the jazz artist’s agents who engage and sustain the culture in
“fluency with some of the canons of formal complex and multiple ways in particular sites.
Western nonconformity” (p. 201). This sense of the event, of the recursive
As opposed to swing artists, bebop artists nature of interaction and communication, is
turned their backs on their role as entertainers; evidenced, as well, in the use of call-and­
a kind of cool distance was effected by Charlie response routines. These routines were ubiqui­
Parker, Miles Davis, and others. This was not tous in live hip-hop shows and are also
a dance music first and foremost. Artists like featured on nearly all the earliest rap singles.
Parker and Davis mined and reworked classic For example, Jimmy Spicer raps on
standards of the era, giving the music a self- “Adventures of Super Rhymes” (1979),
conscious intellectual feel and dimension. “When I say ‘rock,’ you say ‘roll,’ when I say
According to Baraka (1963), this was very ‘ice,’ then you say ‘cold’ / Then when I say
much about moving from a functional art ‘disco,’ you say ‘the beat,’ I say it’s ‘like
form to one that was more of a self-defined honey,’ then you say ‘it’s sweet.’” The audi­
and directed “art” music. Indeed, Ralph ence responds in turn. In addition, the Funky
Ellison, among others, would mourn this pass­ Four rap on “That’s the Joint” (1979),
ing. He writes that with bop, jazz “has become “Before you hear the party people yell
separated from the ritual form of the ‘Sugarhill’ / So what’s the deal?” to which the
dance . . . the response of the audience is more audience responds, “Sugarhill!!” These call­
intellectual . . . and thus its participation is less and-response routines give clear testimony to
immediate” (2001, p. xxix). It was at precisely the intimacy of the club or party situation with
this moment that the field of jazz criticism which these performers were perhaps most
exploded. familiar. Rap grew out of a dialogic and inter­
Similar to early jazz, hip-hop began as a active tradition, one that linked artists and
live practice, dependent upon the moment-to­ audiences in some concrete fashion.
moment responses of the audience. The earli­ As noted, artists in the mid-eighties moved
est hip-hop singles evidence this indissoluble away from hip-hop as only a dance or party
focus on the occasion or event in a number of music. Artists like Rakim and KRS-One
ways. First and foremost, the prevailing theme increasingly defined themselves as poets,
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Pedagogy on the Move 299

artists, and pedagogues. Rap artists during the Means Necessary and featured KRS-One on
mid-eighties brought a greater degree of vocal the cover, mimicking the famous photo of
sophistication to this art as well as an increased Malcolm X standing by a window with his rifle
awareness of the role of rappers as poets and drawn. Artists like Public Enemy extended this
pedagogues. This move was not so clearly political and nationalist trend. Specifically a
about forwarding a specific political or educa­ kind of black nationalist identity politics
tive agenda, at least initially. More important, became apparent in rap during the late eighties
it seems, was an awareness of hip-hop as its as its community stretched irretrievably beyond
own complex and nuanced cultural field, with local boundaries. For example, Public Enemy’s
real stakes and consequences. More than second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions
anything, artists like KRS-One and Rakim to Hold Us Back (1988) stressed a political
acknowledged the kind of creative depth and agenda as evinced by titles such as “Rebel
play that could be brought to the art form— Without a Pause” and “Prophets of Rage.”
particularly as set against a dominant, popular Indeed, Chuck D and Flavor Flav wed a prob­
American culture. In this sense, rap artists lack stance with Nation of Islam ideology on
came to function as critical pedagogues—self­ these tracks as well as on others, including
consciously attempting to “re-engage a social “Bring the Noise.” Terms such as “devil” and
world” that often seemed constituted at a dis­ “black Asiatic man” abound throughout, ref­
tance, wholly a priori (McLaren, 1997, p. 13). erencing the intricate genesis beliefs preached
Rap artists, here, were committed to the role by Nation founders W.D. Fard and Elijah
and importance of hip-hop as an emerging Muhammad. The Nation of Islam became a
vehicle for creative activity—indeed, “to the pronounced force in rap at this time, its blend
practical realization of self-determination and of militancy and problack ideology finding
creativity on a social scale” (p. 13). enthusiastic support among many young
Key here was a loose collective of artists, African Americans.
Boogie Down Productions. KRS-One—the It was a heady time for rap music. It was
group’s front man and lead vocalist—stressed the moment in which the art evolved into an
a more overtly pedagogical, more lyric-intense explicitly artistic and politically educative
music with the release of their first singles in medium. It was the moment that rap appeared
1986 and their first album in 1987, Criminal to be a serious art from—worthy of criticism
Minded. The opening cut on the album is aptly and attention. Personally, it meant a more
titled “Poetry,” while the last is the title cut. intense engagement with these hip-hop texts.
The feel of this track, “Criminal Minded,” is It was around this time, my senior year of col­
definitely conversational. Gone are clipped lege, that I began looking at hip-hop as an art
shouts and instead long lines begin with “see” form. Like many however, I had a textual bias.
and “I mean,”—lines delivered above, below, As I understood it the import of these texts
as well as on, the beat. KRS-One evoked the was to be located and understood through
feel and flow of an educated and conversant deep textual engagement. I was doing this
poet here. The term “b-boy” originally con­ work from within an English department and
noted one who participated in all the facets of my unit of analysis was rap recordings. In
hip-hop culture. KRS-One, however, rejects all many respects, my work betrayed the kind
this when he raps that he is not a “king” or a of textual bias that Dwight Conquergood
“b-boy,” but a “teacher” and a “scholar.” and Norman Denzin, among others, have dis­
In addition, an explicit focus on the political cussed. As Conquergood (1998) has written,
emerged with time as well. Boogie Down there is an “almost total domination of textu­
Productions’ second album was entitled By All alism in the academy” (p. 25).
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300 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

Importantly, this stress on textualism, on p. 50). As Small and others have stressed,
recorded lyric content, occluded the transac­ many nonelite western forms of music cannot
tional dimensions of rap performance, which be understood outside of their relationship
had been so important initially. I recall here with, and connections to, dance, something
seeing Public Enemy in concert in 1987 (near that can be said for early hip-hop as well.
New York City) and again in 1994 (in Ethnomusicologist John Chernoff (1979)
Buffalo). The shows seemed less like small- writes that African music is, quite literally,
scale community performances and more like only realized through the participation of
major-label rock extravaganzas. Elaborate dancers. “In African music, it is largely the lis­
props and rigid codification all gave their per­ tener or dancer who has to supply the beat: the
formances a kind of large-scale grandiosity listener must be actively engaged in making
foreign to most early—clearly less formal— sense of the music; the music itself does not
hip-hop music. The group, for example, was become the concentrated focus of an event, as
flanked on stage by the Security of the First at a concert. It is for this fundamental reason
World (or the S1Ws), a paramilitary outfit that African music should not be studied out
that carried fake Uzi submachine guns, dressed of its context or as “music”: the African
in camouflage, and did an elaborate stage orchestra is not complete without a partici­
show behind band leaders Chuck D and pant on the other side” (p. 50). Dancers do not
Flavor Flav. Perhaps most importantly, the simply accompany drummers as they perform.
group “performed” their previously recorded Rather, dancers become integral parts of
material for the audience. Unlike early rap the event, supplying an additional rhythm,
performances, the music was not continually through the pounding of their feet, to the
negotiated and processed in live practice and polyrhythmic event. Rhythms play off of each
performance. This would become the norm for other, dancers interacting with drummers and
rap artists, as the “text” or recording emerged drummers interacting with dancers in entirely
as the centerpiece of this activity. recursive ways. All are responsible for sustain­
As I moved away from the text-based disci­ ing the event.
pline of English to the interdisciplinary space Work in performance studies has con­
of American studies, however, I was exposed cretized the social collaboration of meaning
to important work at the margins of ethno­ making in performance. Pelias and Van­
musicology and performance studies, work Oosting’s (1987) work, in suggesting a “para­
concerned with documenting and understand­ digm for performance studies,” distinguishes it
ing performance in context. Christopher from earlier forms of oral interpretation. The
Small’s performance-centered approach in authors discuss how new iterations of perfor­
Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and mance studies dislodge canonical and rigid
Celebration in Afro-American Music (1987) understandings of texts, events, performers,
proved extraordinarily useful. Small notes and audiences. As they argue, performance
here that “music is not primarily a thing or a studies is ecumenical in disposition, “including
collection of things, but an activity in which all members of a speech community as poten­
we engage.” He continues to characterize the tial artists, all utterances as potentially aes­
social engagement of music as a performative thetic, all events as potentially theatrical, and
collaboration that not only includes “perform­ all audiences as potentially active partici­
ing and composing . . . but also listening and pants who can authorize artistic experience”
even dancing to music; all those involved in (p. 221). Like certain strands of ethnomusicol­
any way in a musical performance can be ogy noted above, this work has decentered the
thought of as musicking” (emphasis added, assumed role and importance of the “text,”
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Pedagogy on the Move 301

opening up a broader and less rigid under­ established by de Saussure (1900/1959), was
standing of what constitutes a performance between “langue” and “parole,” or language
and aesthetic transaction. structure and performance. One the one hand,
For me, what I will call a “performance­ early scholars in ethnography of communica­
centered approach” represented a fundamen­ tion (EOC), including Richard Bauman and
tally different way to look at hip-hop—from Dennis Tedlock, were interested in marked
text to context, noun to verb. This meant performance, performance that marks itself
understanding that all texts circulate in multi­ as unique or special, such as storytelling.
ple contexts, allowing me to see the limits According to folklorist and ethnographer
of referential work on self-contained recorded Richard Bauman (1992a), “while the term
texts. Politics or artistic worth did not and may be employed in an aesthetically neutral
could not be calibrated only from song lyrics sense to designate the actual conduct of com­
taken out of context. Rather, the entire event munication . . . performance usually suggests
needed to be looked at. This meant decenter­ an aesthetically marked and heightened mode
ing my own investments in the humanities and of communication, framed in a special way
opening up to a range of influences, including and put on display for an audience” (p. 41).
work in ethnomusicology and performance On the other hand, Dell Hymes and others
studies. Indeed, decentering texts through the asked us to focus on unmarked performance
performative became a key way to open up or “parole.” For Hymes and others, the unit of
new spaces for interrogating their roles and analysis for linguistics was not idealized gram­
functions. mars taken out of context, but performance—
what people were able to do with language in
real, everyday situations. Hymes and others
PRACTICES
shifted focus to the variability of communica­
Decentering my relationship with rap texts tion in particular cultural settings. He wrote,
allowed me to think about their uses in new “We shall not be able to have a theory that
ways. More specifically, the empirical impulse accounts for the meaning of language in dif­
behind ethnomusicology took me more ferent lives and cultures . . . until we examine
squarely to the social sciences (generally) . . . the actual functioning of language” (1974,
and the discipline of speech communication p. 126). Hymes, thus, insisted that one could
(specifically). Speech communication is an not study language as realized in grammar
applied and varied field, running the gamut alone. “Grammar” is merely one more abstrac­
from classical rhetoric to experimental research. tion that can be removed from concrete and
I took up concerns at the intersection of unfolding speaking situations. Language needs
ethnography of communication and sociocul­ to be explored in socially situated activity as
tural linguistics. Ethnography became my realized in stable speaking patterns.
method of choice, though my understanding Popular cultural texts like rap music took
of its role and importance would change over on new meaning for me in this regard. They
time. Here, too, my evolving understanding of were the “langue” from which young people
the performative would prove critical. would perform everyday speech, a kind of dia­
There is a long history of interest in the logic fodder for young people to pick up, use,
performative in ethnography, particularly in and mobilize. I thus set out to study the com­
linguistic anthropology. Perhaps the most municative processes that young people used
common distinction in this regard is the dis­ to position themselves and others vis-à-vis key
tinction between “unmarked” and “marked” rap texts (Dimitriadis, 2001b). I began con­
performance. The classic linguistic distinction, ducting focus groups and interviews about
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302 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

rap music in the spring of 1996 at a local probably, say like during the night he, he had
community center in a small Midwest city that snuck out . . . he, he had started feeling better
served an almost wholly black and poor pop­ and snuck out.” He continued, noting how
ulation. The results were more surprising than he was caught and was now in jail: “They got
I expected. While young people certainly “per­ him on some top security. They know
formed selves” around these texts, the perfor­ . . . Tupac’s smart, he can deal some schemes,
mances were more jarring that I expected. It try to get out and stuff, but they got him on
was difficult, if not impossible, I found, to top security.” The stress on both Tupac’s
read practices off of texts—texts (broadly physical invulnerability (“they shot him but he
defined) such as the work of Tupac Shakur survived”) as well as his mental acumen
and the filmic history Panther as well as the (“Tupac’s smart, he can deal some schemes”)
Southern rap scene. Media effects, I found, marked many such stories.
became more unpredictable as I moved from The uses to which these texts were put
texts to social networks to individual biogra­ never ceased to surprise me, a fact of course
phies. I saw these texts put to myriad uses by underscored by my position as a white person
these young people in their daily lives, in ways in a nearly all-black setting. During my weekly
that wholly exceeded my predictive powers. discussion groups, I drew on a broad range of
I recall here the dramatic events surround­ material, including hip-hop recordings, music
ing the death of rapper Tupac Shakur in Las videos, and films, to help frame discussion.
Vegas late in 1996: his shooting on September Often, these “texts” became part of how
13, his death five days later, and the work young people talked about unfolding events at
these young people did in resurrecting him, the club and in the community. I recall here
through myth, over the next year or so—when the fall of 1997, when the Ku Klux Klan, fresh
such talk was most common. These young from a march in a nearby city, proposed a con­
people were devastated by the loss of Tupac troversial rally in the city where I was con­
(or 2Pac or Pac as he was most often referred ducting this research. Though I knew the Klan
to). I was at the community center (or “club”) more than capable of horrific acts of violence,
the night he finally expired from his mortal I certainly did not think any of the younger
wounds (September 18) and was witness to people at the club were in any immediate dan­
the feelings of outrage and grief, devastation ger, and I was not, strictly speaking, afraid of
and loss that many immediately felt. Young the group. However, the intense fears and anx­
children cried, older teens were enraged, virtu­ ieties of these young people (especially young
ally all stayed glued to BET (Black Entertain­ children and adolescents) soon became appar­
ment Television) to watch the unfolding ent. I remember sitting at the front desk of this
updates. This grief, however, soon changed in community center with the unit director sign­
the days and weeks following, to elaborately ing young people in, the day the news hit. It
constructed rumors and stories about Tupac’s soon became clear, these young people were
complicity in faking his death. These stories, literally unsure whether the Klan would come
circulating across the nation and around the to their houses, attack them in the streets, or
world on the Internet, television, and in daily follow them home to hurt their families. All
talk, differed in their details but were similar in the ways that violence (or the threat of vio­
constructing Tupac as the prime mover in his lence) can completely overtake and disorient
situation and in succeeding events. One young us became exceedingly apparent quite quickly.
person commented: “I think Tupac got set In the immediacies of this moment, my ado­
up. They shot him but he survived. But then lescent participants turned to Panther (1995),
nobody knew he survived, ‘cause I think he a film about the Black Panther Party for Self
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Pedagogy on the Move 303

Defense, which we had been watching and house” became common in and out of group
discussing in my weekly groups. Indeed, it talk.
became clear to me that these young people The research described above was con­
resonated with this film in specific ways. I ducted by way of small focus groups most
introduced several films including Malcolm X often composed of friends. This research high­
(1992) (a true story about the killed Nation lighted the unpredictability and specificity of
of Islam leader) and Rosewood (1997) (about how young people in local social networks
the violent extermination of an all-black town used such texts. Even more revealing, how­
early in the twentieth century). Yet it became ever, was the more intensive one-on-one work
evident in several focus groups devoted to that took me more directly to the lives of teens
these films about black history that the highly in less circumscribed ways. Indeed, of all my
charged Black Panther film spoke to these work over that four-year period, no part of it
young people and their very compelling fears, was more revealing than the story of Tony and
in ways that others did not. Panther, a Rufus and their uses of southern rap (the
Hollywood endeavor, was “real” to these music of Master P, Eightball and MJG, and
young people—even more “real” than the PBS others). In the popular imagination about
Eyes on the Prize documentary about the black teenagers, Tony and Rufus followed the
group, which I showed as well. This film con­ only two available paths—one (Rufus) was
jured up a useful kind of reality in ways medi­ “good” while the other (Tony) was “bad.”
ated and complicated by a whole host of Over the years I knew them, Rufus by and
specific factors and forces that I could not large stayed out of trouble and stuck close to
have predicted a priori. the community center and its staff members.
In particular, these young people made He was well liked by everyone with whom he
intertextual, if not interstitial, links between came into contact and received a number of
this film and others (nonhistorical ones) that awards at this center. Tony, however, had a
featured the same actors—films like Menace II less sanguine life. He had numerous discipline
Society (1993), Friday (1995), and Jason’s problems at school and with the law, and he
Lyric (1994). They made connections between was a member of a local chapter of a national
the Black Panthers, their own friendship net­ gang. When I first met the pair, however, they
works (or “cliques”), modern-day gangs like referred to each other as “cousins” though
Black P-Stone, and such wildly successful pro­ they were in fact best friends. Tony and Rufus
fessional wrestling associations as the New both grew up in the same small Mississippi
World Order (or NWO). They coalesced town and both had made the move to the city
around the movie’s violent scenes while they where I conducted this research about a
ignored those with a lot of talking (i.e., “the decade earlier. These teens recreated notions
boring parts”!) and, finally they drew upon of the South—specifically, a sense of commu­
their own local knowledge and experiences nity—in this city, by using popular cultural
to connect with and comment on the film’s resources which linked them to important
antipolice subtext. These were the situated familial networks in their new home as well as
contextual factors that mediated their under­ “down South.” Hip-hop, here, was used to
standing of black history, that made Panther create notions of community and place that
real, that allowed them to deal in specific ways transcended easy stereotypes about good and
with events that unfolded in 1997 in this city. bad youth.
More particularly, comments like, “We need As noted, media effects became increasingly
the Panthers! We need some Black Panthers! unpredictable as I moved from popular texts
Really, I need some Black Panthers by my to social networks to individual biographies.
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304 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

The “performances” became increasingly forced me to rethink the connection between

open to articulation and rearticulation, across texts and practices, enabling me to see the
selves, histories, and traditions. These tenden­ ways in which people’s relationship to these
cies towards the performative have been high­ texts were always performative, always
lighted and even exacerbated in this particular exceeding my own interpretive horizons. I
social, cultural, and material moment, I had, again with time, to acknowledge how
found—the distinction between marked and lived practices surprised me more and more as
unmarked performance collapsing, in this I moved from social networks to individual
more radical and even unpredictable under­ biographies.
standing of performance. In some sense, all
our actions now have always-already been
“put on display, objectified . . . and opened to PEDAGOGY
scrutiny by an audience” due to the prolifera­ However, decentering texts and practices, I
tion of interpretive frameworks circulating in maintain, does not mean simply discarding
media culture today (Bauman, 1992a, p, 44). them—it means rearticulating them as well
As Denzin notes, “We inhabit a dramaturgical (Conquergood, 1998, p. 26). The “pedagogi­
culture. The dividing line between performer cal,” I argue here, is a key space where this
and audience blurs, and culture itself becomes recentering takes place. Indeed, I want to
a dramatic performance” (2003, p. x). Perfor­ argue here that a performative understanding
mance, here, is a “transgression, a force which of texts and practices opens up new spaces to
crashes and breaks through sedimented mean­ see pedagogy as a radical and ethical activity.
ings and normative traditions and plunges us Just as texts and practices can only be seen
back into the vortices of political struggle” in performative contexts, pedagogy gives us
(Conquergood, 1998, p. 32). Indeed, my the ability—or the imperative—to rearticulate
evolving understandings of “performance” those intersections, and to take responsibility
challenged me to rethink the extent to which for them.
young people “performed” selves and social By performance as pedagogy, I mean to
relations in and through popular culture—as take the discussion beyond the perhaps famil­
well as how unpredictable those performances iar—if still useful—conceit of “teaching as
truly were. Young people used these texts a performance art” (Sarason, 1999). In a well
to talk about privileged selves (e.g., the talk known iteration of this discussion, noted edu­
about Tupac’s life and death), histories (e.g., cational psychologist Seymour Sarason writes,
the talk about Panther and the KKK), and tra­ “A teacher is more than a conduit of subject
ditions (e.g., the talk about southern rap)— matter. A teacher literally creates the ambience
none of which I could have predicted on the stage of learning and that teacher is the
beforehand. This was, clearly, an educative chief actor, the ‘star,’ the actor who gets top
process if a counterintuitive one. billing” (p. 3). He continues, comparing the
In sum, the performative allowed me to curriculum to a script:
decenter my own relationship to hip-hop.
First, it forced me to rethink my own interpre­ The written script is like a curriculum, the
tive criteria around popular recordings or task of the actor and the director is to make
“texts,” now seeing them as enmeshed in live it come alive for an audience and the oblig­
ation is not discharged by knowing the
activities. I had, with time, to decenter my
script, by regurgitating it. Becoming and
privileging of rap recordings and their displays sustaining a role is an artistic process of
of verbal virtuosity to account for the multi­ identification and imagination about which
layered nature of performance. Second, it our comprehension is far from clear. (p. 4)
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Pedagogy on the Move 305

Indeed, just as an actor makes a “script” the emancipation of all peoples, oppressors
come alive for an audience, the role of the edu­ and oppressed alike. He writes,
cator here is to make the curriculum come
alive for the student. To surmount the situation of oppression,
Again, this is a useful conceit, but betrays people must first critically recognize its
the kind of textual bias Conquergood and causes, so that through transforming action
they can create a new situation, one that
others have interrogated—it reifies “the makes possible the pursuit of a fuller
script” of curriculum as a text of origin. Elyse humanity. But the struggle to be more fully
Pineau’s (1994) work on the metaphorical human has already begun in the authentic
links between teaching and performance is struggle to transform the situation. (p. 29)
germinal here. She cautions against the dan­
gers of treating performance as a simple way He continues,
to “enhanc[e] educational communication,”
arguing instead for performance as a “genera­ The task of the dialogical teacher in an
tive metaphor for examining educational interdisciplinary team working on the the­
matic universe revealed by their investiga­
experience” (p. 8). The challenge of the per-
tion is to “re-present” that universe to the
formative, for Denzin (2003), Pineau and people from whom she or he first received
others, takes us into new radical spaces, where it—and “re-present” it not as a lecture, but
“educators and students engage not in the as a problem. (p. 90)
‘pursuit of truths,’ but in collaborative fic­
tions—perpetually making and remaking This means entering in authentic dialogue,
world views and their tenuous positions without a priori conclusions about the nature
within them” (Pineau, 1994, p. 10). Indeed, of oppression or its transformation.
while I found “performance” a useful way to As these discussions underscore, a perfor­
reframe my interest in the textual and the mative epistemology makes us responsible for
ethnographic, it has pushed me in more fun­ how we inhabit the world. There is no recourse
damental ways to rethink the pedagogical. to foundational claims. The world, here, is
A performative epistemology encourages us always-already pedagogical, always being
to think of culture as always in motion, articulated and rearticulated. How we choose
always on display, always open to invention to enter this back-and-forth is the key to the
and reinvention. ethical dimension of performance. In particu­
Decentering texts and practices takes us to lar, the performative decenters our taken-for­
new pedagogical terrain. Pedagogy, here, is granted assumptions about pedagogy—where
emergent, each encounter different from the it happens and with what texts. As Giroux
next. Ethics and morals become central. Here writes, “Pedagogy in this context becomes pub­
I recall Freire’s (1970) Pedagogy of the lic and performative, in part because it opens a
Oppressed, in which the author argues, among space for disputing conventional academic bor­
other things, that the pedagogical encounter is ders” (2000, p. 130). Such an approach invites
grounded in the ethical imperative to become us to look for education in unsuspecting places.
more fully human. We give ourselves over to In the multiple environs of social influence
each other—the lines between “teacher” and where faith, law, and cultural performance
“student” blurring—in a collaborative effort confirm or confine the nature of human possi­
to “name” the world, to become subjects in bility—in community centers and churches;
our own stories and narratives. For Freire, this in alternative in-school initiatives; in popular
is a radically unpredictable endeavor, an emer­ culture; in prisons; and in the work of poets,
gent collective experience girded by a faith in novelists, visual artists, and playwrights.
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306 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

I would like to highlight three—albeit par­ and an abstinence-only school-based sex

tial, contingent, and open to rearticulation— education program, among many others sites.
areas of research where I have begun to My own recent work has looked at how local
interrogate these concerns, points where I have arts and education programs in Buffalo,
entered these conversations and engaged these New York, coordinate the work of practicing
issues. They are the role of popular culture as an artists and teachers in schools and community
alternative curriculum, the importance of non­ centers throughout the city. Often method­
traditional school learning sites for disenfran­ ologically reflective, this work takes us to the
chised youth, and new possible roles for art and terrain of young people’s lives in ways that
aesthetics in the rethinking of school life today. challenge normative assumptions about young
First, as several recent ethnographies have people and the ways we understand them.
demonstrated, we can not understand popular Finally, in the face of these realities—which
culture and young people’s identities in pre­ have largely outstripped the delimited field of
dictable ways (Dimitriadis, 2001b; Dolby, traditional educational theory and practice—
2001; Perry, 2002; Yon, 2000). More and recent work has struggled with art and aes­
more, as this work makes clear, we must ask thetics as a realm for interrogating new
ourselves what kinds of curricula—broadly models, new theories, new intellectual ances­
defined—young people draw on to under­ tors, and new ways of thinking, acting, and
stand, explain, and live through the world being as transformative intellectuals and peda­
around them. Young people in the United gogues. This work has taken us away from the
States and around the world are elaborating increasingly circumscribed field of expert
complex kinds of social and cultural identifi­ research and theory to the overlapping spaces
cations through music like hip-hop and techno of postcolonial art, music, novels, poetry, and
in ways that challenge predictive notions criticism (as in my recent work with Cameron
about texts, practices, and identities. I recall McCarthy). This extends to the work of
here Nadine Dolby’s (2001) ethnography of authors such as Wilson Harris and Toni
South African students in a post-Apartheid Morrison, painters like Jean-Michel Basquiat,
moment. As Dolby shows, these students use Gordon Bennett, and Arnaldo Roche-Rabell,
popular (American) culture to navigate new and public intellectuals such as CLR James and
racial and ethnic identities precisely as these James Baldwin (Dimitriadis and McCarthy,
categories are called into question by progres­ 2001). This work echoes and extends a now
sive political upheaval. reconceptualized curriculum studies field, the
Next, recent work on community-based work of William Pinar, Madeline Grumet, and
organizations and “safe spaces” raises impor­ others, into the whole area of “difference” in
tant questions as to where “education” is hap­ an age of globalization (Crichlow, 2003;
pening today. For Weis, Fine, and others, this Dimitriadis and McCarthy, 2001; Low, 2001;
has meant looking at how a variety of young McCarthy, 1998).
people “homestead” or claim authentic and Taken together, a performance-centered
meaningful spaces and identities within a vari­ approach to pedagogy means decentering and
ety of sites, both in school and out of school rethinking our object of analysis, moving us
(Dimitriadis, 2003; Fine and Weis, 1998; Fine, into a space where pedagogy is on the move,
Weis, Centrie, and Roberts, 2000; Weis and always in motion.
Fine, 2000). In a series of articles and books, In closing, as I argued throughout, my ini­
for example, Weis and Fine take us to a tial understandings of hip-hop texts and prac­
community-based art program named “Molly tices were called inextricably into question as I
Olga,” an “Orisha” house of spirit worship, moved towards the performative. My ability
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Pedagogy on the Move 307

to read meaning of off these cultural articula­ Denzin, N. (2003). Performance ethnography:
tions was decentered again and again. Yet, this Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
is no excuse or alibi for cynicism or despair. By
Dimitriadis, G. (2001a). Pedagogy and perfor­
seeing culture always already in motion, we mance in black popular culture. Cultural
are encouraged to ever attempt to recenter our Studies/Critical Methodologies, 1(1), 24–35.
meanings and understandings of it. This is Dimitriadis, G. (2001b). Performing identity/per­
the space of pedagogy. On one level, a perfor­ forming culture: Hip hop as text, pedagogy,
mance-centered approach to pedagogy means and lived practice. New York: Peter Lang.
Dimitriadis, G. (2003). Friendship, cliques, and
ever questioning where education takes place
gangs: Young black men coming of age in urban
today and with what texts. On another level, America. New York: Teachers College Press.
it means taking responsibility for the questions Dimitriadis, G., & McCarthy, C. (2001). Reading
we ask and the kinds of pedagogy we enact. and teaching the postcolonial: From Baldwin
This is the space of hope and possibility— to Basquiat and beyond. New York: Teachers
College Press.
again, the space of pedagogy and performance
Dolby, N. (2001). Constructing race: Youth, iden­
tout court—one which demands we redefine tity, and popular culture in South Africa.
the realm of intellectual and educative activity Albany: SUNY Press.
today. Ellison, R. (2001). Living with music. New York:
Vintage.
REFERENCES Eric B. & Rakim. (1987). I know you got soul
[Audio recording]. New York: Fourth and
Baraka, A. (1963). Blues people. New York: Quill. Broadway Records.
Bauman, R. (1992a). Performance. In R. Bauman Fine, M., & Weis, L. (1998). The unknown city:
(Ed.), Folklore, cultural performance, and Lives of poor and working-class young adults.
popular entertainments: A communications- Boston: Beacon Press.
centered handbook (pp. 41–49). Oxford, Fine, M., Weis, L., Centrie, C., & Roberts, R.
England: Oxford University Press. (2000). Educating beyond the borders of
Bauman, R. (1992b). Contextualization, tradition, schooling. Anthropology & Education
and the dialogue of genres: Icelandic legends Quarterly, 31(2), 131–151.
of kraftaskald. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed.
(Eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an New York: Continuum.
interactive phenomenon (pp. 125–145). Funky Four. (1979). That’s the joint [Audio record­
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University ing]. Englewood, NJ: Sugar Hill Records.
Press. Giroux, H. (2000). Impure acts: The practical poli­
Chernoff, J. (1979). African rhythm and African tics of cultural studies. New York: Routledge.
sensibility: Aesthetics and social action in hooks, b. (1992). Black looks: Race and represen­
African musical idioms. Chicago: University of tation. Boston: South End Press.
Chicago Press. Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics:
Conquergood, D. (1998). Beyond the text: Toward An ethnographic approach. Philadelphia:
a performative cultural politics. In S. Dailey University of Pennsylvania Press.
(Ed.), The future of performance studies: Lee, J. (1999). Disciplining theater and drama in
Visions and revisions (pp. 25–36). Washington, the English department: Some reflections on
DC: NCA. ‘performance’ and institutional history. Text
Crichlow, W. (2003). Stan Douglas and the and Performance Quarterly, 19(2), 145–158.
aesthetic critique of urban decline. In Low, B. (2001). “Bakardi slang” and the language
G. Dimitriadis & D. Carlson (Eds.), Promises and poetics of T Dot hip hop. Taboo: A Journal
to keep: Cultural studies, democratic educa­ of Culture and Education, 5(2), 15–32.
tion, and public life (pp. 155–165). New York: McCarthy, C. (1998). The uses of culture.
RoutledgeFalmer. New York: Routledge.
de Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics McLaren, P. (1997). Revolutionary multicultural­
(W. Baskin, Trans.). New York: Philosophical ism: Pedagogies of dissent fore the new millen­
Library. (Original work published 1900) nium. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
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Pelias, R., & VanOosting, J. (1987). A paradigm Sarason, S. (1999). Teaching as a performance art.
for performance studies. Quarterly Journal of New York: Teachers College Press.
Speech, 73, 219–231. Small, C. (1987). Music of the common tongue:
Perry, P. (2002). Shades of white: White kids and Survival and celebration in Afro-American
racial identity in high school. Durham, NC: music. London: John Calder.
Duke University Press. Spicer, J. (1979). Adventures of super rhymes
Pineau, E. (1994). Teaching is performance: [Audio recording]. Camden, NJ: Jazz Records.
Reconceptualizing a problematic metaphor. Weis, L., & Fine, M. (2000). Construction sites:
American Educational Research Journal, Excavating race, class, and gender among
31(1), 3–25. urban youth. New York: Teachers College
Pollock, D. (1998). Introduction: Making history go. Press.
In D. Pollock (Ed.), Exceptional spaces: Essays Yon, D. (2000). Elusive culture: Schooling, race,
in performance & history (pp. 1–45). Chapel and identity in global times. Albany: SUNY
Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Press.
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17
Unlocking the Doors for
Incarcerated Women Through
Performance and Creative Writing
KRISTIN BERVIG VALENTINE

P erformance studies, feminist, and other

critical scholars are often active in strug­
gles for social justice. “Over the years, theories
at the end of 2002 in the United States, had
reached 96,099 (6.8 percent of the total
imprisoned population) according to the
and practices have moved steadily toward the statistical website managed by Ann Pastore
social and political goals of employing perfor­ (2003). Greenfeld and Snell (1999) report that
mance as an instrument of social awareness recidivism rates in 1999 were as high as 50
and change” Park-Fuller (2003, p. 288; see percent. Meda Chesney-Lind, a prolific and
other public-issue research published by Capo, impassioned advocate of prison reform for
1983; Conquergood, 1992, 1995, 1998; women, noted despairingly,
Langellier, 1986; Kistenberg, 1995; Mann,
Hecht, and Valentine, 1989; and Valentine, The number of women incarcerated in pris­
1986). As communication scholar Stephen ons and jails in the United States is now
Hartnett (2003) argued in Incarceration about ten times greater than the number
of women incarcerated in all of Western
Nation, we academics “need to approach Europe. This despite the fact that Western
issues of social justice not only as sites of Europe and the United States are roughly
research, but also as sites of engagement with equivalent in terms of population. (Chesney-
disadvantaged communities” (p. 5). I invite Lind, 2002, p. 81)
readers of this chapter to look carefully at the
realities surrounding incarceration in their Possession of illegal drugs, petty theft,
own communities. forgery, and fraud head the list of reasons
My research engagement is concentrated on for female incarceration. The vast number of
and for incarcerated women whose numbers, incarcerated women in America noted above

309
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310 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

(96,099) is due largely to the fact that finding and accessible?” Currently, this orientation
even small amounts of drugs on a person is to teaching and writing is called “service­
now defined as a criminal act, leading to crim­ learning.” Yet, at least since 1978, many of us
inalization of a whole new population that performance studies teachers have been help­
never would have gone to prison before. ing students enhance the greater good of com­
Sharon Cohen wrote about a young woman munities, both close at hand and globally,
incarcerated in a Michigan prison because her through performance skills and knowledge.
boyfriend, unbeknownst to her, had stashed a In Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal
plastic bag of heroin in the car she was driving. (1998) writes, “a theatre that attempts to
The law was set up to put drug kingpins away change the changers of society cannot lead
with mandatory life sentences but it caught to repose, cannot re-establish equilibrium”
DeDonna Young. Young who, at age 43, has (p. 105). We need to use our knowledge, expe­
“celebrated—if that’s the right word—18 rience, and resources to aid communities
birthdays in a shared cell not much bigger than who need to change the changers of society.
a walk-in closet” was sentenced to spend the A notable example of this type of social justice
rest of her life there unless the law is changed work is that of Linda Park-Fuller, who has
(Cohen, 1997, p. A35). Richie (2002) points taken the Performance in Social Contexts class
out the corollary problem of the children at Arizona State University to a new level with
for whom women were responsible before her Playback Theatre work (Park-Fuller,
incarceration: 2003). She has refined the teaching of
Playback Theatre to feature full participation
One of the most significant consequences of of audience members with cast members on
mass incarceration for women is the almost topics relevant to actions benefiting the com­
irreparable damage done to their role as munity. Park-Fuller, like many other perfor­
mothers and their status as parents when mance activists, is indebted to Augusto Boal.
they are removed from their communities
and detained in correctional facilities. Con­
Stringer (1999) characterizes the results of
servative estimates suggest that 75 percent community-based action research as “demo­
of women in prison are mothers, and two- cratic, enabling the participation of all people,
thirds have children under the age of eigh­ equitable, acknowledging people’s equality of
teen. (p. 139) worth, liberating, providing freedom from
oppressive, debilitating conditions, and is life-
Thus, these children must have alternate enhancing, enabling the expression of peoples’
caregivers, usually a grandmother, or the full human potential” (p. 10). Those life-
woman’s sister or aunt, compounding the enhancing goals are consistent with recently
problem by affecting the incarcerated woman’s published scholarship on behalf of incarcerated
family and wider community. people (see Burke, 1992; Chevigney, 1999;
As a social activist in several of my com­ Corey, 1996; Hartnett, 2003; Holton, 1995;
munities (e.g., academic women, politics, Lamb and Women of York Correctional
prison reform), I find that it is the experiences Institution, 2003; O’Brien, 2001; Owen, 1998;
within this practice that often drive my schol­ Valentine, 1998).
arship. Rather than thinking “How can I My reasons for volunteering to teach in
make this piece of scholarship relevant and prisons were based on my long-term interest in
practical to the community?”, I often ask the conditions of imprisoned women around
“How can I create scholarship on behalf of the world. More specifically, my concerns
these communities from my activist practice?” with prisoners began in the 1970s when I
And further, “How do I make it jargon-free taught at the University of Kentucky. There,
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Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women 311

one of the intelligent, but risk-taking, went through a metal detector and were often
communication majors was caught with halted by an alarm because one or more of the
marijuana and given a one- to five-year sen­ students wore shoes with metal shanks.
tence at a federal prison near Lexington. I Often, after examining the items we had
asked myself: “If I were to be incarcerated, brought with us, the reception guard refused
how would I avoid despair? How would I us permission to bring writing paper inside
exist with no intellectual work to do?” As a because, we were told, “they just sell writing
result, I joined with Maureen Donovan, then a paper that volunteers bring in.” However,
University of Kentucky graduate student, to when we explained we were there, as in for­
conduct a performance-based communication mer visits, to teach the performance and cre­
class at that federal prison. After I moved to ative writing class authorized by the prison’s
Arizona State University in 1976 and for the General Educational Development (GED)
following twenty years, I continued to volun­ diploma teachers, the guard always relented.1
teer at correctional facilities for women. Once We then went through a third set of security
inside the prison fences, I used performance doors and were finally in. Through the glass
studies pedagogy to teach communication windows of the visiting area, where we taught,
skills because I’ve been witness to the positive we could see an expanse of yard, with some
results of this pedagogy in broader construc­ grass but mostly gravel, situated between rows
tions of my social pedagogical practice. of closed-door cell-dwellings leading away
from the reception building.
The women inmates had painted cheerful
GOING TO PRISON
child-oriented scenes on the white walls of the
The routine was similar each time I traveled visitors’ room because this is where the women
to the women’s prison. With students from my are allowed to see their children and preap­
undergraduate Performance in Social Contexts proved family members during visiting hours.
class, or with graduate students, at Arizona Although the metal chairs were already
State University, I left downtown Phoenix and arranged in rows, we quickly moved the chairs
drove west on the freeway that heads toward into a circle as we waited for our students to
Los Angeles. Forty-five minutes later, I exited arrive. Alone, in couples, or in small groups,
and drove the short way to the parking lot at they entered, some hesitantly, even though our
Perryville, site of Arizona’s largest state prison inside contact, Theresa Meyette, had adver­
facility for women. We locked our backpacks, tised and talked up the class. They sat, talking
purses, and other personal items in the truck quietly at first, some smoking, some cracking
of the car, as requested by prison security, and open sunflower seeds, and some chewing gum.
then walked to the guard station to receive our They ranged in age between 20 and 50, and
temporary permits. were neatly dressed in prison garb, which used
The guard, sitting behind bulletproof glass, to be blue jeans and blue denim shirts but is
slid out a metal drawer into which we placed now bright orange.
our driver licenses. The drawer slid in and we Unless it was the first class of a new semes­
watched for several minutes while the guard ter, I started by asking what writing they
checked the approved visitor list. Finally, the brought with them and who might like to read
drawer slid back out with our entry permits. aloud first.2 On one memorable day, Theresa
After waiting at the first of the security doors brought “Darkland,” a poem she wrote while
we heard the lock click open, and we entered in “the hole” (solitary confinement) for orga­
a holding area to wait for the second metal nizing a protest against the administration’s
door to open into the reception area. Here we decision not to allow a sweat lodge to be built
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312 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

for Native American inmates. Reading with Writing on the necessity for changing how
intensity, she began: the United States deals with convicted persons,
Elaine Lord, superintendent of Bedford Hills,
It’s been a long time since I sat in total dark­ a New York prison for women, declared,
ness. Once again, I feel back in the womb,
protected. I want to crawl into a fetal posi­ The United States sentences people to prison
tion; go back before the time I came scream­ for far longer terms than are rendered in
ing and kicking out of the womb, before many other countries of the world. We seem
floodlights dashed my little eyes, shocking me to have a need to destroy hope right now,
into existence. It seems like an eternity since whereas other countries see hope as critical
the floodlights here went out. In prison you to prisoners and prison systems. We need to
never seem to be in darkness. There is always begin to look at how punitive we really are
the image of razor wire and the perimeter and come to some decisions as a society in
lights, gawking light-monsters, invading my terms of what we want. The cost of our cur­
little cell. Now it’s completely dark and I rent actions is extremely high and will weigh
hope the sun takes its time coming around. down not only this generation but many
generations to come. (Lord, 1995, p. 265)
Before she was paroled, Theresa Meyette was
a leader in the series of voluntary college-level The good news is that the prison pendulum
courses in performance and creative writing that is swinging away from adding punitive mea­
I either taught or supervised. Like her, the sures toward exploring alternatives to prisons.
women inside the prison miss being in the “free It is more than ironic that the swing toward
world”—the world where they are able to con­ prison alternatives is being accelerated by
trol such everyday actions as opening the fridge right-wing fiscal conservatives who, even
for a snack or the bathroom cabinet for an though they decry “coddling criminals,” are
aspirin. In addition to the loss of such freedoms, beginning to recognize that closing prisons’
they have lost intelligent play, curiosity, unfet­ exit doors, while pushing more and more
tered affection, choice of friends, and free people into their entrances, results in greater
expression. They especially miss being able to budget deficits.4
communicate without constant supervision. The My experience and direct observation dur­
current state of the penal system in the United ing more than twenty years in teaching com­
States helps contextualize these women’s writ­ munication in women’s prisons validates
ings, and it also contextualizes a larger approach contentions that we need to change the way
to performance-based activist curriculum within we deal with convicted persons. As evidence of
the system. this growing problem that affects us as citizens
in general, and as college/university teachers
in particular, the newsletter of the National
CURRENT SITUATION IN PENOLOGY
Communication Association (NCA) reported
Forty-seven million U.S. citizens have federal that from 1987 to 1995 spending on prisons
or state criminal records; this is roughly one- increased by 30 percent while spending on
fourth of the adult population, and a dispro­ higher education decreased by 18 percent
portionate percentage are people of color. (Morreale, 1997, p. 10). As of January 2000,
Adopted as part of the “get tough on crimi­ according to the Washington Post, the United
nals” attitude that prevailed in the 1980s and States has two million incarcerated persons
1990s, a range of strategies including “three and the cost of housing those inmates cur­
strikes,” mandatory sentences, and the “war rently exceeds $40 billion a year (“U.S.
on drugs” has resulted in this mass incarcera­ Imprisoned Population,” 2000). In Arizona,
tion (Mauer and Chesney-Lind, 2002, p. 1).3 between 1977 and 2003, the number of prison
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Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women 313

inmates increased nearly 1000 percent, from had limited spare time. Some engaged in
3,229 to 30,083 (Nelson, 2003, p. 17). athletic events, but most sat on benches in the
yard and talked with one another, watched
censored TV, or slept. Those with intellectual
PERFORMANCE AND
or self-help interests had the options of con­
CREATIVE WRITING CLASSES
sulting law books or reading the few general-
FOR INCARCERATED WOMEN
topic books and magazines in the library,
During our experiences teaching in a prison, attending meetings of religious groups, twelve-
Donovan and I asked inmates what prison step and Alcoholics Anonymous sessions, or
represents; the replies included loneliness, our creative writing and performance classes.
depression, fear, hostility, but most of all utter There is growing evidence that postsec­
boredom (Valentine and Donovan, 1978, p. 5). ondary education is helpful to both the inmate
Although prison regulations require inmates to and the smooth functioning of the prison sys­
work, one of the women in my class wryly told tem. In their 1995 survey of prison research,
me that when yard duty is assigned to a hun­ Gerber and Fritsch (1995) found that “adult
dred women, the work can be finished in a cou­ academic and vocational correctional educa­
ple of hours, leaving six hours of boredom to tion programs lead to fewer disciplinary viola­
endure while they try to look busy. tions during incarceration, to reductions in
At each of the correctional facilities in recidivism, to increases in employment oppor­
which I have volunteered, every permissible tunities, and to increases in participation in
function other than the basic ones of eating, education upon release” (p. 119). Stevens and
drinking, and being sheltered is considered a Ward (1997) carried out further research with
privilege that can be rescinded following even student-inmates who earned either an associ­
the slightest infraction. The performance and ate or baccalaureate degree while incarcerated
creative writing class I supervised was consid­ in North Carolina. Their results confirmed
ered an inmate privilege subject to revocation. earlier research demonstrating that inmates
My course goals were different from, yet who earned associate and baccalaureate
not at odds with, the institution’s mission to degrees while incarcerated tend to become
control behavior. As stated in my proposal law-abiding individuals significantly more
document, the goals for the communication often after their release from prison than
(performance studies) and English (creative inmates who had not advanced their education
writing) classes were to improve skills in writ­ while incarcerated. An important conclusion
ing creative essays, personal narratives, poetry, drawn from these findings is that it is less
prose, and/or drama; and, concurrently, to expensive to educate inmates than to reincar­
increase communication skills through the cerate them (p. 106).
performance of creative artistic texts. This Continuing along this path toward positive
program offered inmates opportunities to outcomes through education and with the help
exercise decision-making and take ownership of graduate students from the university’s cre­
and responsibility for what they produced. ative writing program and students in commu­
We never turned away anyone and we usu­ nication studies, I provided instruction and
ally attracted 10–15 students, with a median support through performance and writing
age of 30, who said they had an interest in activities. We relaxed some of the prison rules
communication and creative writing. I can as we did so. Bending strict prison rules, we
guess that the reason there were no more than urged them to speak out, to socialize in class,
10–15 out of the total population is that, after and to criticize, albeit respectfully, each other’s
a mandatory 40-hour work week, the women work. We didn’t call students “Inmate Jones”
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314 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

or “Inmate Smith” as we were verbally processes of reading, writing, and performing

instructed to do; we called them by the names literature written by the students and recog­
they preferred, usually their first names. “As nized authors. One semester, we were lucky
a volunteer, be mellow,” a prison-employed enough to get the authorities to allow the poet
teacher once told me. “Mellow volunteers,” Adrienne Rich, visiting Tempe as the univer­
she told us, “are always professional and sity’s scholar-in-residence, to read her poetry
know when to bend rules and when to follow aloud and talk to invited inmates. She
them to the letter.” She contrasted “mellow” charmed everyone with her honesty, direct­
volunteers with “soft” volunteers who are ness, and creativity. The encouragement she
too trusting, or overly familiar and naïve, and gave to the audience was just the spark some
with “hard” employees who go strictly by the of them needed to write creatively.
detailed rule booklet and give no leeway. Of We adapted some of the ideas from Julia
course, I recognize that security takes prece­ Cameron’s The Artist’s Way (1992), including
dence over education as the prison’s primary these prompts:
function. Were any of us to violate security,
we would not be allowed to continue provid­ 1. Imaginary Lives. If you had five other lives
ing the women’s weekly mental survival break. to lead, what would you do in each of
Because of the complexity of webs of them? Whatever occurs to you, jot it down.
Do not overthink this exercise. The point of
inmate relationships, we kept private the these lives is to have fun in them.
students’ assignments and our written com­
ments to them unless individuals wished to 2. Color Schemes. Pick a color and write a few
sentences describing yourself in the first
share them. Often they were eager to read
person. For example, if you chose silver you
their work aloud to their classmates. Most of might write “I am silver, high-tech and
the time they also requested an even wider dis­ smooth, the color of half-light; I feel
semination of their work. Thus, we frequently serene.”
produced, with their permission, photocopied 3. A Letter. Write an encouraging letter to
booklets containing their creative works from your own inner artist. The artist in you
that semester. At times, we managed to get loves praise and encouragement.
permission for a semiopen performance for
staff and selected inmates. They wrote about experiences inside prison
Although some new students arrived and and their internal search for purpose. As a
others left (when their sentences were up, mental escape from confinement, they often
when they were paroled, had class privileges wrote about being in the “free world” doing
taken away, or acquired other interests), some everyday activities such as visiting with a
were with us for years. One of our tasks, there­ beloved grandmother, going to the grocery
fore, was to carry out our goals with con­ store, or taking their children to the park. I
stantly changing activities. have reprinted a few of their creative works in
One of our activities was scripting poems to the section below titled “Women and Their
be read aloud by dividing the nuanced voices Artistic Texts.”
in the poems among the students. Performing Some of the other activities we used
poetry enabled them to understand perfor­ successfully for and with the incarcerated
mance as both product and a way of knowing women students were creative and sponta­
through their voices and bodies. We focused neous. For example, we all shouted together:
on more effective vocal variety and nonverbal “I am SUPERWOMAN! I’m faster than a
expressions, as well as on understanding ideas, speeding train! I can leap tall buildings in a
ourselves, and our communities through the single bound! I can do anything!” And while
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Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women 315

seemingly simple, these engagements gave poem with one of the following thoughts: If
action to voice, and voice to dreams in the you knew me . . . I believe . . . I feel loved
ways in which only performance can. when . . . When I am alone . . . When I am
We also liked using our nonverbal synec­ in a crowd . . . Yesterday I was . . . Today I
dochical actions to react to the following am . . . Tomorrow I . . . Hope is . . . Fear
situations: is . . . Anger is . . . Despair is . . . Happiness
is . . . Love is . . . I keep on because . . . What
We are standing in the snow. matters most is . . . My greatest strength
is . . . (Mazza, 1999, p. 165)
We are stranded in the desert.
One semester, we assigned students to write
A heavy object is falling out of the sky. and perform an epistle entitled “To the Golden
We are sitting in a small boat. The boat begins
Country.” The letter was to be addressed as
to rock. follows: “To a time when _______, from a time
when ______” and to begin with the word
Our feet hurt. “Greetings” followed by narration written to
Mail we’ve been waiting for just arrived. help the reader imagine the smell, sound,
touch, and other sensory images of the authors’
We found a flowering weed in the prison yard.
created worlds. With some of the women, this
Our favorite person just blew us a kiss. “Golden Country” letter helped lead them
closer to a sense of hopefulness critical to
Each simplistic act magnified the complex surviving their bitter situations.
relationship between human thought and Creative play can be liberating for the
social action, between intention and reaction, inmates while, ironically, also serving the
between the ways in which individual desire is prison system by allowing “an emotional out­
made manifest in social systems with varying let and a societally accepted manner of
levels of impact and effect. Each simple act expressing whatever is on the inside,” as
directed the participants to see and understand Steiner explained in her maximum security
that their agency is an act of being, an act prison theatre project (1974, pp. 22–23). In a
of knowing, and an act of doing—each of poem an inmate can write “fuck the guards,”
which undergirds all of our responsibilities but if these same words were uttered in a
as social creatures living in the company of guard’s hearing, she’d get a fast trip to the iso­
others. Through performance-based improvi­ lation unit. In class, she can be free to laugh,
sational work and their writing we believe that and to be “outta here” in her mind.
we helped to empower these women. Lord Because a character or narrator can act as
(1995) writes that this foregrounds “their life a reflector of current feelings and as a mask
histories in a safe setting in which they could for different ones, a performance and creative
sort out the pathways that took them to writing communication program in the pris­
prison, come to be aware of themselves in ons inspires imagination and liberating dis­
terms of those life histories, and finally accept courses of normally concealed emotions,
and examine their own responsibility for their motives, dreams, and desires. Writing and
own actions” (p. 261). then performing their texts gave incarcerated
We took ideas from poetry therapy books women a measure of mental control over their
(e.g., Leedy, 1973, and Mazza, 1999). One regimentation. With these personal motiva­
project that worked especially well is what tions (taking control, getting encouragement,
Mazza called “poetic stems.” These are phrases enjoying laughter, substituting purpose for
designed to stimulate thinking by starting a resentment, learning about self, feeling safe,
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316 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

mentally escaping), the inmate-students Life is like eating grapefruit. First you have to
willingly came to class. And, despite the diffi­ break through the skin; then it takes a couple
culties, some of the women came out from of bites to get used to the taste, and just as you
behind their protective numbness, went deep begin to enjoy it, it squirts you in the eye.
inside themselves to make sense out of institu­ Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, but you don’t have
tional retribution, and used written and spo­ the picture on the front of the box to know
ken avenues to communicate eloquently. what it’s supposed to look like. Sometimes,
We observed some cautions, however, in our you’re not even sure if you have all the pieces.
creative work with inmates. We performance Life is like riding an elevator. It has a lot of
teachers know how personal our work becomes ups and downs and someone is always pushing
to our students and to us. As we teach, we cre­ your buttons. Sometimes you get the shaft, but
ate activities encouraging students to open up, to what really bothers you are the jerks.
write, and to perform personal narratives; and
Life is like a poker game. You deal or are dealt
we introduce texts that may unsettle them (and
to. It includes skill and luck. You bet, check,
us). But walking through those doors can some­ bluff, and raise. You learn from those you play
times put us, and the students, in a place into with. Sometimes you win with a pair or lose
which we should not venture without help from with a full house. Whatever happens, it’s best
psychologists, social workers, and others who to keep on shuffling along because the game
have guiding expertise. Those of us who volun­ never ends if your life depends on the deal of a
teer to teach behind bars caution ourselves to friendly card.
make connections with prison staff psycholo­
Life is like a maze in which you try to avoid the
gists and social workers who are better equipped exit.
than we are to find help for an inmate-student
with an emotional or spiritual problem.
When they learned that I was going to be Theresa Meyette (1986, 1987), one of the
talking and writing about them and their most accomplished poets I’ve ever met, was
achievements to people in the “free world,” once an inmate in the Arizona Correctional
some of the women gave me permission to Facility for Women. She wrote a poem titled
include their work in print. It is time now to “Brown Skin People” in April 1986. Shortly
open the cell doors and listen to their words. before she wrote this impassioned poem, men
and women from Mexico seeking migrant
work in U.S. farms were found dead, stuffed
WOMEN AND into the trunk of a car, a recurring tragedy
THEIR ARTISTIC TEXTS in the American Southwest. In a letter to
In response to an activity to create similes for the me, accompanying permission to reproduce
concept “life,” class members, with rare playful­ it, Meyette wrote, “I would hope it has its
ness, wrote the following answers to an assign­ impact on others as it did on me when I was
ment to complete the sentence: “Life is like. . . .” struggling to write it. I feel BROWN SKIN
PEOPLE has a soul of its own. . . . Being
Life is a like a bagel. It’s delicious when it’s incarcerated has had its benefits when it
fresh and warm, but often it’s just hard. The comes to perceiving human nature and life in
hole in the middle is its great mystery, and yet general. And I have the time to do these
it wouldn’t be a bagel without it. things.”
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Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women 317

BROWN SKIN PEOPLE

BY THERESA MEYETTE
I.
Brown sweaty faces/supporting fearful eyes/
peer through cracks of a/condemned building in some river bed./
The taste of freedom/popping in stale mouths/that have not had water/
for two days./
Hearts beat a psychotic drum rhythm/while fear overpowers hunger./
Illegal aliens/stacked like empty barrels/on a warehouse dock/
waiting the pick up/at midnight./
Anticipation soars/as the hours drag on./ Questions blossom and/die with fear./
“The pick up is here.”/Deposited in vans and cars/crammed into tight spaces/
like trash in a Hefty Bag/the journey begins./
Los Angeles, Salinas Valley,/California, Arizona/out into the night they crawl.
Green light go for the/ freedom seekers/whose fate lies within.

II.
Red Light! Red Light!/Flashing, Flashing./
Ten bodies lie twisted/within the Chevy coffin/
enveloped in the last/ounce of life’s breath./
Explosions of white light/pierce eye sockets,/penetrate brains./
Mother Mary, Jesus, save our souls./
Flaco opens his eyes./Slowly his dream is/
butchered by the shiny golden badge which/meets his gaze head on./
Out! Out!/ bark the shiny badges./Action, reactions, hands/
grab the blouse of Nina/dragging her from the/trunk of the car./
Metal bites cold./Dreams of freedom/send hot searing pain/
to a heart/ that does not feel/through the numbness/seized by the moment./
Crammed, shoved and/kicked into vans/sirens sound the Victory/
announcing the capture of the harmless./
Mug shots, finger prints,/ bodies stripped, and money; /what money?/
The Captain gave orders/to keep the money.

III.
Nina sits in stillness./A young girl lies crying/in the corner of her cell./
Nina thinks of her/little ones crying/from hunger, cold and disease./
The last rain washed away/cardboard dwellings down the/
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318 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

river, and now Manuel and Estra/sit cold by the fire and beg morsels of food,/while Nina
sits warm,/with belly full, resting/
against the bars, watching/this young child cry./
Nina lies awake in darkness,/chants low, over and over/
chants the old songs her/grandmother taught her./
A woman crawls from her sleep,/passes Nina,/kicks her./
“Shut up you old bitch/no one hears your stupid prayers./
Shut up so I can sleep/peaceful for once.”/
Prayers escape with the hours/for others who lie in torment./
Flaco sits/knees drawn tight to/his tired body,/
eyes closed, he falls into/a dream state./
Chained to a mountain top,/he looks down./
Lupe, his wife, holds to her breast/Jorge, and baby Theresa,/
what will they do now?/Starved and homeless they wait.

IV.
Felipe finds himself/surrounded by men of two hearts./
There is a game played, the strongest steal from the weak./
Felipe does not understand./He smells the rancid odor of evil/
that reeks from the breathing pores./
Felipe is blind,/but in his darkness/he smells strawberry blossoms/
from the fields,/
feels the textured skin of the/avocado fruit he came to pick./
All Felipe will pick now/is his tattered soul/from the concrete floor,/
when Sam and Billy/get done picking him.

V.
Brown skin people/flee El Salvador, Guatemala,/all regions of sister Mexico,/
into a country with closed eyes/and empty hearts./
The Junta stalks them,/White Government hunts them,/
and they continue to struggle/for their birthright—life./
Victims without passports/pay heavily to enter a country/
unsympathetic to their survival./
Robbed and beaten,/then left to die,/consumed by Arizona desert,/
over unfamiliar mountains/crawling through wilderness/
fingers digging into earth/every inch of the way,/they go on./
Then, there are those/who paid the price./
$800, $1,500, $2,500 each,/to travel/
in the trunk of a car.
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Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women 319

VI.
Wind blows cold/howls the death chant/sends its vibration/into the night./
Frozen raindrops/beat torturous minutes/into hours,/
ruthlessly drives/hours into Monday,/Tuesday, and finally/Wednesday. . . . /
The journey continues,/for those who paid the price/
North, San Clemente, then/Salinas Valley./
How much longer/would half frozen/bodies lay stacked/in horizontal position?/
Lay waiting for/signs of life,/or worse yet,/feel quietly stop/as gun barrels/
click off safeties./
Already life has ceased to move/underneath the bottom layer./
Maybe they are asleep,/or dreaming about the future ahead./
Soon they will be there,/stretching starved bodies./
Tomorrow at sunrise picking begins/then money sent home./
More families will attempt/The Great Escape/from poverty, disease and the/
fear of death,/attempt the escape from a country/
torn between destitution and political strife./
Tomorrow the dream becomes a REALITY.

VII.
An engine shuts off./A car door slams,/Voices can be heard outside./
Footsteps come closer./Another car door slams./
Bodies bounce to the forward motion,/another journey begins./
Wheels thump/horns honk/brakes grab/speed picks up/faster, faster,/
sailing toward lettuce fields/soaring toward a dream./
Brakes grab,/slower,/slower,/stop./
Loud voices of authority bark,/rattling penetrates the back seat./
Footsteps all around,/a kick to the tires,/a car door slams./
Footsteps/closer,/closer,/stopped./
Horizontal bodies/lay frozen in fear/lay breathless./
Metal meets metal/turns left,/turns right,/turns reality into a nightmare/
as the trunk door springs open,/
exposing horizontal bodies/for the world to see./
Look World!/NBC!/ABC!/CBS!/
Ten brown bodies/lie frozen in death, lie face down/
like lettuce heads/they will never pick.
Poem courtesy of Theresa Meyette
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320 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

“WHAT I WANT MY Chevigny’s Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison

WORDS TO DO TO YOU”: (1999). Another useful volume of inmate cre­
MORE WORK WITH WRITING ative writing is Couldn’t Keep It To Myself:
AND PERFORMANCE IN PRISONS Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters
(Lamb, 2003). Many of the stories in Lamb’s
“What I Want My Words To Do To You” is edition detail horrific actions, and the worst
a documentary about creative writing and kind of abuse, yet often reveal both hope and
performance in a women’s prison that pre­ humor. As a follow-up to this publication,
miered nationally on PBS’s series P.O.V. CBS’s 60 Minutes aired, on May 7, 2004,
(Point of View) in December 2003 (Gavin, a story about Lamb’s program at York
Katz, and Sunshine, 2003).5 This documentary Correctional Institution in Connecticut. In this
interspersed footage of a writing workshop broadcast, Steve Kroft reported that, after find­
at the Bedford Hills (New York) Women’s ing out about the Testimonies book, prison
Correctional Facility with performances of the authorities closed down Lamb’s creative writ­
inmates’ efforts. Playwright Eve Ensler was the ing course—that is, until 60 Minutes and the
workshop facilitator. The camera crew filmed writers’ organization PEN protested, at which
the workshop inside the prison, as well as the point Governor Blumenthal intervened to have
rehearsals with professional actors, including the writing program reinstated (Fager, 2004).
Glenn Close, outside of the prison, and finally Jean Trounstine’s Shakespeare Behind
the live performance of the inmates’ writings Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women’s
as spoken by these professional actors inside Prison (2001) is a detailed description of her
the prison. The audience members were incar­ ten years as a drama teacher-coach-director in
cerated women and prison officials. Often the a women’s prison in Massachusetts. Of her
camera focused on the emotionally engaged inspiration to record merged experiences and
faces of the writers whose words were being insights of the inmates she wrote,
spoken on stage.
In this documentary, Judith Clark, one of the What started as an experiment—creating the­
atre behind bars—had gradually grown into
inmate-writers, told viewers that she wanted
a program. Eventually, the program took on
her words to “leave you dissatisfied with simple a philosophy: art has the power to redeem
explanations and rote assumptions, thirsty for lives. That philosophy, often challenged and
complexity and the deep discomfort of ambigu­ at odds with Corrections, was in part, what
ity. . . . I want to make you wonder about your drove me to write this book. (2001, p. 2)
own prisons. I want to make you ask why.” In
response to her work with the poetry project Trounstine’s compelling descriptions of
Glenn Close offered the following reflection: the women who studied Shakespeare take the
reader from the first meetings with her inmate-
For the last five years, a core of us have actors through to their public performances. In
performed pieces from the workshop for an early rehearsal for The Merchant of Venice,
the prison population, and then in a public Trounstine told of Gloria’s surprising response:
venue in order to raise money for Bedford’s
“I never would’ve guessed The Merchant of
educational programs. It is an experience
that is disturbing, painful, funny, touching, Venice was this down to earth . . .” (p. 48).
and ultimately profoundly inspiring. (Close, The women learned—often to their own sur-
2003, p. 1) prise—that they could both understand and
perform Shakespeare’s words. Another the­
More creative writing from the Bedford atre-related publication (part biography, part
Hills project is published in Bell Gail interview, part script), is Rena Fraden’s
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Unlocking the Doors for Incarcerated Women 321

Imagining Medea: Rhodessa Jones and Vision Narratives of Women in Prison (1992);
Theater for Incarcerated Women (2001). and especially Patricia O’Brien’s Making It in
Fraden describes Rhodessa Jones, a perfor­ the “Free World”: Women in Transition from
mance artist who works primarily with Prison (2000). O’Brien presents stories of
African American inmates. Jonathan Shailor’s women who have been successful in staying
production of Shakespeare’s King Lear in the out of prison after incarceration in hopes that
Racine, Wisconsin, correctional institution for their stories will benefit others currently in the
men was reported on by Jodi Wilgoren in The transition from prison. Also noteworthy is
New York Times (2005, April 29). Shailor is a the work of communication scholar Stephen
communication professor at the University of Hartnett (2003). Poetry written by men in
Wisconsin-Parkside. Indiana and California prisons where he
Newly released women inmates in North taught is found in his Incarceration Nation:
Carolina formed a drama group called Investigative Poems of Hope and Terror.
C.H.A.I.N.S. This drama group has helped Based on my 20 years of teaching inside
inmates reconnect to their communities in rec­ prisons, coupled with extensive reading of per­
onciliation. Their self-generated performance tinent literature, my hypothesis is that mind-
texts are performed largely for community liberating activities generated by performance
churches. When a report on the activities of and creative writing programs (such as the ones
this group was aired by National Public Radio described in these pages) increase effective
in November of 2003 (Hansen and Biewen, communication skills that help women avoid
2003), listeners heard Marsha (no last name actions harmful to themselves and others. By
given) describe her monologue, “A Song of acquiring these skills they increase their abili­
Lament,” as a public acknowledgment of ties to avoid reincarceration when they are
the pain she caused her two sons by leaving released from prison, thereby benefiting them­
them with their grandmother when she was selves, their families, and their communities.
incarcerated. Reading and listening to the personal creative
Volunteering in an institution focused on writing of inmates is a productive way to open
rehabilitation, H. C. Davis and his helpers orga­ up a dialogue with the public and their legisla­
nized a program to help women inmates keep tors. Such dialogues could encourage policies
closer connections to children by asking the emphasizing rehabilitation and reintegration of
women to choose books for the children, audio- incarcerated persons, and suggest alternatives
record them, and then talk, on tape, about these to the current criminal justice system that will
books. In “Educating the Incarcerated Female: have more positive outcomes for all.
An Holistic Approach” (Davis, 2001), Davis
describes how volunteers mail these books and
EPILOGUE
the audiotapes to the children.
More of these encouraging developments I am optimistic that other performance schol­
include C. Lewis Holton’s “Once Upon a ars will help develop and improve prison
Time Served: Therapeutic Application of Fairy programs for incarcerated people in their
Tales Within a Correctional Environment” own communities and will join in the public
(1995); Marjorie Melnick’s “The Use of debates about alternatives to prisons. We
Professional Theater Techniques in the should be encouraged by the prison-related
Treatment and Education of Prison and programs sponsored by the National Commu­
Ex-Offender Populations” (1984); Barbara nication Association (Seattle in 2000, Atlanta
Owen’s “In the Mix”: Struggle and Survival in in 2001, New Orleans in 2002, and Boston in
a Women’s Prison (1998); Carol Burke’s 2005), and by a growing number of people
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322 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

subscribing to the listserv maintained by 3. For more information about current condi­
Jennifer Wood.6 Conquergood insists that the tions in women’s prisons, see Meda Chesney-Lind’s
“Imprisoning Women” (2002), as well as her book
performance paradigm involves “immediacy,
Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime (1997);
involvement, and intimacy as modes of under­ Catherine Fisher Collins’ Imprisonment of African
standing” (1998, p. 26). Following that para­ American Women: Causes, Conditions and Future
digm, we can work on alternatives to Implications (1998); and Kathleen O’Shea’s
incarceration. We can also volunteer, teach, Women on the Row: Reflections from Both Sides of
and do research with and for men and women the Bar (2000).
4. Specific and persuasive practical alternatives
whose bodies and minds are locked up. They
and ideas are being published in many recent books
are waiting for us. and articles. The most useful is Penal Abolition:
In solitary confinement, Theresa Meyette The Practical Choice by Canadian activist Ruth
(1987) finished her “Darkland” essay with Morris (1995), who presents practical alternatives
these words: to warehouse prisons. I also recommend Amnesty
International’s Not Part of My Sentence (1999), Pat
The darkness is beautiful, as are my memo­ Carlen’s Alternatives to Women’s Imprisonment
ries. I will wait for the light to come again, (1990), and Henry Ruth and Kevin P. Reitz’s The
for the grey wolf, the yellow wolf, the sun­ Challenge of Crime (2003). Of particular relevance
rise. I will wait with memories of a dark night to members of the National Communication
in my prison cell. I will wait in Darkland. Association are the websites www.prisoncare.org
and that maintained by Jennifer Wood (as of 2005).
Further work is being done by volunteers in an
Researchers must always ask the question: Arizona project titled “Women Living Free.”
which community is their work designed to Volunteers “teach life skills to and with women
benefit? Is it the academic, the not-for-profit, starting a year before their release and continuing
the for-profit, the government, a social agency, up to two years after their release. Volunteers teach
everything from grooming and yoga to employment
or some other? Let us continue to engage in
readiness and financial literacy. The women are
pedagogy, performance, and scholarship that urged to keep journals and envision what they want
actively seeks change; that has the immediacy of their lives to be in three years. For many, it’s the
affecting lives and the lived conditions of others; first time they’ve planned their own future” (Villa,
and that establishes attachment and affinity 2004, p. B-2).Women Living Free is administered
with and for communities that would most ben­ by the not-for-profit organization Arizona
Women’s Education & Employment, Inc. (AWEE).
efit from our knowledges, skills, and resources.
Their website is www.awee.org.
5. Related information about this documen­
tary can be found at http://www.pbs.org/pov/
NOTES pov2003/whatiwant/update/html.
6. Email listserv maintained by Jennifer Wood
1. Some university students who taught with
for NCA members who are prison activists:
me use the experience as part of their graduate
<[email protected]>
research; others volunteered out of a desire to
improve the debilitating conditions of confine­
ment for women in prison. I thank especially
REFERENCES
Marianne Botos-Radcliffe, Kris Coggins Kulchin,
Kim Christoff, Laura Frick Galloway, Jim Franco, Amnesty International. (1999). Not part of my
Lita Henderson, Jennifer Linde, John Magni, sentence: Violations of the human rights of
Crystal Malloy, Terri McCartney, Christine women in custody. Washington, DC: Author.
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Watkins-Brock. London: Pluto Press.
2. Inmates whose creative work is presented Burke, C. (1992). Vision narratives of women in
here have given me permission to use their words. prison. Knoxville: University of Tennessee
I thank them all and wish them well. Press.
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Cameron, J. (1992). The artist’s way: A spiritual [Television series]. New York: CBS News.
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ment. Buckingham, England: Open University December 16). What I want my words to do
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Park-Fuller, L. (2003). Audiencing the audience: and Theatre Association, 9, 2–6.
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18
The Politics and Ethics of
Performance Pedagogy
Toward a Pedagogy of Hope

NORMAN K. DENZIN

T o invoke and paraphrase William

Kittridge (1987, p. 87) today in post–
9/11 America with Patriot Acts, Homeland
Scholars in performance studies must ask a
series of questions. “How can we use the after­
math of the crisis of 9/11 as a platform for
Security Administrations, and a president who rethinking what is meant by democracy and
performs scripts of fear written by others, we freedom in America today?” “Can we revise
are struggling to revise our dominant mythol­ our dominant mythologies about who we
ogy . . . to find a new story to inhabit, to find are?” “Can we fashion a post–9/11 narrative
new laws to control our lives, laws designed to that allows us to reinvent and reimagine
preserve a model of a free democratic society our laws in ways that express a critical peda­
based on values learned from a shared mythol­ gogy of hope, liberation, freedom and love?”
ogy. Kittridge is clear, only after reimagining “Can performance studies help us chart our
our myths can we coherently remodel our way into this new space?” “Can we take back
laws, and hope to keep our society in a realis­ what has been lost?”
tic relationship to what is actual and what is
ideal. The ground upon which we stand has War is peace; Freedom is slavery;
dramatically shifted. The neoconservatives Ignorance is strength
have put into place a new set of myths, per­
formances, narratives, and story, and a new —Orwell, 1949, p. 17
set of laws that threatens to destroy what we
mean by freedom and democracy (Giroux, In this chapter I seek a politics and an
2004). ethics fitted to a radical critical performance

325
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326 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

pedagogy. I seek a pedagogy of hope crafted The call to performance in the human disci­
for life after 9/11. I want to contribute to a con­ plines requires a commitment to a progressive
versation that seeks to preserve a model of a democratic politics, an ethics and aesthetics
free democratic society. In outlining this demo­ of performance (Pollock, 1998) that moves
cratic pedagogy, I draw selectively from a series from critical race theory (Darder & Torres,
of performance texts written since 9/11/01.1 In 2004; Ladson-Billings & Donnor, 2005)
so doing I join four discourses, merging the to the radical pedagogical formulations of
performance turn in the human disciplines Paulo Freire (1998, 1999, 2001), as his work
(Alexander, 2005; Conquergood, 1998), with is reformulated and reinvented by Antonio
theories of critical pedagogy (Giroux & Darder (2002), Kincheloe and McLaren
Giroux, in press) and critical race theory (2005), Fischman and McLaren (in press),
(Darder & Torres, 2004; Ladson-Billings & Giroux (2001, 2003), and Giroux and Giroux
Donnor, 2005), connecting these formations to (in press) and others.
the call by indigenous scholars for a new ethics This performance ethic borrows from
of inquiry (Smith, 2005), new pedagogies of and is grounded in the discourses of indige­
hope, new models of democracy. nous peoples (Mutua & Swadener, 2004).
The “democratic character of critical peda­ Indigenous theories of ritual performance
gogy is defined largely through a set of basic blend and blur with performative acts that cri­
assumptions” (Giroux & Giroux, in press, tique, transgress, and bring dignity to human
p. 1): Pedagogical practices are always moral practices. This performance ethic honors dif­
and political. The political is always performa­ ference and refuses commodification, as it
tive. The performative is always pedagogical. draws from indigenous, feminist, queer, and
Through performances, critical pedagogy dis­ communitarian formulations.
rupts those hegemonic cultural and educational Within this radical pedagogical space, the
practices that reproduce the logics of neoliberal performative and the political intersect on the
conservatism (Giroux & Giroux, 2005). terrain of a praxis-based ethic. This is the space
Critical pedagogy subjects structures of power, of critical pedagogical theatre, which draws
knowledge, and practice to critical scrutiny, its inspirations from Boal’s (1995) Theatre of
demanding that they be evaluated “in terms of the Oppressed. This ethic performs pedagogies
how they might open up or close down demo­ that resist oppression. It enacts a politics of
cratic experiences” (Giroux & Giroux, 2005, possibility (Madison, 1998) grounded in per-
p. 1). Critical pedagogy and critical pedagogi­ formative practices that embody love, hope,
cal theatre hold systems of authority account­ care and compassion.
able through the critical reading of texts, the A postcolonial, indigenous participatory
creation of radical educational practices, and theatre is central to this discourse (Balme
the promotion of critical literacy (Giroux & & Carstensen, 2001; Greenwood, 2001).2
Giroux, 2005, p. 2). In turn critical pedagogy Contemporary indigenous playwrights &
encourages resistance to the “discourses of pri­ performers revisit and make a mockery of
vatization, consumerism, the methodologies nineteenth century racist practices. They inter­
of standardization and accountability, and the rogate and turn the tables on blackface min­
new disciplinary techniques of surveillance” strelsy and the global colonial theatre that
(Giroux & Giroux, 2005, p. 3). Critical peda­ reproduced racist politics through specific
gogy provides the tools for understanding how cross-race and cross-gender performances.
cultural and educational practices contribute to They show how colonial performers used
the construction of neoliberal conceptions of whiteface and blackface to construct oppres­
identity, citizenship, and agency. sive models of whiteness, blackness, gender,
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The Politics and Ethics of Performance Pedagogy 327

and national identity (Kondo, 2000, p. 83; The Decade of the World’s Indigenous
Gilbert, 2003). Peoples (1994–2004; Henderson, 2000,
Indigenous theatre nurtures a critical p. 168) has ended. Nonindigenous scholars
transnational, yet historically specific, critical have yet to learn from it, to learn that it is time
race [and class] consciousness. It uses indige­ to dismantle, deconstruct, and decolonize
nous performance as a means of political western epistemologies from within, to learn
representation and critique (Magowan, 2000, that research does not have to be a dirty word,
p. 311). Indigenous theatre reflexively uses to learn that research is always already politi­
historical restagings, masquerade, ventrilo­ cal and at least sometimes (even for postposi­
quism, and doubly inverted performances tivists) moral.
involving male and female impersonators to Shaped by the sociological imagination
create a subversive theatre that undermines (Mills, 1959), building on George Herbert
colonial racial representations (Bean, 2001, Mead’s discursive, performative model of the
pp. 187–188). This theatre incorporates tradi­ act (1938, p. 460), critical pedagogy imagines
tional indigenous and nonindigenous cultural and explores the multiple ways in which
texts into frameworks that disrupt colonial performance can be understood, including as
models of race and class relations. This theatre imitation, or mimesis; as poiesis, or construc­
takes up key diasporic concerns, including tion; or as kinesis, movement, gendered bodies
those of memory, cultural loss, disorienta­ in motion (Conquergood, 1998, p. 31; Pollock,
tion, violence, and exploitation (Balme and 1998, p. 43). The researcher-as-performer
Carstensen, 2001, p. 45). This is a utopian the­ moves from a view of performance as imita­
atre that addresses issues of equity, healing, tion, or dramaturgical staging (Goffman,
and social justice.3 1959), to an emphasis on performance as lim­
Consider the following: inality, construction, (McLaren, 1999), to a
In House Arrest (2003) Anna Deavere view of performance as embodied struggle, as
Smith offers “an epic view of slavery, sexual an intervention, as a breaking and remaking,
misconduct, and the American presidency.” as kinesis, as a sociopolitical act, as a sensu­
Twelve actors, some in blackface, “play across ous, material production that erupts in the
lines of race, age and gender to ‘become’ Bill moment of performativity “across the inter­
Clinton, Thomas Jefferson, Sally Hemings secting planes of identity, community, culture
. . . and a vast array of historical and contem­ and politics” (Conquergood, 1998, p. 32;
porary figures.” (Kondo, 2000, p. 81) Pollock, 1998, p. 43).
In Native Canadian Bill Moses’ play Viewed as struggles and interventions,
Almighty Voice and His Wife (1993), Native performances and performance events become
performers, wearing whiteface minstrel masks, gendered transgressive achievements, political
mock such historical figures as Wild Bill Cody, accomplishments that break through “sedi­
Sitting Bull, and young Indian maidens called mented meanings and normative traditions”
Sweet Sioux (Gilbert, 2003, p. 692) (Conquergood, 1998, p. 32). It is this perfor­
In Sidney, Australia, aboriginal theatre mative model of emancipatory decolonized
groups perform statements of their indigenous indigenous research, that I develop here
rights demanding that politicians participate (Garoian, 1999; Gilbert, 2003; Kondo, 2000;
in these performance events “as co-producers Madison, 1998). Drawing on Garoian (1999),
of meaning rather than as tacit consumers.” DuBois (1926), Gilbert (2003), Madison
(Magowan, 2000, pp. 317–318) (1998), Magowan (2000), Pollock (1998),
Thus do indigenous performances function and Anna Deavere Smith (2003), this model
as strategies of critique and empowerment. proposes a utopian performative politics of
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328 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

resistance (see below). Extending indigenous Those of us in New York seem to be

initiatives, this model is committed to a form having trouble writing . . . U.S. politics then
and now, racial profiling and anxious wor­
of revolutionary, catalytic political theatre, a
ries about what’s coming next . . . Death,
project that provokes and enacts pedagogies of ghosts, orphans, analyses of U.S. imperial­
dissent for the new millennium. This is a vari­ ism, Middle East politics, and the terrors of
ant of forum theatre, Boal’s Theatre of the terrorism sit in the same room. . . .
Oppressed, his Rainbow of Desire, Legislative
Theatre used within a political system to
produce a truer form of democracy (Jackson
1995, p. xviii). Two years have passed since Fine wrote
these lines. They could have been written yes­
terday. “U.S. imperialism, Middle East poli­
LIFE IN AMERICA AFTER tics, and the terrors of terrorism sit in the same
SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 room.” How do you write and perform the
After the bombing of the World Trade Center meaning of the present, when the nightmares
and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, a and terror that define the present have never
number of interpretive social scientists wrote been experienced before? How do you write
about this event and its meanings in their lives. about an unending terror when each day starts
These personal narratives could be performed with a new crisis, when lies are held up as
within the mystory format. truths, and black has become white, and yes
Michelle Fine’s (2002, p. 137) narratives means no?
text opens thus: Turning to Annie Dillard, I seek my own
meaning in these events. Dillard says that
divinity is not playful, that the universe was
not made in jest, but in “solemn incomprehen­
“The mourning after”
sible earnest. By a power that is unfathomably
12 September 2001 secret, and holy and fleet” (1974, p. 270), and
You can tell who’s dead or missing by violent, I choose to believe this.
their smiles. Their photos dot the subways,
ferries, trains and Port Authority Terminal,
shockingly alive with joy, comfort and ETHICS FOR
pleasure . . . PERFORMANCE STUDIES
The air in the City chokes with smoke,
flesh, fear, memories, clouds and creeping Any consideration of performance ethics must
nationalism . . . Now a flood of flags, talk of move in three directions at the same time,
God, military and patriotism chase us all . . . addressing three interrelated issues: ethical
pitfalls, traditional ethical models, and indige­
nous performance ethics connected to politi­
cal theatre (Boal, 1995). Conquergood (1985,
Two days later Fine writes, p. 4) has identified four ethical pitfalls that
performance ethnographers must avoid. He
terms them “The Custodian’s Rip-Off,” “The
Enthusiast’s Infatuation,” “The Skeptic’s Cop-
The Path train stopped. In a tunnel. No Out,” and “The Curator’s Exhibitionism.”
apparent reason. I couldn’t breath. Anxiety
Cultural custodians, or cultural imperialists,
. . . Is this an ok way to die? . . .
ransack their biographical past looking for
Lives and politics; grief and analysis good texts to perform and then perform them
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for a fee often denigrating a family member or pragmatic effects, not good intentions. This
a cultural group who regard such experiences is the cost-benefit utilitarian model used by
as sacred. The enthusiast’s infatuation, or Human Subject Review Boards when they ask
superficial stance, occurs when the writer (and how this research will benefit society.
the performer) fail to become deeply involved Both of these models have deficiencies.
in the cultural setting which they re-perform. Carried to the extreme the duty position can
Conquergood (1985, p. 6) says this trivializes result in a moral absolutism, requiring that
the other because their experiences are neither persons live up to an absolute standard,
contextualized, nor well understood. Modify­ regardless of its human consequences
ing Conquergood, the skeptic or cynic values (Edwards & Mauthner, 2002, p. 20; Kale,
detachment and being cynical. This position 1996, pp. 121–122). But who holds these val­
refuses to face up to the “ethical tensions and ues; whose values are they? The utilitarian
moral ambiguities of performing culturally sen­ model is predicated on the belief that the ends
sitive materials” (Conquergood, 1985, p. 8). justify the means (Kale, 1996, p. 122), thus the
Finally the curator or sensationalist, like the “wrongness or rightness of actions are judged
custodian, is a performer who sensationalizes by their consequences, not their intent”
the cultural differences that supposedly define (Edwards & Mauthner, 2002, p. 20). Whose
the world of the other. He or she stages perfor­ consequences are being considered, whose
mances for the voyeur’s gaze, perhaps telling means are being used, best for whom?
stories about an abusive, hurtful other (Con­ It is necessary to contrast these two univer­
quergood, 1985, p. 7). salist models with feminist and critical peda­
These four stances make problematic the gogically informed ethical models (Edwards &
question “How far into the other’s world can Mauthner, 2002, p. 21). Contingent feminist
the performer and the audience go?” Of course ethical models work outward from personal
we can never know the mind of an other, only experience, and from local systems of meaning
the other’s performances. We can only know and truth, to social contexts where experience
our own minds, and sometimes not well. This is shaped by nurturing social relationships
means that the differences that define the based on care, respect, and love. The
other’s world must always be respected. There researcher is an insider to the group, not an
is no null point in the moral universe outsider (Smith, 1999, p. 139). The desire is
(Conquergood, 1985, pp. 8–9). to enact a locally situated, contingent, femi­
The second issue is implicit in Conquer­ nist, communitarian ethic that respects and
good’s four ethical pitfalls. He presumes a protects the rights, interests, and sensitivities
researcher who is held accountable to a set of of those one is working with, including ideas
universal ethical principles that are both duty- specific to the cultural context (Denzin, 1997,
based and utilitarian. Duty-based ethics p. 275; Smith, 1999, p. 119). Contingent
assume researchers and performers who are ethical models have been adopted by social
virtuous, have good intentions, and are com­ science professionals associations that often
mitted to values like justice, honesty, and navigate between universal normative models
respect. This is Conquergood’s ideal per­ and contingent ethical directives (Edwards &
former. However, Conquergood is concerned Mauthner, 2002, p. 21). Such guidelines are
with more than good intentions; he is con­ then meant to guide the researcher when the
cerned with the effects, or consequences, of kinds of pitfalls and dilemmas Conquergood
a performance on a person or a community. identifies are encountered.
Thus he appears to implicitly endorse a These professional guidelines do not
utilitarian ethics based on consequences and include a space for culturally specific ethical
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ideas and values (Smith, 1999, p. 120). Within The multivoiced performance text enacts a
specific contexts, for instance the Maori, spe­ pedagogy of hope. A critical consciousness
cific ethical values and rules are prescribed in is invoked. The performance event engenders
cultural terms. These understandings include moral discernment that guides social transforma­
showing respect for others, listening, sharing, tion (Christians, 2000; Denzin, 2003, p. 112).
and being generous, cautious, and humble. The performance text is grounded in the cruel­
Smith is quite explicit. “From indigenous per­ ties and injustices of daily life. Like Boal’s rad­
spectives ethical codes of conduct serve partly ical theatre, a documentary-drama format may
the same purposes as the protocols which gov­ be used, drawing on current events and media
ern our relationships with each other and with accounts of these events. A radical perfor­
the environment” (p. 120). mance ethic is grounded in a politics of resis­
In contrast to social science codes of ethics tance. The performance must be ethically
and the protocols used by human subject honest. It must be dialogical, seeking to locate
review boards, critical pedagogy seeks to enact dialogue and meaningful exchange in the radi­
a situationally contingent ethic that is compat­ cal center.
ible with indigenous values. This ethic is pred­ The other always exists, as Trinh (1989)
icated on a pedagogy of hope. It is based on would argue, in the spaces on each side of
values shared in the group. It blends intentions the hyphen (Conquergood, 1985, p. 9). The
with consequences. It presumes that well- performance text can only be dialogic, a text
intended, trusting, honest, virtuous persons that does not speak about or for the other,
engage in moral acts that have positive conse­ but which “speaks to and with them”
quences for others. This is a communitarian (Conquergood, 1985, p. 10). It is a text that
dialogical ethic of care and responsibility. It reengages the past, and brings it alive in the
presumes that performances occur within present. The dialogic text attempts to keep
sacred aesthetic spaces where research does the dialogue, the conversation—between text,
not operate as a dirty word. It presumes that the past, the present, performer and audi­
performers treat persons, their cares, and their ence—ongoing and open-ended (p. 9). This
concerns with dignity and respect. Indeed, text does more than invoke empathy, it inter­
the values that structure the performance rogates, criticizes, and empowers. This is dia­
are those shared by the community and its logical criticism. The dialogical performance is
members. These values include care, trust, and the means for “honest intercultural under­
reciprocity. Because of these shared under­ standing” (Conquergood, 1985, p. 10).
standings this model assumes that there will be If this understanding is to be created, the
few ethical dilemmas requiring negotiation. following elements need to be present.
A feminist, communitarian performance Scholars must have the energy, imagination,
ethic is utopian in vision. While criticizing sys­ courage, and commitment to create these texts
tems of injustice and oppression, it imagines (see Conquergood, 1985, p. 10). Audiences
how things could be different. It enacts a must be drawn to the sites where these perfor­
performance pedagogy of radical democratic mances take place, and they must be willing
hope. “What African American minstrels to suspend normal aesthetic frameworks, so
created was a new form of theater based that coparticipatory performances can be pro­
in the skills of the performers, not their abil­ duced. Boal is clear on this, “In the Theatre of
ity to conform to stereotypes” (Bean, 2001, the Oppressed we try to . . . make the dialogue
pp. 187–188). between stage and audience totally transitive”
An empowering performance pedagogy (1995, p. 42). In these sites a shared field of
frames the third issue that must be addressed. emotional experience is created, and in these
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The Politics and Ethics of Performance Pedagogy 331

moments of sharing, critical cultural aware­ HOPE, PEDAGOGY, AND

ness is awakened. THE CRITICAL IMAGINATION
Critical pedagogical theatre creates dialogi­
cal performances that follow these directives The critical imagination is radically democra­
from Augusto Boal (1995, p. 42): tic, pedagogical, and interventionist. Building
on Freire (1998, p. 91) this imagination dialog­
Directives from Boal: Show how ically inserts itself into the world, provoking
conflict, curiosity, criticism, and reflection.
1. Every oppressed person is a subjugated Extending Freire (1998), performance auto-
subversive.
ethnography contributes to a conception of
2. The Cop in our Head represents our sub­ education and democracy as pedagogies of
mission to this oppression. freedom. As praxis, performance ethnography
3. Each person possesses the ability to be is a way of acting on the world in order to
subversive. change it. Dialogic performances, enacting a
4. Critical Pedagogical Theatre can performance-centered ethic, provide materials
empower persons to be subversive, while for critical reflection on radical democratic
making their submission to oppression educational practices. In so doing, performance
disappear. ethnography enacts a theory of selfhood and
being. This is an ethical, relational, and moral
The co-performed text aims to enact a fem­ theory. The purpose of “the particular type
inist communitarian moral ethic. This ethic of relationality we call research ought to be
presumes a dialogical view of the self and its enhancing . . . moral agency” (Christians,
performances. It seeks narratives that ennoble 2002, p. 409), moral discernment, critical con­
human experience, performances that facili­ sciousness, and a radical politics of resistance.
tate civic transformations in the public and Indeed performance ethnography enters
private spheres. This ethic ratifies the dignities the service of freedom by showing how in con­
of the self and honors personal struggle. It crete situations persons produce history and
understands cultural criticism to be a form of culture, “even as history and culture produce
empowerment, arguing that empowerment them” (Glass, 2001, p. 17). Performance texts
begins in that ethical moment when individu­ provide the grounds for liberation practice by
als are lead into the troubling spaces occupied opening up concrete situations that are being
by others. In the moment of co-performance, transformed through acts of resistance. In this
lives are joined and struggle begins anew. way, performance ethnography advances the
causes of liberation.
Ethical Injunctions: Does this Performance As an interventionist ideology the critical
imagination is hopeful of change. It seeks and
1. Nurture critical race consciousness? promotes an ideology of hope that challenges
2. Use historical restagings and traditional and confronts hopelessness (Freire, 1999, p. 8).
texts to subvert and critique official It understands that hope, like freedom, is “an
ideology? ontological need” (p. 8). Hope is the desire
3. Heal? Empower? to dream, the desire to change, the desire to
improve human existence. Hopelessness is “but
4. Avoid Conquergood’s four pitfalls?
hope that has lost its bearings” (p. 8).
5. Enact a feminist, communitarian, socially Hope is ethical. Hope is moral. Hope is
contingent ethic? peaceful and nonviolent. Hope seeks the truth
6. Present a pedagogy of hope? of life’s sufferings. Hope gives meaning to the
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332 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

struggles to change the world. Hope is A PERFORMATIVE

grounded in concrete performative practices, PERFORMANCE STUDIES
in struggles and interventions that espouse the
sacred values of love, care, community, trust, Following Conquergood (1998), Pollock
and well-being (Freire, 1999, p. 9). Hope, as a (1998), Madison (1998), and Giroux (2000a,
form of pedagogy, confronts and interrogates p. 127) I am attempting to (re)theorize the
cynicism, the belief that change is not possible, grounds of performance studies, redefining
or is too costly. Hope works from rage to the political and the cultural in performative
love. It articulates a progressive politics that and pedagogical terms. The discourses of post-
rejects “conservative, neoliberal postmoder­ modern (auto)ethnography provide a frame­
nity” (Freire, 1999, p. 10). Hope rejects ter­ work against which all other forms of writing
rorism. Hope rejects the claim that peace about the politics of the popular under the
comes at any cost. regimes of global capitalism are judged.
The critical democratic imagination is ped­ In this model, a performative, pedagogical
agogical, and this in four ways. First, as a form cultural studies becomes autoethnographic.
of instruction, it helps persons think critically, The autoethnographer becomes a version of
historically, sociologically. Second, as critical McLaren’s (1997a, 1997b) reflexive flaneur/
pedagogy, it exposes the pedagogies of oppres­ flaneuse and Kincheloe’s (2001) critical
sion that produce and reproduce oppression bricoleur, the “primordial ethnographer”
and injustice (see Freire, 2001, p. 54). Third, (McLaren, 1997a, p. 144), who lives “within
it contributes to an ethical self-consciousness postmodern, postorganized, late capitalist
that is critical and reflexive. It gives people culture” (McClaren, 1997a, p. 144; 1997b,
a language and a set of pedagogical practices p. 295), and functions as a critical theorist, an
that turn oppression into freedom, despair urban ethnographer, an ethnographic agent,
into hope, hatred into love, doubt into trust. a Marxist social theorist (McClaren, 1997a,
Fourth, in turn, this self-consciousness shapes pp. 164, 167; 2001, pp. 121–122).
a critical racial self-awareness. This awareness The radical, performance (auto)ethnogra­
contributes to utopian dreams of racial equal­ pher functions as a cultural critic, a version
ity and racial justice. of the modern antihero “reflecting an extreme
The use of this imagination by persons who external situation through his [her] own
have previously lost their way in this complex extremity. His [her] . . . [autoethnography]
world is akin to being “suddenly awakened in becomes diagnosis, not just of him [her] self,
a house with which they had only supposed but of a phase of history” (Spender, 1984,
themselves to be familiar” (Mills, 1959, p. 8). p. ix). As a reflexive flaneur/flaneuse or
They now feel that they can provide them­ bricoleur the critical autoethnographer’s con­
selves with critical understandings that under­ duct is justified because it is no longer just one
mine and challenge “older decisions that once individual’s case history or life story. Within
appeared sound” (p. 8). Their critical imagina­ the context of history the autoethnography
tion enlivened, persons “acquire a new way of becomes the “dial of the instrument that
thinking . . . in a word by their reflection and records the effects of a particular stage of civi­
their sensibility, they realize the cultural mean­ lization upon a civilized individual” (Spender,
ing of the social sciences” (p. 8). They realize 1984, p. ix). The autoethnography is both dial
how to make and perform changes in their and instrument.
own lives, to become active agents in shaping The autoethnographer functions as a uni­
the history that shapes them. versal singular, a single instance of more
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The Politics and Ethics of Performance Pedagogy 333

universal social experiences. This subject is democracy” (p. 128). This project anchors
“summed up and for this reason universalized itself in the worlds of pain and lived experi­
by his [her] epoch, he [she] resumes it by ence, and is accountable to these worlds. It
reproducing him [her] self in it as a singular­ enacts an ethic of respect. It rejects the tradi­
ity” (Sartre, 1981, p. ix). Every person is like tional denial by the West and western scholars
every other person, but like no other person. of respect, humanity, self-determination, citi­
The autoethnographer inscribes the experi­ zenship, and human rights to indigenous
ences of a historical moment, universalizing peoples (Smith, 1999, p. 120).
these experiences in their singular effects on a
particular life. Using a critical imagination, the
Critical Race Theory
autoethnographer is theoretically informed in
poststructural and postmodern ways. There is Such a project engages a militant utopi­
a commitment to connect critical ethnography anism, a provisional Marxism without guar­
to issues surrounding cultural policy, cultural antees, a cultural studies that is anticipatory,
politics, and procedural policy work (Willis interventionist, and provisional. Such a project
and Trondman, 2000, pp. 10–11). does not back away from the contemporary
The commitment, as McLaren argues, is to world, in its multiple global versions, includ­
a theory of praxis that is purposeful, “guided ing the West; the third world; the moral, polit­
by critical reflection and a commitment to ical and geographic spaces occupied by First
revolutionary praxis” (1997a, p. 170). This Nations and Fourth World persons; and per­
commitment involves a rejection of the histor­ sons in marginal or liminal positions (Ladson-
ical and cultural logics and narratives that Billings, 2000, p. 263; Ladson-Billings &
exclude those who have been previously Donnor, 2005). Rather it strategically engages
marginalized. This is a reflexive performative this world in those liminal spaces where lives
ethnography. It privileges multiple subject are bent and changed by the repressive struc­
positions, questions its own authority, and tures of the new conservatism. This project
doubts those narratives that privilege one pays particular attention to the dramatic
set of historical processes and sequences over increases around the world in domestic vio­
another (McLaren, 1997a, p. 168; 1997b, lence, rape, child abuse, hates of crime, and
p. 290). violence directed toward persons of color
(Comaroff & Comaroff, 2001, pp. 1–2).
Extending critical legal theory, critical race
CRITICAL
theory theorizes life in these liminal spaces,
PERFORMANCE PEDAGOGY
offering “pragmatic strategies for material and
A commitment to critical performance peda­ social transformation” (Ladson-Billings, 2000,
gogy and critical race theory (CRT) gives per­ p. 264). Critical race theory assumes that
formance studies a valuable lever for militant, racism and white supremacy are the norms in
utopian cultural criticism. In Impure Acts American society. Critical race scholars use per-
(2000) Giroux calls for a practical, performa­ formative, story-telling autoethnographic meth­
tive view of pedagogy, politics, and cultural ods to uncover the ways in which racism
studies. He seeks an interdisciplinary project operates in daily life. Critical race theory chal­
that would enable theorists and educators to lenges those neoliberals who argue that civil
form a progressive alliance “connected to a rights have been attained for persons of color.
broader notion of cultural politics designed Those who argue that the civil rights crusade
to further racial, economic, and political is a long, slow struggle are also criticized
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334 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

(Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 264). Advocates of the participant-driven nature of inquiry and

CRT argue that racism requires radical social folds the researcher as performer into the nar­
change. Neoliberalism and liberalism lack the rative and moral accountability structures of
mechanisms and imaginations to achieve such the group.
change (Ladson-Billings, 2000, p. 264). Critical This project works outward from the uni­
race theorists contend that whites have been the versity and its classrooms, treating the spaces
main beneficiaries of civil rights legislation. of the academy as critical public spheres, as
Strategically, CRT examines the ways in sites of resistance and empowerment (Giroux,
which race is performed including the cultural 2000, p. 134). Critical pedagogy resists the
logics and performative acts that inscribe and increasing commercialization and commodifi­
create whiteness and nonwhiteness (McLaren cation of higher education. It contests the
1997b, p. 278; Roediger, 2002, p. 17). In an penetration of neoliberal values into research
age of globalization and diasporic postnational parks, classrooms, and the curriculum. It is
identities, the color line should no longer be an critical of institutional review boards who pass
issue, but sadly it is (McLaren, 1997b, p. 278.) ever-more restrictive judgment on human
subject research.
A commitment to critical pedagogy in the
PARTICIPATORY
classroom can be an empowering dialogical
PERFORMANCE ACTION INQUIRY
experience. The instructional spaces become
Drawing on the complex traditions embedded sacred spaces. In them students take risks and
in participatory action research (Fine, Torre, speak from the heart, using their own experi­
Boudin, Bowen, Clark, Hylton, et al., 2003; ences as tools for forging critical race con­
Kemmis & McTaggert, 2000), as well as the sciousness. The critical discourse created in
critical turn in feminist discourse, and the grow­ this public sphere is then taken into other
ing literature for and by indigenous peoples classrooms, into other pedagogical spaces
(Smith, 1999, 2005), critical performance peda­ where a militant utopianism is imagined and
gogy implements a commitment to participa­ experienced.
tion and performance with, not for, community As a performative practice this project
members. Amplifying Fine, et al. (2003, pp. 176– interrogates and criticizes those cultural narra­
177), this project builds on local knowledge and tives that make victims responsible for the
experience developed at the bottom of social cultural and interpersonal violence they expe­
hierarchies. Following Smith’s (1999) lead, par­ rience. These narratives blame and victimize
ticipatory performance work honors and the victim. But performance narratives do
respects local knowledge and customs and prac­ more than celebrate the lives and struggles of
tices and incorporates those values and beliefs persons who have lived through violence and
into participatory performance action inquiry abuse. These narratives must always be
(Fine, et al. 2003, p. 176). directed back to the structures that shape and
Work in this participatory, activist perfor­ produce the violence in question. Pedagogi­
mance tradition gives back to the community, cally, the performative is political and focused
“creating a legacy of inquiry, a process of on power. Performances are located within
change, and material resources to enable their historical moment, with attention given
transformations in social practices” (Fine, to the play of power and ideology. The
et al. 2003, p. 177). Through performance and performative becomes a way of critiquing the
participation, the scholar develops a “partici­ political, a way of analyzing how culture oper­
patory mode of consciousness” (Bishop, 1998, ates pedagogically to produce and reproduce
p. 208), and understanding. This helps shape victims.
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The Politics and Ethics of Performance Pedagogy 335

Pedagogically and ideologically the per- involves pedagogies of hope and freedom. A
formative becomes an act of doing (Giroux, performative cultural studies reflexively and
2000, p. 135), a dialogical way of being in the ethically enacts these pedagogies. These prac­
world, a way of grounding performances in tices require a performance ethics, which I
the concrete situations of the present. The per- have discussed in some detail.
formative becomes a way of interrogating how
“objects, discourses, and practices construct NOTES
possibilities for and constraints on citizenship”
(Nelson & Gaonkar, 1996, p. 7; also quoted 1. I call these war diaries, reports from the
homeland and its battlefields. This essay extends
in Giroux, 2000, p. 134). This stance connects
arguments in Denzin (2005, 2003).
the biographical and the personal to the peda­ 2. This theatre often uses verbatim accounts
gogical and the performative. It casts the cul­ of injustice and violence in daily life. See
tural critic in the identity of a critical citizen, a Mienczakowski (1995, p. 5; 2001; also Chessman,
person who collaborates with others in partic­ 1971) for a history of “verbatim theater” and
Mienczakowski’s extensions of this approach,
ipatory action projects that enact militant
using oral history, participant observation, and the
democratic visions of public life and commu­ methods of ethnodrama. A contemporary use of
nity and moral responsibility (Giroux, 2000, verbatim theatre is the play Guantanamo: Honor
p. 141). This public intellectual practices criti­ Bound to Defend Freedom (Riding, 2004). This
cal performance pedagogy. As a concerned anti–Iraq war play addresses the plight of British
citizen working with others, he or she takes citizens imprisoned at Guantanamo. The “power
of Guantanamo is that it is not really a play but a
positions on the critical issues of the day,
re-enactment of views expressed in interviews, let­
understanding that there can be no genuine ters, news conferences, and speeches by various
democracy without genuine opposition and players in the post–September 11 Iraq war drama,
criticism (Giroux, 2000, p. 136). from British Muslim detainees, to lawyers, from
In turn radical democratic pedagogy U. S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, to
Jack Straw, Britain’s foreign secretary” (Riding,
requires citizens and citizen-scholars commit­
2004). Nicolas Kent, the play’s director, says he
ted to taking risks, persons willing to act in believes “political theater works here because the
situations where the outcome cannot be pre­ British have an innate sense of justice. When we do
dicted in advance. In such situations a politics stories about injustice . . . there is a groundswell of
of new possibilities can be imagined and made sympathy . . . people are furious that there isn’t
to happen. Yet in these pedagogical spaces due process. With Islamophobia growing around
the world I wanted to show that we, too, think
there are not leaders and followers; there are
there is an injustice’’ (Riding, 2004).
only coparticipants, persons jointly working 3. At another level indigenous participatory
together to develop new lines of action, new theatre extends the project connected to third world
stories, new narratives in a collaborative effort popular theatre. This is political “theatre used by
(Bishop, 1998, p. 207). oppressed Third World people to achieve justice
and development for themselves” (Etherton, 1988,
p. 991). The International Popular Theatre Alliance,
We must find a new story to organized in the 1980s, uses existing forms of cul­
perform . . . we must preserve a tural expression to fashion improvised dramatic
model of a free democratic society. productions which analyze situations of poverty and
oppression. This grass-roots approach uses agitprop
—Kittridge, 1987, p. 87 and sloganizing theatre (theatre pieces devised to fer­
ment political action) to create collective awareness
and collective action at the local level. This form of
A radical performance pedagogy politically theatre has been popular in Latin America, in Africa,
and ethically means putting the critical socio­ in parts of Asia, in India, and among Native popu­
logical imagination to work. This work lations in the Americas (Etherton, 1988, p. 992).
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336 PERFORMANCE AND PEDAGOGY

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Conquergood’s essay: ‘Beyond the text: Research and indigenous peoples. London:
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PART V
Performance and Ethnography,
Performing Ethnography,
Performance Ethnography

OLORISA OMI OSUN OLOMO (JONI L. JONES)

P erformance and ethnography meaningfully

come together as performance ethnogra­
phy, which is ethnographic research embodied
Schechner as a theatre director and theorist
and Victor Turner as an anthropologist led
to a distinctive mapping of the contours of
by the ethnographer, the fieldwork commu­ performance ethnography. In From Ritual to
nity, an audience, or any combination of these Theatre, Turner declares “There must be a
participants. Performance ethnography rests dialectic between performing and learning.
on the idea that bodies harbor knowledge One learns through performing, then performs
about culture, and that performance allows for the understanding so gained.” (1982, p. 94)
the exchange of that knowledge across bodies. This assertion directly relates to Turner’s
The dense exploration of culture suggested by “social drama/stage drama” diagram in which
Clifford Geertz’s “thick description”—that sen­ the events of the real world meld into those
suous detailing of ethnographic experiences—is on stage, and the activities on stage shape our
given flesh with performance ethnography as understanding and experience of our real
the ethnographer, the fieldwork community worlds. Turner further indicates the relation­
members, and the audience collaboratively ship between theatrical performance and
exchange their understandings and experiences everyday life when he acknowledges, in a for­
through performance. ward to Schechner’s Between Theater and
This embodied knowledge, which had long Anthropology (1985), how his work was
been the hallmark of oral interpretation and influenced by Erving Goffman’s explication
theatre prior to the formation of the discipline of everyday life performance. Both Turner and
now known as performance studies, joined Goffman drew upon an understanding of the
with anthropological and sociological theories intelligence in the body to postulate theories
of culture to develop the intellectual frame­ about how humans manipulate, respond to,
works for performance ethnography. The and interact in the worlds in which we live.
longstanding collaboration between Richard In this way, performance is not merely
339
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340 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

a metaphor for everyday life, but instead Politics” (1991, reprinted in this volume) are
everyday life is a series of performances, many foundational essays in the development of per­
of which are what Schechner calls “restored formance ethnography largely because of the
behaviors.” According to Schechner, centrality that Conquergood gives to the body
in each work. In “Performing as a Moral Act,”
Restored behavior is used in all kinds of per­ Conquergood writes,
formances from shamanism and exorcism to
trance, from ritual to aesthetic dance and
Dialogic performance is a way of having
theater, from initiation rites to social dra­
intimate conversation with other people
mas, from psychoanalysis to psychodrama
and cultures. Instead of speaking about
and transactional analysis. In fact, restored
them, one speaks to and with them. The
behavior is the main characteristic of per­
sensuous immediacy and empathic leap
formance. (1985, p. 35)
demanded by performance is an occasion
for orchestrating two voices, for bringing
This definition situates the body as the pri­ together two sensibilities. At the same time,
mary site of information, transmission, and the conspicuous artifice of performance is a
transformation, thus underscoring the primacy vivid reminder that each voice has its own
integrity. (p. 10)
of body knowledge as performance ethnogra­
phy evolved into a distinctive methodology.
Much of Schechner and Turner’s work Conquergood used documentary film as
examined nonwestern cultural rituals such as a space for dialogic performance with “Heart
the deer dances of the Arizona Yaqui, Korean Broken in Half” (1990). In this examination of
shamans, or marriage practices among the Chicago street gangs, street gang members
Ndembu of Zambia, and many of the perfor­ across neighborhoods and generations talk
mances they created centered around the of their experiences, explain their use of sym­
ethnographer’s ability to understand these cul­ bols, and guide the viewer on a tour of key
tures by taking on roles from these communi­ locations, thereby actively constructing the
ties. Embodiment in ethnography took on self-representations that contribute to Conquer­
new contours as performance studies scholar good’s film. While performance ethnography
Dwight Conquergood pushed the practice has typically been fashioned as a live event, this
toward a Bakhtinian sense of dialogue, thereby film by an esteemed performance ethnographer
including the fieldwork community members serves as an example of how embodiment man­
among the bodies that must be thoroughly con­ ifests as dialogue in performance. It is important
sidered in the performance work. While Turner to note that Conquergood later came to chal­
was most concerned with strengthening the lenge his own use of dialogue as he recognized
anthropologist’s understandings of culture that true dialogic performance cannot be
through performance, and Schechner focused achieved without a balance of power between the
on the complexities of how culture bearers participants. In “Lethal Theatre: Performance,
enacted rituals, Conquergood was equally con­ Punishment, and the Death Penalty” (2002),
cerned with the ethical performance practices Conquergood suggested “co-performative wit­
of the ethnographer and the participation of ness” as an alternative stance to dialogue. And it
fieldwork community members in shaping the will be interesting to see where this concept might
representations performed of them. take performance ethnography.
Conquergood’s “Performing as a Moral In “Ethnography and the Politics of
Act: Ethical Dimensions of the Ethnography Adaptation” in this handbook, Derek Gold­
of Performance” (1985) and “Rethinking man acknowledges the multilayered reality
Ethnography: Towards a Critical Cultural of the dialogue developed between him
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Performance and Ethnography 341

and author Leon Forrest as Goldman adapts of performance as a complementary or

Forrest’s Divine Days (1992) for a stage alternative form of “publishing” research?
performance. For Goldman, the process of 5. The Politics of Performance. . . . How does
adaptation became an ethnographic explo­ performance reproduce, enable, sustain,
ration into the specifics of the novel, into challenge, subvert, critique, and naturalize
Goldman’s own identity as a white artist/ ideology? How do performances simulta­
neously reproduce and resist hegemony?
scholar, and into Forrest’s ultimately unsuc­
cessful battle with prostate cancer. Goldman
These questions are provocatively explored
writes that these intertwined realties “focused
in this volume in D. Soyini Madison’s “The
for me the implications of adaptation as a dia­
Performance Script.” In her examination of the
logic process made in this case more urgent,
controversial Ghanaian practice of Trokosi, in
intense and vital by the complex dynamics of
which “young girls and women are committed
race and by the immediate claims of mortal­
to religious shrines to live and work in order to
ity.” This work crystallizes Conquergood’s
appease the wrath of God against their village,
point that “performance is a vivid reminder
as reparation, for a crime committed against
that each voice has its own integrity.”
God by a male member of her family,”
(1985, p. 10)
Madison insists on fashioning “culture as
The body-to-bodyness implied by Conquer­
a verb” by creating “a collaborative perfor­
good’s sensuous intimate conversation is a
mance of an enabling fiction between observer
requirement for the dialogue that Conquer-
and observed” as she devised a performance of
good recommends. His works moves away
competing ideologies performed by herself and
from studying culture to inhabiting culture,
the Ghanaians with the most at stake in the
with all of the messiness and vulnerability and
cultural political debate. In a note to herself
aliveness that such inhabiting demands.
during fieldwork, Madison wrote, “This per­
Conquergood is more explicit about the
formance will not engage the Trokosi practice
emphasis on the body as a site of knowledge
itself, but the debate and the discursive and his­
in “Rethinking Ethnography.” Here, he offers
torical formations that create it and sustain it,
five ways of “rethinking the ‘world as text’ to
as well as those indigenous voices that are out
the ‘world as performance’:
to change it.” (p) This inclusion of fieldwork
community members is a far cry from the tra­
1. Performance and Cultural Process. What
ditional image of the solo white, male, western
are the conceptual consequences of think­
ing about culture as a verb instead of a ethnographer recording lives as if they are com­
noun, process instead of product? modities or disembodied artifacts. bell hooks
challenges this bodiless ethnography in her cri­
2. Performance and Ethnographic Praxis.
What are the methodological implications
tique of the cover image to James Clifford and
of thinking about fieldwork as the collab­ George Marcus’s Writing Culture: The Poetics
orative performance of an enabling fiction and Politics of Ethnography (1986) when she
between observer and observed, knower writes
and known?
3. Performance and Hermeneutics. What One sees in this image a white male sitting
kinds of knowledge are privileged or at a distance from darker-skinned people,
displaced when performance experience located behind him; he is writing . . . I fix
becomes a way of knowing, a method of my attention on the piece of cloth that is
critical inquiry, a mode of understanding? attached to the writer’s glasses, presumably
to block out the sun; it also blocks out a
4. Performance and Scholarly Representa­ particular field of vision. This “blindspot,”
tion. What are the rhetorical problematics artificially created, is a powerful visual
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342 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

metaphor for the ethnographic enterprise as thereby making the members of those
it has been in the past and as it is being writ­ communities active collaborators as participat­
ten. As a script, this cover does not present
ing spectators. In each of these examples, the
any radical challenge to past constructions.
It blatantly calls attention to two ideas that sense of accountability and ideological authen­
are quite fresh in the racist imagination: the ticity is shifted when those who lived the stories
notion of the white male as writer/authority, are not also performing in those stories or
presented in the photograph actively pro­ acting as witnesses to the performances.
ducing, and the idea of the passive brown/ This full inclusion of fieldwork community
black man who is doing nothing, merely
members into the development and perfor­
looking on. (pp. 126–127)
mance of ethnographic texts coincides with
the rise of cultural studies in the United States.
Rather than creating with an artificially con­ By the time Cultural Studies (1992) edited by
structed blind spot, Madison embraces the Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula
rigorous process of generating work that is Treichler and The Cultural Studies Reader
multivocalic, that shares ethnographic author­ (1993) edited by Simon During appeared,
ity, and that relies on performance to bring Turner and Schechner had published major
forward the intricacies and competing truths works on the intersections of performance and
that are inherent to Trokosi. Madison’s work anthropology, Conquergood had offered solo
goes beyond envisioning fieldwork community performances of Laotian refugees and pro­
members as consultants to scripts, to casting duced a documentary film of Chicago street
those community members as central figures in gangs. Performance studies was evolving from
the performances. Her essay offers an instruc­ a primarily literature-based discipline and
tive map for moving through reams of field a theatre/dance discipline to one deeply
notes and hours of personal interrogation to enmeshed in the construction of culture.
the creation of a dense and fruitfully ambiva­ Cultural studies seeks to reveal the political
lent performance. This is quite a different exer­ ideologies wrapped around everyday human
cise than, say, “The Laramie Project,” Moises behavior and cultural production, giving
Kaufman’s theatrical collaboration centered on particular attention to the way race, gender,
the murder of Matthew Shepard or “Fires in sexuality, geography, and class shape our
the Mirror,” Anna Deavere Smith’s solo per­ understandings of behavior and culture. In
formance based on the killing of Gavin Cato “Ethnography, Rhetoric, and Performance,”
and Yankel Rosenbaum in Crown Heights, Conquergood notes that the word “perfor­
New York both of which use ethnographic sto­ mance” has “emerged with increasing promi­
ries that are then performed by professional nence in cultural studies” (p. 84) and that
actors. “the new ethnography of performance schol­
Performance studies scholars have also cre­ arship . . . pushes towards a performative cul­
ated ethnographic performances that were then tural politics” (p. 95). Through his critical
performed by actors rather than by the field­ review of three ethnographic monographs,
work community members. Della Pollock’s Conquergood valorizes the power of bodily
production of coal miners’ narratives collected held understandings as he applauds the ethno­
by cast members and Shannon Jackson’s pro­ graphers for humble compassionate negotia­
ductions taken from fieldwork on theatrical tions in the field, and he encourages all
auditions were not performed by members of ethnographers to respect the “politically
the fieldwork community, but they were often loaded” positions they inevitably occupy. This
attended by members of those communities, situates ethnography as an overtly politicized
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Performance and Ethnography 343

activist enterprise that is “committed to action But critical ethnography—or what some
in the world” (p. 95). These actions are played have called the “new ethnography” (Goodall
2000)—must not only critique the notion of
out on the bodies of the ethnographers and the
objectivity, but must also critique the notion
community members in a series of intricate and of subjectivity as well. . . . This “new” or
delicate power plays. postcritical ethnography is the move to con­
When the fieldwork community members textualize our own positionality, thereby
are incorporated into the performance, the making it accessible, transparent, and vul­
potential for politicization and advocacy nerable to judgment and evaluation. In
this way, we take ethical responsibility for
becomes apparent. Unlike conceptions of
our own subjectivity and political perspec­
ethnography that espouse neutrality and objec­ tive, resisting the trap of gratuitous
tivity, performance ethnography’s attention self-centeredness or of presenting an inter­
to embodiment (and the attendant politics of pretation as though it has no “self,” as
embodiment) situate the practice deeply in a though it is not accountable for its conse­
quences and effects. Doing fieldwork is a
political frame. Embodiment is political; a
personal experience. Our intuition, senses,
stance is already implied through the sociopo­ and emotions—or what Wallace Bacon
litical narratives embedded in bodies. Norman (1979) refers to as “felt-sensing”—are pow­
Denzin stresses the politics of embodiment in erfully woven into and inseparable from
his discussion of performance ethnography the process. We are inviting an ethics of
as he calls for a “sixth moment” in which per­ accountability by taking the chance of being
proven wrong. (2005, p. 6)
formance ethnography exists not merely to
describe or even explain culture, but instead
Performance ethnography can function as
exists to advocate for specific people, positions
critical ethnography by serving as an agent of
or ideas. In this way the embodiment of
social change. Madison was determined to keep
performance ethnography is literally about sav­
the socially efficacious aims of her work at the
ing, honoring, rejecting, and critiquing particu­
forefront of the production as she explains,
lar bodies. Performance ethnography performed
by the community makes it clear that specific
This performance must not only inform and
bodies are at stake. Denzin describes the “sixth
enlighten. It must not only be beautifully
moment” as, “a socially responsible ethno­ beautiful, but it must have palpable effects
graphic journalism that advocates democracy for structural change and policy. Indeed, I
by creating a space for and giving a civic (pub­ felt the weight of purpose, which was also
lic) voice to the biographically meaningful, the weight of representation. I remembered
Stuart Hall’s warning that how a people
epiphanal experiences that occur within the
are represented are how they are treated,
confines of the local moral community” (1997, and Dwight Conquergood’s assertion that
p. 281). Because ethnography is done with and images and symbolic representations drive
on bodies, it cannot be neutral, and for Denzin, public policy. (p)
must be envisioned as advocacy.
In D. Soyini Madison’s book, Critical The script she shares demonstrates the
Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Perfor­ democratic potential in presenting with equal
mance, she expands the “critical” by emphasiz­ respect competing sides of the issue.
ing the significance of ethics and performance in Performance ethnography has the greatest
the art and politics of fieldwork. Madison also democratic thrust as a constructed live explo­
troubles autoethnography and deepens what it ration of the culture the ethnographer has
means to examine our own subjectivity as experienced. As Conquergood explains in
ethnographers: “Ethnography, Rhetoric, Performance,”
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344 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Performance—powerfully conceptualized— which all members fully participate, it is vital

is the borderlands terrain between rhetoric to note which bodies have traditionally been
and ethnography that is being vigorously
omitted from authority positions in ethnogra­
explored and developed from both perspec­
tives. Performance studies is the new fron­ phy. A wave of incisive feminist critiques of
tier for staking joint claims to poetics and or alternatives to traditional ethnography—
persuasion, pleasure and power, in the inter­ including Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Woman, Native,
ests of community and critique, solidarity Other; Kamala Viswesreran’s Fictions of
and resistance. In the topography of con­ Feminist Ethnography; Black Feminist Anthro­
temporary cultural studies, performance is
pology: Theory, Politics, Praxis, Poetics edited
now the commonplace, the nexus between
the playful and the political. (1992, p. 80) by Irma McClaurin, and Women Writing
Culture edited by Ruth Behar and Deborah
In this way, performance is the crucible for A. Gordon—suggest that women and people
forging new visceral understandings of culture. of color have been relegated to the object posi­
“Community and critique, solidarity and resis­ tion in ethnography rather than occupying the
tance” are where performance and democracy space of contributing subjects who shape their
come together. own representations. Performance ethno­
In establishing the goals of a radical democ­ graphy makes visible who the players are,
racy, political scientist Chantal Mouffe writes, and gives room for multiple truths to exist
simultaneously.
The notions of citizenship and community In this volume, Barbara Browning explores
have been stripped of much of their content the complexities of representation and agency
by liberal individualism, and we need to as she examines the various ways in which
recover the dimension of active participa­
ethnography about dance can serve to rein-
tion that they hold in the classical republi­
can tradition. Now this tradition needs to be scribe cultural and national stereotypes that
made compatible with the pluralism that is shape how we actually experience dance per­
central to modern democracy. (1992, p. 3) formances themselves. Her contrast of Maya
Deren and Katherine Dunham allows for a
The key ideas here for performance ethnog­ fruitful understanding of how “movement aes­
raphy are citizenship, community, active par­ thetics can be convincingly related to their
ticipation, and pluralism. Theorizing culture larger sociopolitical context” (p). Browning,
and democracy can surely help us to shape like Madison, Goldman, and Conquergood, is
these realities, but the doing of culture and interested in the way in which performance
democracy has an immediate impact on our and ethnography are politically engaged acts
lives. When an audience collaborates in per­ that reveal much about the ethnographers, the
formance ethnography, they are enacting the aesthetic and everyday life performers, and the
rights of citizenship. To join in, to have your intertwined worlds they create together.
position heard, is to participate in society as Performance ethnography embraces the
a fully endowed citizen with both social and muddiness of multiple perspectives, idiosyn­
political rights. crasy, and competing truths, and pushes every­
Note that the democratic potential in per­ one present into an immediate confrontation
formance ethnography seems to disregard the with our beliefs and behavior. Body-to-body,
decidedly nondemocratic world of ancient we are less able to retreat into the privacy of
Athens on which ideals of U.S. democracy are our own limited self-serving thinking, our
said to be based. Women and slaves were not stereotypes and biases. We have to acknowl­
fully enfranchised citizens, and while Denzin edge the validity of another viewpoint, because
and I are clearly calling for a democracy in it is living right there in front of us. In this way
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Performance and Ethnography 345

the embodiment and action that is inherent Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretive ethnography:
in performance ethnography makes this a Ethnographic practices for the 21st century.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
methodology that reflects, in Conquergood’s
During, S. (Ed.). (1993). The cultural studies
visionary phrasing, a “critical genealogy” that reader. London: Routledge.
can be “traced from performance as mimesis, Forrest, L. (1992). Divine days. New York: Norton.
to poesis, to kinesis, performance as imitation, Grossberg, G., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P. (1992).
construction, dynamism” (1992, p. 84). Cultural studies. London: Routledge.
hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and
cultural politics. Boston: South End Press.
REFERENCES Jackson, S. (1993). Audition and ethnography:
Performance as ideological critique. The
Behar, R., & Gordon, D. A. (Eds.). (1996). Women Performance Quarterly, 13, 21–43.
writing culture. Berkeley: University of Madison, D. S. (2005). Critical ethnography:
California Press. Method, ethics, and performance. Thousand
Clifford, J., & Marcus, J. (Eds.). (1986). Writing Oaks, CA: Sage.
culture: The poetics and politics of ethnogra­ McClaurin, I. (2001). Black feminist anthropology:
phy. Berkeley: University of California Press. Theory, politics, praxis, poetics. Piscataway,
Conquergood, D. (1985). Performing as a moral NJ: Rutgers University Press.
act: Ethical dimensions of the ethnography Mouffe, C. (1992). Dimensions of radical democ­
of performance. The Performance Quarterly, racy. New York: Verso.
5(2), 1–13. Pollock, D. (1990). Telling the told: Performing
Conquergood, D. (1991). Rethinking ethnography: “Like a Family.” Oral History Review, 18(2),
Towards a critical cultural politics. Communi­ 1–36.
cation Monographs, 58, 179–194. Schechner, R. (1985). Between theater and anthro­
Conquergood, D. (1992). Ethnography, rhetoric, pology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylva­
and performance. Quarterly Journal of Speech, nia Press.
78, 80–123. Trinh, T. M. (1989). Woman, native, other.
Conquergood, D. (2002). Lethal theatre: Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Performance, punishment, and the death Viswesreran, K. (1994). Fictions of feminist ethnog­
penalty. Theatre Journal, 54, 339–367. raphy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Conquergood, D., & Siegel, T. (Producers). (1990). Press.
Heart broken in half [Motion picture]. Turner, V. (1982). From ritual to theatre: The
(Available from Filmmakers Library, 124 East human seriousness of play. New York: PAJ
40th Street, New York, NY 10016) Publications.
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19
Dwight Conquergood’s
“Rethinking Ethnography”
D. SOYINI MADISON

The ethnographer must be a co-performer in order to understand those embodied

meanings.
—Dwight Conquergood, “Rethinking Ethnography”

D wight Conquergood’s essay, “Rethink­

ing Ethnography: Towards A Critical
Cultural Politics,” was first published in 1991
Bodies, Borders, and Performance (p. 351). For
Conquergood, ethnography, through a perfor­
mance lens, is particularly suited to unveil the
in Communication Monographs and arguably oft hidden and convoluted processes of power,
remains the foundational essay that charts a discourse, and materiality because of the con­
critical performance ethnography and the per- sequences that emerge on the sites and inter­
formative politics of embodied enquiry. For stices of bodies performing on the borders.
Conquergood the labor of “rethinking ethnog­ Conquergood’s triad is not simply three very
raphy” is a labor of incorporating perfor­ powerful domains but three domains multi­
mance and the performative in the high stakes plied by infinity, that is, bodies, borders,
of naming a particular space, time, and desire and performances are happening in countless
in order to make change possible. The essay combinations of symbolic forms, innumerable
laid the groundwork for reframing ethnogra­ locations of global and local trespassing, and
phy as purposefully excavating “the political never ending intentions that drive alterity.
underpinnings of all modes of representation, Conquergood’s call to rethink ethnography
including science,” through a specific triad: is to revision, reinvent, and recommit to an

347
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348 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

ethnography that must engage a postcolonial, Conquergood implores us to recognize

post–civil rights, post–cold war, postfeminist, what it means to “return to the body” as an
and postmodern world. The essay reminds us ethnographic enterprise: we speak Other
that positivist claims and objective science as names, not just our own categories; we hear
the rule of the day can no longer fit the com­ Other sounds, not just our own speech; we
plexity and flux of this struggling new world touch and smell and taste with our body in the
order. The imperial gaze of crass brands of co-performance of doing daily what Others
positivism and objective science began to do; and, we risk being foolish, or sick, or
break at the “same time as the collapse of wrong. The body breathes and listens inside
colonialism” (p. 351). Darker bodies were not the temporal space with affect and emotion as
only speaking truth to power but were now— theory and polemic conjoin to deepen these
for better and worse—members of the power­ feelings even more.
ful. Conquergood’s project was to unravel the If we are willing to understand that subju­
iron thread of the imperial gaze that lacked gated knowledges are always already embod­
embodied engagement, stagnated by impene­ ied knowledges, then we can begin to accept
trable categories, and impervious to generative the fact that the discourses of history, science,
subaltern performances. and empiricism that name them are not exclu­
This essay was the harbinger of an oncom­ sively held in the written word, but on the very
ing cascade of work advocating an “alterna­ bodies themselves that move symbolically,
tive project” that examined with radical traditionally, and inventively in the social and
intention the “unfolding human condition” cultural performances of their daily lives.
that critical, performance ethnography would Bodies on the borders that dare to traverse
illuminate (p. 352). Always the generous the threat of their boundaries necessarily carry
teacher and scholar, Conquergood served his their knowledges with them in song, gesture,
readers by providing conceptual frameworks story, dance, adornments, secrets, etc., that
that were all at once clear, relevant, and writing can not capture or contain in the
inspiring. We are called to attend in the most breath of a living moment. These perfor­
deep and abiding way to an ethnographic mances manifest the alterity of knowledge per­
encounter with Otherness that demands our formed through and located on and in the
whole body. Bodily attending means “shared body. For Conquergood these were utterances
time and space” in the feeling and sensing of different kinds and categories within subal­
contact of flesh to flesh and face to face tern locations that performance ethnography
cotemporality: labors to enter:

The performance paradigm privileges particu­ For more than three years I have been
lar, participatory, dynamic, intimate, precari­ conducting ethnographic research in
ous, embodied experience grounded in one . . . polyglot immigrant neighborhood
historical process, contingency, and ideology. in inner-city Chicago. More than 50 lan­
Another way of saying it is that performance- guages and dialects are spoken by students
centered research takes as both subject matter at the local high school. The “Bilingual
and method the experiencing body situated in Student Roster” displays an exotic [list of
time, place, and history. The performance names:] Assyrian, Tagalog, Vietnamese,
paradigm insists on face-to-face encounters Khmer, Hmong, Malayalam, Gujarati, Lao,
instead of abstractions and reductions. It situ­ Urdu, Cantonese, Greek, Pashto, Thai,
ates ethnographers within the delicately nego­ Punjabi, Italian, Armenian, Dutch, Turkish,
tiated and fragile “face-work” that is part of Ibo, Amharic, Slovenian, Farsi, and others.
the intricate and nuanced dramaturgy of For the first 20 months of fieldwork I lived
everyday life. (pp. 358, 359) in an apartment alongside refugees and
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Dwight Conquergood’s “Rethinking Ethnography” 349

immigrant neighbors from Mexico, Puerto with historically situated, named, “unique
Rico, Iraq, Laos, Cambodia, Poland, [and] individuals.” (p. 359)
Lebanon, as well as African-American,
Appalachian White, and elderly Jew all liv­ The rise of performance for Dwight was also
ing cheek-by-jowl in the same crowded,
dilapidated tenement building. (p. 358)
the rise of a critical, cultural politics of radical
empiricism. This “intimate connection” of a
fuller embodied engagement with feeling-sens­
If embodied practices and borderlands are
ing empirical knowledge was not only what
the hallmarks of ethnographic inquiry then
Conquergood argued for but it was the way
performance becomes both a method and an
he lived his life. His ethnographic work was
ethical principle. Performance demands that
on the ground of being, flesh to flesh, in co­
the researcher’s body must be cotemporally
performances that led him to the Ban Vinai
present and active in a dialogical meeting with
Refugee Camp in Thailand, to the Middle East
the Other—this is co-performance. In the last
of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, to the
years of his life, Dwight was adamant that we
sites of inner city Chicago and urban street
displace the notion of participant-observation
gangs, and, finally, to all night vigils and protest
with the more precise, body invested, and
gatherings through out this country in opposi­
riskier term co-performance. He regarded par­
tion to the death penalty.
ticipant-observation as a shallow presence that
Dwight Conquergood passed away four
lacked the depth of an invested, heartfelt self
with the Other. For Conquergood, “observa­ months before this writing. In our last conver­
tion” connotes an arrogance of seeing and sation over a transatlantic phone call (Dwight
judgment that co-performance refutes in its was in the hospital in Chicago and I was in
West Africa) with clarity and grace he talked
being and doing with the Other in a more
about the importance of doing “good work
intersubjective and interpersonal engagement:
that matters in the world.” He felt the world
The bodily image of learning something “on deeply in his strong desire, always, to make it
the pulses” captures the distinctive method just. The following essay is only one of the
of performance-sensitive ethnography. The many, many legacies Dwight left in his hope
power dynamic of the research situation
for us to do “good work.” Dwight loved
changes when the ethnographer moves from
the gaze of the distanced and detached performance in the way it both simply and
observer to the intimate involvement and complexly draws us into difficult and neces­
engagement of “coactivity” or co-performance sary spaces for the sake of a just world.
Madison-20.qxd 10/17/2005 10:59 AM Page 350

Dwight Conquergood conducting field research at Ban Vinai Refugee Camp in Thailand. He is performing with
“Mother Clean” of the Ban Vinai Performing Company. The photo is by Lw Vang, 1985.
Madison-20.qxd 10/17/2005 10:59 AM Page 351

20
Rethinking Ethnography
Towards a Critical Cultural Politics*

DWIGHT CONQUERGOOD

C ritical theory is not a unitary concept.

It resembles a loose coalition of interests
more than a united front. But whatever it is or
and Marcus, 1986; Van Maanen, 1988), has
been the most amenable of the social sciences
to post-structuralist critique. It presents a par­
is not, one thing seems clear: Critical theory ticularly sensitive site for registering the after­
is committed to unveiling the political stakes shocks of critical theory. No group of scholars
that anchor cultural practices—research and is struggling more acutely and productively
scholarly practices no less than the everyday. with the political tensions of research than
On this point the participants in this forum ethnographers. For ethnography, the under­
agree. Yes, critical theory politicizes science mining of objectivist science came roughly at
and knowledge. Our disagreements arise from the same time as the collapse of colonialism.
how we view (and value) the tension between Since then, post-colonial critics have set about
science/knowledge and politics. Logical empiri­ unmasking the imperialist underpinnings of
cists are dedicated to the eviction of politics anthropology (Asad, 1973; Ashcroft, Griffiths,
from science. Critical theorists, on the other & Tiffin, 1989; Miller, 1990), the discipline
hand, are committed to the excavation of the with which ethnography has been closely but
political underpinnings of all modes of repre­ not exclusively associated. Clifford Geertz
sentation, including the scientific. explains (1988, pp. 131–132):
Ethnography, with its ambivalent meanings
as both a method of social science research The end of colonialism altered radically the
and a genre of social science text (see Clifford nature of the social relationship between

Conquergood, Dwight. “Rethinking Ethnography.” Communication Monographs 58.2 (1991): 179–194.

Reprinted with permission of National Communication Association.
351
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352 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

those who ask and look and those who are taken as both epistemologically and morally
asked and looked at. The decline of faith in superior to sensual experience, bodily sensa­
brute fact, set procedures, and unsituated
tions, and the passions. Indeed, the body and
knowledge in the human sciences, and
indeed in scholarship generally, altered the flesh are linked with the irrational, unruly,
no less radically the askers’ and lookers’ and dangerous—certainly an inferior realm
conception of what it was they were trying of experience to be controlled by the higher
to do. Imperialism in its classical form, powers of reason and logic. Further, patriar­
metropoles and possessions, and Scientism chal constructions that align women with the
in its, impulsions and billiard balls, fell at
body, and men with mental faculties, help keep
more or less the same time.
the mind-body, reason-emotion, objective-
subjective, as well as masculine-feminine hier­
The double fall of scientism and imperial­ archies stable.
ism has been, for progressive ethnographers, Nevertheless, the obligatory rite-of-passage
a felix culpa, a fortunate fall. The ensuing for all ethnographers—doing fieldwork—
“crisis of representation” (Marcus & Fischer, requires getting one’s body immersed in the
1986, p. 7) has induced deep epistemological, field for a period of time sufficient to enable
methodological, and ethical self-questioning. one to participate inside that culture. Ethnog­
Though some assume defensive or nostalgic raphy is an embodied practice; it is an
postures, most ethnographers would agree intensely sensuous way of knowing. The
with Renato Rosaldo’s current assessment of embodied researcher is the instrument.
the field (1989, p. 37): “The once dominant James Clifford acknowledges (1988, p. 24):
ideal of a detached observer using neutral lan­ “Participant-observation obliges its practition­
guage to explain ‘raw’ data has been displaced ers to experience, at a bodily as well as an
by an alternative project that attempts to intellectual level, the vicissitudes of transla­
understand human conduct as it unfolds tion.” In a posthumously published essay,
through time and in relation to its meanings “On Fieldwork,” the late Erving Goffman
for the actors.” Moreover, a vanguard of crit­ emphasized the corporeal nature of fieldwork
ical and socially committed ethnographers (1989, p. 125):
argues that there is no way out short of a rad­
ical rethinking of the research enterprise. I will It’s one of getting data, it seems to me, by
chart four intersecting themes in the critical subjecting yourself, your own body and
rethinking of ethnography: (1) The Return of your own personality, and your own social
the Body, (2) Boundaries and Borderlands, (3) situation, to the set of contingencies that
play upon a set of individuals, . . . so that
The Rise of Performance, and (4) Rhetorical
you are close to them while they are
Reflexivity. responding to what life does to them.

This active, participatory nature of field­

RETURN OF THE BODY
work is celebrated by ethnographers when
Ethnography’s distinctive research method, they contrast their “open air” research with
participant-observation fieldwork, privileges the “arm chair” research of more sedentary
the body as a site of knowing. In contrast, and cerebral methods.
most academic disciplines, following Augustine Ethnographic rigor, disciplinary authority,
and the Church Fathers, have constructed a and professional reputation are established
Mind/Body hierarchy of knowledge corre­ by the length of time, depth of commitment,
sponding to the Spirit/Flesh opposition so that and risks (bodily, physical, emotional) taken
mental abstractions and rational thought are in order to acquire cultural understanding.
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Rethinking Ethnography 353

Letters of recommendation often refer approv­ more-or-less interchangeable ‘informants’

ingly to bodily hardships suffered by the dedi­ (Clifford, 1988, p. 49). The interpersonal
cated ethnographer—malarial fevers, scarcity contingencies and experiential give-and-take
of food, long periods of isolation, material dis­ of fieldwork process congeal on the page
comforts, and so forth, endured in the field. into authoritative statement, table, and graph.
Bronislaw Malinowski, credited with estab­ According to post-colonial feminist critic
lishing modern standards of ethnographic Trinh T. Minh-ha (1989, p. 56): “It is as
fieldwork—whose own practice remains if, unvaryingly, every single look, gesture, or
unsurpassed—recommended bodily participa­ utterance has been stained with anthropologi­
tion, in addition to observation, as a mode cal discourse. . . .”
of intensifying cultural understanding (1922/ Recognition of the bodily nature of field­
1961, pp. 21–22): work privileges the processes of communication
that constitute the “doing” of ethnography:
[I]t is good for the Ethnographer sometimes speaking, listening, and acting together.
to put aside camera, note book and pencil, According to Stephen Tyler (1987, p. 172), the
and to join in himself in what is going on.
He can take part in the natives’ games,
postmodern recovery of the body in fieldwork
he can follow them on their visits and walks, means the return of speaking, communicat­
sit down and listen and share in their ing bodies, a “return to the commonsense,
conversations. plurivocal world of the speaking subject.” He
pushes this point (1987, p. 171): “Postmodern
Fifty years later, Geertz still affirms the anthropology is the study of [wo]man—‘talk­
corporeal nature and necessity of fieldwork ing.’ Discourse is its object and means.” Trinh
(1973, p. 23): reminds us that interpersonal communica­
tion is grounded in sensual experience (1989,
It is with the kind of material produced by
p. 121): “[S]peaking and listening refer to real­
long-term, mainly (though not exclusively)
qualitative, highly participative, and almost ities that do not involve just the imagination.
obsessively fine-comb field study in con­ The speech is seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and
fined contexts that the mega-concepts with touched.” When modernist ethnographers sys­
which contemporary social science is tematically record their observations, they for­
afflicted . . . can be given the sort of sensible get that “seeing is mediated by saying” (Tyler,
actuality that makes it possible to think not
only realistically and concretely about them,
1987, p. 171).
but, what is more important, creatively and Michael Jackson wants to recuperate the
imaginatively with them. body in ethnographic discourse (1989, p. 18),
to reestablish “the intimate connection between
Although ethnographic fieldwork privileges our bodily experience in the everyday world
the body, published ethnographies typically and our conceptual life.” He argues (1989,
have repressed bodily experience in favor p. 11): “If we are to find common ground with
of abstracted theory and analysis. In the shift them [the people we study], we have to open
from ethnographic method (fieldwork) to ourselves to modes of sensory and bodily life
ethnographic rhetoric (published monograph), which, while meaningful to us in our personal
named individuals with distinct personalities lives, tend to get suppressed in our academic
and complex life histories are inscribed as discourse.” Jackson wants to restore the episte­
“the Bororo” or “the Tikopia.” Finely detailed mological and methodological, as well as
speech and nuanced gesture are summarized etymological, connection between experience
flatly: “All the voices of the field have and empiricism. He names his project “radical
been smoothed into the expository prose of empiricism” and positions it within and
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354 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

against “traditional empiricism.” What tradi­ reciprocal role-playing between knower and
tional empiricism attempts to control, suspend, known:
or bracket out—“the empirical reality of our
personal engagement with and attitude to those In this process we put ourselves on the line;
others” (1989, p. 34)—radical empiricism priv­ we run the risk of having our sense of our­
selves as different and distanced from the
ileges as “the intersubjective grounds on which
people we study dissolve, and with it all our
our understanding is constituted” (1989, p. 34): pretensions to a supraempirical position, a
knowledge that gets us above and beyond the
The importance of this view for anthropol­ temporality of human existence. (Jackson,
ogy is that it stresses the ethnographer’s 1989, p. 4)
interactions with those he or she lives with
and studies, while urging us to clarify the
ways in which our knowledge is grounded Johannes Fabian focuses on temporality as
in our practical, personal, and participatory a strategy for bringing back the body-in-time
experience in the field as much as our in ethnographic discourse, and with it the
detached observations. Unlike traditional body politic. In a trenchant rhetorical critique
empiricism, which draws a definite bound­
ary between observer and observed, between
of ethnographic texts (1983, p. 148), he iden­
method and object, radical empiricism tifies the “denial of coevalness” as a strategy
denies the validity of such cuts and makes for “keeping Anthropology’s Other in another
the interplay between these domains the time” and thereby keeping “others” in their
focus of its interest. (1989, p. 3) marginal place. Coevalness is the experience
of cotemporality, the recognition of actively
The project of radical empiricism changes sharing the same time, the acknowledge­
ethnography’s traditional approach from ment of others as contemporaries. Fabian
Other-as-theme to Other-as-interlocutor (The­ argues forcefully that ethnography manifests
unissen, 1984), and represents a shift from “schizochronic tendencies” (1983, p. 37).
monologue to dialogue, from information to On the one hand, the discipline insists on
communication. the coeval experience of fieldwork as the
Jackson provocatively argues that traditional source of ethnographic knowledge, and on the
ethnographic “pretenses” about detached obser­ other hand, this coevalness is denied in profes­
vation and scientific method reveal anxiety sional discourse that temporally distances
about the uncontrollable messiness of any truly others through labels such as “tribal,” “tradi­
interesting fieldwork situation (1989, p. 3): tional,” “ancient,” “animistic,” “primitive,”
“preliterate,” “neolithic,” “underdeveloped,”
Indeed, given the arduous conditions of
fieldwork, the ambiguity of conversations or the slightly more polite, “developing,” and
in a foreign tongue, differences of tempera­ so forth. Clifford (1988, p. 16) calls this tactic
ment, age, and gender between ourselves and a “temporal setup.” In a deeply contradictory
our informants, and the changing theoretical way, ethnographers go to great lengths to
models we are heir to, it is likely that “objec­ become cotemporal with others during field­
tivity” serves more as a magical token, bol­
stering our sense of self in disorienting
work but then deny in writing that these
situations, than as a scientific method for others with whom they lived are their contem­
describing those situations as they really are. poraries. Fabian warns (1983, p. 33): “These
disjunctions between experience and science,
The radical empiricist’s response to the research and writing, will continue to be a
vulnerabilities and vicissitudes of fieldwork festering epistemological sore.”
is honesty, humility, self-reflexivity, and an More problematically, he reveals (Fabian,
acknowledgement of the interdependence and 1983, p. 144) how the expansionist campaigns
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Rethinking Ethnography 355

of colonialist-imperialist policies “required withdrawal from intimacy. Everyday parlance

Time to accommodate the schemes of a one- equates objectivity with aloofness. Being “too
way history: progress, development, moder­ close” is akin to losing perspective and lacking
nity (and their negative mirror images: judgement.
stagnation, underdevelopment, tradition). In Metaphors of sound, on the other hand,
short, geopolitics has its ideological founda­ privilege temporal process, proximity, and
tions in chronopolitics.” Anthropology is incorporation. Listening is an interiorizing
complicit with imperialism and the ideology experience, a gathering together, a drawing in,
of progress when it rhetorically distances the whereas observation sizes up exteriors. The
Other in Time. communicative praxis of speaking and listen­
For Fabian, the way to prevent temporal ing, conversation, demands copresence even
reifications of other cultures is for ethnogra­ as it decenters the categories of knower and
phers to rethink themselves as communicators, known. Vulnerability and self-disclosure are
not scientists. He states this fundamental point enabled through conversations. Closure, on
in strong terms (1983, p. 71): “Only as com­ the other hand, is constituted by the gaze. The
municative praxis does ethnography carry the return of the body as a recognized method for
promise of yielding new knowledge about attaining “vividly felt insight into the life of
another culture.” Ethnographers must recog­ other people” (Trinh, 1989, p. 123) shifts the
nize “that fieldwork is a form of communica­ emphasis from space to time, from sight and
tive interaction with an Other, one that must vision to sound and voice, from text to perfor­
be carried out coevally, on the basis of shared mance, from authority to vulnerability.
intersubjective Time and intersocietal con­
temporaneity” (1983, p. 148). He privileges
BOUNDARIES AND BORDERLANDS
communication because “for human commu­
nication to occur, coevalness has to be created. Geertz’s well-known “Blurred Genres” essay
Communication is, ultimately, about creating (1983, pp. 19–35) charts ethnography’s
shared Time” (1983, pp. 30–31). Whereas ambivalent participation in the postmodern
Paul Ricoeur (1971) wanted to fix the tempo­ redistribution of analytical foci from center to
ral flow and leakage of speaking, to rescue periphery, delimitation to dispersal, whole to
“the said” from “the saying,” contemporary fragment, metropole to margin. To be sure,
ethnographers struggle to recuperate “the say­ ethnographers for a long time have been situ­
ing from the said,” to shift their enterprise ated more characteristically in the peripheral
from nouns to verbs, from mimesis to kinesis, village than in the metropolitan center. They
from textualized space to co-experienced time. have been predisposed professionally to seek
This rethinking of ethnography as primarily out the frontier and hinterlands, the colony
about speaking and listening, instead of rather than the capital. But this preoccupation
observing, has challenged the visualist bias of with marginal cultures that obliged them figu­
positivism with talk about voices, utterances, ratively and literally to live on the boundary
intonations, multivocality. Sight and observa­ did not prevent them from still seeing identity
tion go with space, and the spatial practices and culture, self and other, as discrete, singu­
of division, separation, compartmentalization, lar, integral, and stable concepts. Once they
and surveillance. According to Rosaldo (1989, crossed the border and pitched their tent on
p. 41), “the eye of ethnography” is connected the edge of the encampment, they confidently
to “the I of imperialism.” Sight and surveil­ set about describing “the Trobrianders,” or
lance depend on detachment and distance. “the Nuer,” or “the ghetto,” interpreting these
Getting perspective on something entails cultures as distinct, coherent, whole ways of
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356 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

life. In so doing, they centralized the peripheral is a rethinking of identity and culture as
instead of de-centering the “metropolitan typ­ constructed and relational, instead of ontolog­
ifications” that they carried inside their heads ically given and essential. This rethinking priv­
(Rosaldo, 1989, p. 207). ileges metonym, “reasoning part-to-part” over
All that confidence in continuous traditions synecdoche, “reasoning part-to-whole” (Tyler,
and innocent encounters with pristine cultures 1987, p. 151); it features syntax over seman­
has been shattered in our post-colonial epoch. tics. Meaning is contested and struggled for in
Borders bleed, as much as they contain. the interstices, in between structures. Identity is
Instead of dividing lines to be patrolled or invented and contingent, not autonomous: “‘I’
transgressed, boundaries are now understood is, therefore, not a unified subject, a fixed iden­
as criss-crossing sites inside the post-modern tity, or that solid mass covered with layers of
subject. Difference is resituated within, instead superficialities one has gradually to peel off
of beyond, the self. Inside and outside distinc­ before one can see its true face. ‘I’ is, itself,
tions, like genres, blur and wobble. Nothing infinite layers” (Trinh, 1989, p. 94).
seems truer now than Trinh’s pithy insight Clifford argues (1988, p. 10) that much of
(1989, p. 94): “Despite our desperate, eternal non-western historical experience has been
attempt to separate, contain, and mend, cate­ “hemmed in by concepts of continuous tradi­
gories always leak.” tion and the unified self.” The presuppositions
Rosaldo believes that contemporary geo­ of pattern, continuity, coherence, and unity
politics, including decolonization and multina­ characteristic of classic ethnography may have
tional corporations, requires thinking about had more to do with the West’s ideological
boundaries not simply as barriers but as commitment to individualism than with on­
bridges and membranes (1989, p. 217): “All of the-ground cultural practices. “I argue,” says
us inhabit an interdependent late-twentieth­ Clifford (1988, p. 10), “that identity, ethno­
century world marked by borrowing and lend­ graphically considered, must always be mixed,
ing across porous national and cultural relational, and inventive.” The idea of the per­
boundaries that are saturated with inequality, son shifts from that of a fixed, autonomous
power, and domination.” Further, the border- self to a polysemic site of articulation for mul­
crossings emblematic of our postmodern tiple identities and voices.
world challenge ethnography to rethink its From the boundary perspective, identity is
project: “If ethnography once imagined it more like a performance in process than a pos­
could describe discrete cultures, it now con­ tulate, premise, or originary principle. From
tends with boundaries that crisscross over a his historical study of the “colonial assault”
field at once fluid and saturated with power. on Melanesia, and his 1977 fieldwork study of
In a world where ‘open borders’ appear more a courtroom trial in Massachusetts where land
salient than ‘closed communities,’ one won­ ownership by Mashpee Native Americans was
ders how to define a project for cultural stud­ contingent upon “proof” of tribal identity,
ies” (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 45). Rosaldo argues Clifford (1988, p. 9) came to understand iden­
that the research agenda needs to move from tity as provisional, “not as an archaic survival
centers to “borderlands,” “zones of differ­ but as an ongoing process, politically con­
ence,” and “busy intersections” where many tested and historically unfinished.” In our
identities and interests articulate with multiple postmodern world the refugee, exile, has
others (1989, pp. 17, 28). become an increasingly visible sign of geopo­
The major epistemological consequence of litical turbulence as well as the emblematic
displacing the idea of solid centers and unified figure for a more general feeling of displace­
wholes with borderlands and zones of contest ment, dispersal, what Clifford describes
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Rethinking Ethnography 357

(1988, p. 9) as “a pervasive condition of Clifford’s observations (1988, p. 16): “Many

off-centeredness. . . .” traditions, languages, cosmologies, and values
Betwixt and between worlds, suspended are lost, some literally murdered; but much
between a shattered past and insecure future, has simultaneously been invented and revived
refugees and other displaced people must create in complex, oppositional contexts. If the vic­
an “inventive poetics of reality” (Clifford, tims of progress and empire are weak, they are
1988, p. 6) for recollecting, recontextualizing, seldom passive.”
and refashioning their identities. The refugee There are implications for rhetoric and
condition epitomizes a postmodern existence of communication studies from ethnography’s
border-crossings and life on the margins. With current interest in boundary phenomena and
displacement, upheaval, unmooring, come the border negotiations. Communication becomes
terror and potentiality of flux, improvisation, even more urgent and necessary in situations
and creative recombinations. Refugees, exiles, of displacement, exile, and erasure. Trinh, a
homeless people, and other nomads enact the Vietnamese-American woman, speaking as an
post-structuralist idea of “putting culture into exile to other exiles, articulates the difficulty
motion” (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 91) through expe­ and urgency of expression for all refugees and
riences that are both violent and regenerative. displaced people (1989, p. 80):
Taking the Caribbean as an illuminating
example, Clifford notes (1988, p. 15) that its You who understand the dehumanization
history is one of “degradation, mimicry, vio­ of forced removal-relocation-reeducation­
lence, and blocked possibilities,” but it is also redefinition, the humiliation of having to
falsify your own reality, your voice—you
“rebellious, syncretic, and creative.” know. And often cannot say it. You try and
In The Practice of Everyday Life, Michel de keep on trying to unsay it, for if you don’t,
Certeau (1984, p. 30) celebrates the interven­ they will not fail to fill in the blanks on your
tions of marginal people whose creativity, “the behalf, and you will be said.
art of making do,” gets finely honed from
living on the edge, a borderlands life: The discourse of displacement is a project
that beckons rhetorical and communication
Thus a North African living in Paris or scholars.
Boubaix (France) insinuates into the system And if the increasingly pervasive feeling of
imposed on him by the construction of a discontinuity and finding oneself “off center
low-income housing development or of the
among scattered traditions” (Clifford, 1988,
French language the ways of ‘dwelling’ (in a
house or a language) peculiar to his native p. 3) incites us to speak, then we must draw on
Kabylia. He superimposes them and, by that topoi from among multiple discursive styles
combination, creates for himself a space in and traditions. Jackson notes the intertextual
which he can find ways of using the con­ and heteroglossic nature of discourse (1989,
straining order of the place or of the lan­ p. 176): “Reviewing the historical mutability
guage. Without leaving the place where he
has no choice but to live and which lays
of discourse, I am also mindful that no one
down its law for him, he establishes within episteme ever completely supercedes another.
it a degree of plurality and creativity. By an The historical matrix in which our present dis­
art of being in between, he draws unex­ course is embedded contains other discursive
pected results from his situation. styles and strategies, and makes use of them.”
Never has the rhetorical canon of inventio
My own fieldwork with refugees and taken on more emphatic meaning than in the
migrants in Thailand, the Gaza Strip, and current rethinking of culture and ethos (see
inner-city Chicago resonates deeply with Wagner, 1980).
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358 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

Cities throughout the United States have productive life of culture takes place on the
become sites of extraordinary diversity as boundaries. . . .”
refugees and immigrants, increasingly from
the hemispheres of the South and the East,
THE RISE OF PERFORMANCE
pour into inner-city neighborhoods. Rosaldo
makes the point that one does not have to With renewed appreciation for boundaries,
go to the “Third World” to encounter culture border-crossings, process, improvisation, con­
in the borderlands (1989, p. 28): “Cities tingency, multiplex identities, and the embod­
throughout the world today increasingly ied nature of fieldwork practice, many
include minorities defined by race, ethnicity, ethnographers have turned to a performance-
language, class, religion, and sexual orienta­ inflected vocabulary. “In the social sciences,”
tion. Encounters with ‘difference’ now per­ Geertz observes (1983, p. 22), “the analogies
vade modern everyday life in urban settings.” are coming more and more from the con­
For more than three years I have been con­ trivances of cultural performance than from
ducting ethnographic research in one of these those of physical manipulation.” No one has
polyglot immigrant neighborhoods in inner- done more than Victor Turner to open up
city Chicago. More than 50 languages and space in ethnography for performance, to
dialects are spoken by students at the local move the field away from preoccupations with
high school. The “Bilingual Student Roster” universal system, structure, form, and towards
displays an exotic array of languages that particular practices, people, and perfor­
in addition to Spanish, Korean, and Arabic, mances. A dedicated ethnographer, Turner
includes Assyrian, Tagalog, Vietnamese, wanted the professional discourse of cultural
Khmer, Hmong, Malayalam, Gujarati, Lao, studies to capture the struggle, passion, and
Urdu, Cantonese, Greek, Pashto, Thai, praxis of village life that he so relished in the
Punjabi, Italian, Armenian, Dutch, Turkish, field. The language of drama and performance
Ibo, Amharic, Slovenian, Farsi, and others. gave him a way of thinking and talking about
For the first 20 months of fieldwork I lived in people as actors who creatively play, impro­
an apartment alongside refugee and immigrant vise, interpret, and re-present roles and scripts.
neighbors from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Iraq, In a rhetorical masterstroke, Turner (1986,
Laos, Cambodia, Poland, Lebanon, as well p. 81) subversively redefined the fundamental
as African-American, Appalachian White, and terms of discussion in ethnography by defining
elderly Jew all living cheek-by-jowl in the same humankind as homo performans, humanity
crowded, dilapidated tenement building. The as performer, a culture-inventing, social-
local street gang with which I work reflects the performing, self-making and self-transforming
same polyglot texture of the neighborhood. It creature. Turner was drawn to the conceptual
is called the Latin Kings, originally a Puerto lens of performance because it focused on
Rican gang, but the current members include humankind alive, the creative, playful, provi­
Assyrian, African-American, Puerto Rican, sional, imaginative, articulate expressions of
Guatemalan, Salvadoran, Vietnamese, Lao, ordinary people grounded in the challenge of
Korean, Palestinian, Filipino, Mexican, White, making a life in this village, that valley, and
and others (Conquergood, Friesma, Hunter, inspired by the struggle for meaning.
& Mansbridge, 1990). Distinguishing characteristics of performance-
Few phrases have more resonance in con­ sensitive research emerge from Turner’s
temporary ethnography—and with my own detailed and elaborated work on social drama
fieldwork—than Bakhtin’s powerful affirma­ and cultural performance. The performance
tion (1986, p. 2) that “the most intense and paradigm privileges particular, participatory,
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Rethinking Ethnography 359

dynamic, intimate, precarious, embodied with historically situated, named, “unique

experience grounded in historical process, individuals.”
contingency, and ideology. Another way of The performance paradigm can help ethno­
saying it is that performance-centered research graphers recognize “the limitations of literacy”
takes as both its subject matter and method and critique the textualist bias of western civi­
the experiencing body situated in time, place, lization (Jackson, 1989). Geertz (1973, p. 452)
and history. The performance paradigm insists enunciates the textual paradigm in his famous
on face-to-face encounters instead of abstrac­ phrase: “The culture of a people is an ensem­
tions and reductions. It situates ethnographers ble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the
within the delicately negotiated and fragile anthropologist strains to read over the shoul­
“face-work” that is part of the intricate and ders of those to whom they properly belong.”
nuanced dramaturgy of everyday life (see In other words, the ethnographer is construed
Goffman, 1967). as a displaced, somewhat awkward reader of
Turner appreciated the heuristics of embod­ texts. Jackson vigorously critiques this ethno­
ied experience because he understood how graphic textualism (1989, p. 184):
social dramas must be acted out and rituals
performed in order to be meaningful, and By fetishizing texts, it divides—as the advent
he realized how the ethnographer must be a of literacy itself did—readers from authors,
co-performer in order to understand those and separates both from the world. The idea
that “there is nothing outside the text” may
embodied meanings. In one of his earlier
be congenial to someone whose life is con­
works (1975, pp. 28–29) he enunciated the fined to academe, but it sounds absurd in
role of the performing body as a hermeneuti­ the village worlds where anthropologists
cal agency both for the researcher as well as carry out their work, where people negoti­
the researched: ate meaning in face-to-face interactions, not
as individual minds but as embodied social
beings. In other words, textualism tends to
The religious ideas and processes I have just
ignore the flux of human relationships, the
mentioned belong to the domain of perfor­
ways meanings are created intersubjectively
mance, their power derived from the partic­
as well as “intertextually,” embodied in ges­
ipation of the living people who use them.
tures as well as in words, and connected to
My counsel, therefore, to investigators of
political, moral, and aesthetic interests.
ritual processes would be to learn them in
the first place “on their pulses,” in coactiv­
ity with their enactors, having beforehand Though possessed of a long historical com­
shared for a considerable time much of the mitment to the spoken word, rhetoric and com­
people’s daily life and gotten to know them
not only as players of social roles, but as
munication suffer from this same valorizing of
unique individuals, each with a style and a inscribed texts. A recent essay in the Quarterly
soul of his or her own. Only by these means Journal of Speech (Brummett, 1990, p. 71;
will the investigator become aware. . . . emphasis mine) provides a stunning example of
the field’s extreme textualism: “Such a [discipli­
The bodily image of learning something nary] grounding can only come about in the
“on the pulses” captures the distinctive moment of methodological commitment when
method of performance-sensitive ethnogra­ someone sits down with a transcript of dis­
phy. The power dynamic of the research situ­ course and attempts to explain it to students or
ation changes when the ethnographer moves colleagues—in that moment we become schol­
from the gaze of the distanced and detached ars of communication.” In the quest for intel­
observer to the intimate involvement and lectual respectability through disciplinary rigor,
engagement of “coactivity” or co-performance some communication and rhetorical scholars
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360 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

have narrowed their focus to language, particu­ What every ethnographer understands,
larly those aspects of language that can be spa­ however, is that the mode of “discussion,”
tialized on the page, or measured and counted, the discourse, is not always and exclusively
to the exclusion of embodied meanings that verbal: Issues and attitudes are expressed and
are accessible through ethnographic methods of contested in dance, music, gesture, food, ritual
“radical empiricism” (Jackson, 1989). artifact, symbolic action, as well as words.
The linguistic and textualist bias of speech Cultural performances are not simply epideic­
communication has blinded many scholars to tic spectacles: Investigated historically within
the preeminently rhetorical nature of cultural their political contexts, they are profoundly
performance—ritual, ceremony, celebration, deliberative occasions (see Fernandez, 1986).
festival, parade, pageant, feast, and so forth. Although cultural performances often frame
It is not just in non-western cultures, but in a great deal of speech-making—formal ora­
many so-called “modern” communities that tory, stylized recitation and chant, as well as
cultural performance functions as a special backstage talk and informal conversation—it
form of public address, rhetorical agency: would be a great mistake for a communication
researcher simply “to sit down with a tran­
[C]ultural performances are not simple script of discourse” and privilege words over
reflectors or expressions of culture or even other channels of meaning. Turner (1986,
of changing culture but may themselves be
active agencies of change, representing the
p. 23) emphatically resists valorizing language
eye by which culture sees itself and the or studying any of the multiple codes of per­
drawing board on which creative actors formed meaning extricated from their complex
sketch out what they believe to be more interactions: “This is an important point—ritu­
apt or interesting “designs for living.”. . . als, dramas, and other performative genres are
Performative reflexivity is a condition in
often orchestrations of media, not expressions
which a sociocultural group, or its most per­
ceptive members acting representatively, in a single medium.” There is a complex inter­
turn, bend or reflect back upon themselves, play, for example, between song, gesture, facial
upon the relations, actions, symbols, mean­ expressions, and the burning of incense, and
ings, codes, roles, statuses, social structures, even incense has different meanings when
ethical and legal rules, and other sociocul­ it is burned at different times, and there are
tural components which make up their
public “selves.” (Turner, 1986, p. 24)
different kinds of incense. “The master-of­
ceremonies, priest, producer, director creates
Through cultural performances many art from the ensemble of media and codes, just
people both construct and participate in “pub­ as a conductor in the single genre of classical
lic” life. Particularly for poor and marginal­ music blends and opposes the sounds of the
ized people denied access to middle-class different instruments to produce an often unre­
“public” forums, cultural performance peatable effect” (Turner, 1986, p. 23).
becomes the venue for “public discussion” of Turner encourages ethnographers to study
vital issues central to their communities, as the interplay of performance codes, focusing
well as an arena for gaining visibility and stag­ on their syntactic relationships rather than
ing their identity. Nancy Fraser’s (1990, p. 67) their semantics (1986, pp. 23–24):
concept of “subaltern counterpublics” is very
useful: “ . . . arenas where members of subor­ It is worth pointing out, too, that it is not,
as some structuralists have argued, a matter
dinated social groups invent and circulate
of emitting the same message in different
counterdiscourses, which in turn permit them media and codes, the better to underline it
to formulate oppositional interpretations of by redundancy. The “same” message in dif­
their identities, interests, and needs.” ferent media is really a set of subtly variant
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Rethinking Ethnography 361

messages, each medium contributing its knowing, a method of critical inquiry, a mode
own generic message to the message con­ of understanding? What are the epistemo­
veyed through it. The result is something
logical and ethical entailments of performing
like a hall of mirrors—magic mirrors, each
interpreting as well as reflecting the images ethnographic texts and fieldnotes? What are
beamed to it, and flashed from one to the the range and varieties of performance modes
others. and styles that can enable interpretation and
understanding?
The polysemic nature of cultural perfor­
4. Performance and Scholarly Representa­
mances “makes of these genres flexible and
tion. What are the rhetorical problematics of
nuanced instruments capable of carrying and
performance as a complementary or alterna­
communicating many messages at once, even
tive form of “publishing” research? What are
of subverting on one level what it appears
the differences between reading an analysis of
to be “saying” on another” (Turner, 1986,
fieldwork data, and hearing the voices from
p. 24). The performance paradigm is an alter­
the field interpretively filtered through the
native to the atemporal, decontextualized,
voice of the researcher? For the listening audi­
flattering approach of text-positivism.
ence of peers? For the performing ethnogra­
Rethinking the “world as text” to the
pher? For the people whose lived experience is
“world as performance” opens up new ques­
the subject matter of the ethnography? What
tions that can be clustered around five inter­
about enabling the people themselves to per­
secting planes of analyses:
form their own experience? What are the epis­
temological underpinnings and institutional
1. Performance and Cultural Process.
practices that would legitimate performance as
What are the conceptual consequences of
a complementary form of research publication?
thinking about culture as a verb instead of a
noun, process instead of product? Culture as 5. The Politics of Performance. What is
unfolding performative invention instead of the relationship between performance and
reified system, structure, or variable? What power? How does performance reproduce,
happens to our thinking about performance enable, sustain, challenge, subvert, critique,
when we move it outside of Aesthetics and and naturalize ideology? How do perfor­
situate it at the center of lived experience? mances simultaneously reproduce and resist
hegemony? How does performance accommo­
2. Performance and Ethnographic Praxis.
date and contest domination?
What are the methodological implications of
thinking about fieldwork as the collaborative
The most work has been done in Numbers
performance of an enabling fiction between
One, Two, and Five, particularly One.
observer and observed, knower and known?
Although we still need to think more deeply
How does thinking about fieldwork as perfor­
and radically about the performative nature of
mance differ from thinking about fieldwork as
culture, Erving Goffman, Kenneth Burke, Dell
the collection of data? Reading of texts? How
Hymes, and a host of other social theorists
does the performance model shape the con­
have already set the stage. The expansive reach
duct of fieldwork? Relationship with the
of conceptualizing performance as the agency
people? Choices made in the field? Positional­
for constituting and reconstituting culture,
ity of the researcher?
leads from performance as Agency to perfor­
3. Performance and Hermeneutics. What mance as ultimate Scene: “All the world’s a
kinds of knowledge are privileged or displaced stage.” The popularity of Shakespeare’s adage
when performed experience becomes a way of notwithstanding, we scarcely have begun to
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362 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

unpack and understand the radical potential pitted against the Textual Paradigm, then its
of that idea. radical force will be coopted by yet another
Numbers Three and especially Four are the either/or binary construction that ultimately
most deeply subversive and threatening to the reproduces modernist thinking. The Perfor­
text-bound structure of the academy. It is one mance Paradigm will be most useful if it
thing to talk about performance as a model for decenters, without discarding, texts. I do not
cultural process, as a heuristic for understand­ imagine life in a university without books, nor
ing social life, as long as that performance- do I have any wish to stop writing myself. But
sensitive talk eventually gets “written up.” The I do want to keep thinking about what gets
intensely performative and bodily experience lost and muted in texts. And I want to think
of fieldwork is redeemed through writing. The about performance as a complement, alterna­
hegemony of inscribed texts is never challenged tive, supplement, and critique of inscribed
by fieldwork because, after all is said and done, texts. Following Turner and others, I want
the final word is on paper. Print publication is to keep opening up space for nondiscursive
the telos of fieldwork. It is interesting to note forms, and encouraging research and writing
that even the most radical deconstructions still practices that are performance-sensitive.
take place on the page. “Performance as a
Form of Scholarly Representation” challenges
RHETORICAL REFLEXIVITY
the domination of textualism.
Turner (1986, pp. 139–155) advocated, Far from displacing texts, contemporary
practiced, and wrote about performance as a ethnography is extremely interested in and self-
critical method for interpreting and intensifying conscious about its own text-making practices.
fieldwork data. It is quite another thing, politi­ There is widespread recognition of “the fact
cally, to move performance from hermeneutics that ethnography is, from beginning to end,
to a form of scholarly representation. That enmeshed in writing” (Clifford, 1988, p. 25).
move strikes at the heart of academic politics These writings are not innocent descriptions
and issues of scholarly authority. Talal Asad through which the other is transparently
points in this direction (1986, p. 159): revealed. “It is more than ever crucial for dif­
ferent peoples to form complex concrete
If Benjamin was right in proposing that images of one another,” Clifford affirms
translation may require not a mechanical (1988, p. 23), “as well as of the relationships of
reproduction of the original but a harmo­
nization with its intentio, it follows that
knowledge and power that connect them; but
there is no reason why this should be done no sovereign scientific method or ethical stance
only in the same mode. Indeed, it could be can guarantee the truth of such images. They
argued that “translating” an alien form of are constituted—the critique of colonial modes
life, another culture, is not always done best of representation has shown at least this
through the representational discourse of
much—in specific historical relations of domi­
ethnography, that under certain conditions
a dramatic performance, the execution of nance and dialogue.” Geertz (1988, p. 141)
a dance, or the playing of a piece of music argues that even “the pretense of looking at the
might be more apt. world directly, as though through a one-way
screen, seeing others as they really are when
If post-structuralist thought and the post- only God is looking . . . is itself a rhetorical
modern moment continue to open up received strategy, a mode of persuasion.”
categories and established canons, more of this Ethnography is being rethought in funda­
experimentation with scholarly form might mentally rhetorical terms. Many of the
happen. If the Performance Paradigm simply is most influential books recently published in
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Rethinking Ethnography 363

ethnography are meta-rhetorical critiques. It exposition and the main source of his
seems that everyone in ethnography nowadays persuasive power is his enormous capacity
to construct visualizable representations
is a rhetorical critic. Many ethnographers now
of cultural phenomena—anthropological
believe that disciplinary authority is a matter transparencies. What he does: The main
of rhetorical strategy not scientific method. effect, and the main intent, of this magic
Geertz is perhaps most blunt about the essen­ lantern ethnography is to demonstrate that
tially rhetorical nature of ethnography (1988, the established frames of social perception,
pp. 143–144): those upon which we ourselves instinctively
rely, are fully adequate to whatever oddities
The capacity to persuade readers . . . that the transparencies may turn out to picture.
what they are reading is an authentic
account by someone personally acquainted According to Geertz (1988, p. 66) E-P pro­
with how life proceeds in some place, at duces a “see-er’s rhetoric.” With E-P’s texts,
some time, among some group, is the basis like all rhetorical practice, “the way of saying
upon which anything else ethnography
seeks to do . . . finally rests. The textual
is the what of saying” (1988, p. 68).
connection of the Being Here and the Being At a deep level, Geertz insightfully notes
There sides of anthropology, the imagina­ (1988, p. 70), E-P’s discussion of the Nuer and
tive construction of a common ground the Azande underwrite his own cultural ethos
between the Written At and the Written as much as they illuminate the other:
About . . . is the fons et origo of whatever
power anthropology has to convince anyone . . . it validates the ethnographer’s form of
of anything—not theory, not method, not life at the same time as it justifies those of his
even the aura of the professorial chair, subjects—and that it does the one by doing
consequential as these last may be. the other. The adequacy of the cultural cate­
gories of, in this case, university England,
Much of the current rethinking of ethnog­ to provide a frame of intelligible reasonings,
raphy has been sobered and empowered by creditable values, and familiar motivations
vigorous rhetorical critique of anthropological for such oddities as poison oracles, ghost
marriages, blood feuds, and cucumber sacri­
discourse.
fices recommends those categories as of
Geertz is foremost among ethnography’s somehow more than parochial importance.
practicing rhetorical critics. His rhetorical Whatever personal reasons, E-P may have
criticism of E.E. Evans-Pritchard’s (E-P) ethno­ had for being so extraordinarily anxious
graphic texts is exemplary (1988). He identi­ to picture Africa as a logical and prudential
place—orderly, straightforward and level­
fies E-P’s stylistic token as “drastic clarity”
headed, firmly modeled and open to view—
(1988, p. 68) that translates onto the page as in doing so he constructed a forceful
“a string of clean, well-lighted judgements, argument for the general authority of a cer­
unconditional statements so perspicuously tain conception of life. If it could undarken
presented that only the invincibly uninformed Africa, it could undarken anything.
will think to resist them,” a sort of “first-strike
assertiveness” (1988, p. 63). The rhetorical By bringing “Africans into a world
questions Geertz (1988, p. 64) puts to E-P’s conceived is deeply English terms” he thereby
texts are: “How (why? in what way? of what?) confirmed “the dominion of those terms”
does all this resolute informing inform?” His (1988, p. 70).
“deep reading” of E-P yields these insights Geertz as rhetorical critic moves beyond
(1988, p. 64): formalist analysis and situates ethnographic
texts within their distinctive institutional con­
How he does it: The outstanding character­ straints and engendering professional practices
istic of E-P’s approach to ethnographic (1988, pp. 129–130):
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364 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

However far from the groves of academe now to prosper, with that confidence shaken,
anthropologists seek out their subjects—a it must become aware. Attention to how it gets
shelved beach in Polynesia, a charred plateau its effects and what those are, to anthropology
in Amazonia; Akobo, Meknes, Panther on the page, is no longer a side issue, dwarfed
Burn—they write their accounts with the by problems of method and issues of theory.
world of lecterns, libraries, blackboards, and It . . . is rather close to the heart of the matter.
seminars all about them. This is the world
that produces anthropologists, that licenses Trinh (1989, p. 43) enacts this struggle
them to do the kind of work they do, and
within which the kind of work they do must
towards self-reflexive awareness of textual
find a place if it is to count as worth atten­ power in her book subtitled “Writing
tion. In itself, Being There is a postcard expe­ Postcoloniality and Feminism”: “ . . . what is
rience (‘I’ve been to Katmandu—have exposed in this text is the inscription and
you?’). It is Being Here, a scholar among de-scription of a non-unitary female subject of
scholars, that gets your anthropology
color through her engagement, therefore also
read . . . published, reviewed, cited, taught.
disengagement, with master discourses.”
It is ironic that the discipline of communica­
Geertz weights the Being Here writing it tion has been relatively unreflexive about the
down side of the axis. To be sure, ethnography rhetorical construction of its own disciplinary
on the page constrains and shapes perfor­ authority. It would be illuminating to critique
mance in the field. But it is also true, I believe, the rhetorical expectations and constraints
that experiential performance sometimes on articles published in the Quarterly Journal
resists, exceeds, and overwhelms the con­ of Speech, or Communication Monographs.
straints and strictures of writing. It is the task What kinds of knowledge, and their attendant
of rhetorical critics to seek out these sites discursive styles, get privileged, legitimated, or
of tension, displacement, and contradiction displaced? How does knowledge about com­
between the Being There of performed experi­ munication get constructed? What counts
ence and the Being Here of written texts. as an interesting question about human com­
This rhetorical self-reflexivity has helped munication? What are the tacitly observed
politicize ethnography: “The gap between boundaries—the range of appropriateness—
engaging others where they are and represent­ regarding the substance, methods, and discur­
ing them where they aren’t, always immense sive styles of communication scholarship? And,
but not much noticed, has suddenly become
most importantly for critical theorists, what
extremely visible. What once seemed only tech­ configuration of socio-political interests does
nically difficult, getting “their” lives into “our” communication scholarship serve? How does
works, has turned morally, politically, even professionally authorized knowledge about
epistemologically, delicate” (Geertz, 1988, communication articulate with relations of
p. 130). Ethnographic authority is the empow­ power? About the connection between a field
ering alignment between rhetorical strategy
of knowledge and relations of power, Michel
and political ideology. Once shielded by the Foucault (1979, p. 27) offers this sobering
mask of science, ethnographers now have insight: “ . . . power produces knowledge . . . ;
become acutely aware of the sources of their power and knowledge directly imply one
persuasive power (Geertz, 1988, pp. 148–149): another; . . . there is no power relation without
the correlative constitution of a field of knowl­
What it hasn’t been, and, propelled by the
moral and intellectual self-confidence of edge, nor any knowledge that does not presup­
Western Civilization, hasn’t so much had to pose and constitute at the same time power
be, is aware of the sources of its power. If it is relations.”
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Rethinking Ethnography 365

NOTE New York: Vintage Books. (Original work

published 1975)
*I borrow the term “critical cultural politics” Geertz, C. (1973). Interpretation of cultures.
from James Clifford (1988, p. 147). New York: Basic Books.
Geertz, C. (1983). Local knowledge: Further essays
in interpretive anthropology. New York: Basic
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1974) Ndembu ritual. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the other: How anthro­ Press.
pology makes its object. New York: Columbia Turner, V. (1986). The anthropology of perfor­
University Press. mance. New York: PAJ Publications.
Fernandez, J. (1986). Persuasions and perfor­ Tyler, S. (1987). The unspeakable: Discourse, dia­
mances: The play of tropes in culture. logue, and rhetoric in the postmodern world.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales from the field: On
contribution to the critique of actually existing writing ethnography. Chicago: University of
democracy. Social Text, 25/26, 56–80. Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The Wagner, R. (1980). The invention of culture (Rev.
birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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21
Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation
Leon Forrest’s Divine Days

DEREK GOLDMAN

To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to

agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his
whole life: with his eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds.
—Mikhail Bakhtin (1984, p. 293)

The things that I loved in life and wanted to convert and transform into literature
were themselves filled with the yeast of chaos. There was a tension between disci­
pline and chaos. My battles were between the flesh and the spirit; they were about
the question of race, about the question of how to write out of a sensibility of
oppressed people, about the fact that so many of the heroes of that drama were
people filled with rage and chaos who eventually lost their lives in the struggle.
—Leon Forrest (as quoted in McQuade, 1995, p. 45)

I n 1998 at Northwestern University, I

directed a group of 25 performers, 21 of
whom were African American, in the premiere
as part of Northwestern’s “mainstage” season.
I had the privilege of working closely with
Forrest over the last year of his life to develop
of Divine Days, my stage adaptation of Leon the script, and much of the richness of this pro­
Forrest’s epic novel of African American life. ject was rooted in the uncanny ways the content
The work was presented in the Barber Theatre and themes of the production were embedded

366
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 367

in the process. In positioning the Divine problems of originating belong in the middle
Days project as a field site for the multilayered because they are central to the interpretation”
processes of adaptation, especially as they (p. 32). Often we conceptualize the processes
involve the politics of identity and race in the of both literary adaptation and ethnography
context of cultural production within and as having “origins” that can be traced back to
among an overwhelmingly white institutional a source which preexists the adapter or ethno­
apparatus, this essay explores convergences grapher’s transformation of them into a new
between ethnography and theatrical practice (in form. Forrest’s work underscores the disparate
particular the adaptation of literature for the nature of origins as well as how this theme
stage), endeavors that are often reductively mis­ acquires particularly complex, tragic meanings
cast as separate wings of performance studies. in relationship to African American expressive
Dwight Conquergood has noted that schol­ culture. The Divine Days process was a living
ars in performance studies are “committed to reminder that origins are not fixed, singular
the excavation of the political underpinnings points of departure but are rather like veins,
of all modes of representation” (1991, p. 179), bloodlines that run through bodies, spinning
and this essay posits that adaptation is a par­ out from the center to produce sweat, blood,
ticularly fertile site of and methodology for and motion.
this process of cultural and political excava­ The dictionary defines adapt as “to make fit
tion. As Norman Denzin emphasizes in his (as for a specific or new use or situation) often
recent book Performance Ethnography: by modification,” and also as “to bring one
Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Culture into correspondence with another.” I am con­
(2003), these issues become particularly vexed ceptualizing adaptation as both a transforma­
in the context of performed practices of race, tional activity central to how performance
whether in everyday life, textual representa­ operates as an “embodied practice of making
tion, or staged production. To the extent that meaning” (Pollock, 1998, p. 20), and as a crit­
adaptation has at times been ghettoized as a ical trope for a large range of encounters, of
formalist practice rather than a worldly and efforts “to make fit,” and “correspondences
politicized one, adapters and directors have with one another” that emerge within what
not always been able to deploy the full range ethnographer Roger Lancaster has evocatively
of its resources for the understanding, cele­ called “the density of real-life experience”
bration, and transformation of, for example, (1992, p. 282). Throughout our journey to
complex raced identities. Building on the bring Divine Days to the stage, I developed
contributions of Henry Giroux, Denzin envi­ an ever-deepening appreciation of adapta­
sions a project that “will connect reflexive tion, not only as an artistic practice but as
autoethnography with critical pedagogy and a life process, as an extension of and corollary
critical race theory [and] . . . will necessarily to ethnographic practice, as a fundamental
treat political acts as pedagogical and perfor­ dimension of performance pedagogy, as an
mative, as acts that open new spaces for social embodied mode of critical engagement, and as
citizenship and democratic dialogue, as acts a laboratory for exploring questions of iden­
that create critical race consciousness” (p. 5). tity and race, textual fidelity and authority,
In her performative ethnography Tango and the operations of power—both within and
and the Political Economy of Passion (1995), beyond a given text.
Marta Savigliano argues that “Origins should Among other things, the Divine Days project
not be gotten out of the way at the beginning provided me with a critical lens into the culture
so the interpretation can proceed. Rather, of privilege I was inhabiting at a private,
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368 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

expensive, predominantly white, Eurocentric, Metahistory (1975) and Michel de Certeau’s

“Research 1” university. As I attempt here a The Writing of History (1988): “There are
kind of autoethnographic restaging of a few demonstrable fictions of ethnography in the
of the salient features of this project, my own constitution of knowledge, power and author­
positionality is a source of discomfort and con­ ity in anthropological texts, and . . . we may
tradiction. On the one hand I fear that I unwit­ also consider fiction as ethnography” (p. 16).
tingly minimize my own sense of complicity in Visweswaran argues that while the disciplines
aspects of Eurocentric privilege that this project of fiction and ethnography each set out to con­
has, I think, helped me to begin to view differ­ struct “a believable world,” they differ in that
ently. At worst, I risk depicting myself as a readers are meant to reject the factual quality
kind of gunslinging lone cultural hero, a soli­ of fiction, while they are meant to accept
tary cowboy who rides into a border town and ethnography’s “factual” claims. However,
kicks up dust as he toils to expose the igno­ Visweswaran goes on to state that,
rance (or blind privilege) of its inhabitants. In
fact nothing could be further from my actual Even this distinction breaks down if we
experience of the Divine Days project, in which consider that ethnography, like fiction,
I was constantly astounded, not by own role constructs existing or possible worlds, all
the while retaining the idea of an alternate
as an agent of transformation but, on the con­
“made” world. Ethnography, like fiction,
trary, by the sense that its most profound no matter its pretense to present a self-
meanings were either “happening to me,” or contained narrative or cultural whole,
were embedded in scenes in which my role felt remains incomplete and detached from the
like that of an attentive bystander, especially as realms to which it points.” (1994, p. 1)
more and more of the social dramas the project
engendered were being played out outside of In treating the Divine Days process as an
my orbit. As I attempt to write about the pro­ ethnographic field site, I am triangulating the
ject, I find myself walking a tightrope familiar relationship between fiction and ethnography
to others who engage in intercultural work investigated by Visweswaran by adding the
from positions of power and relative privilege practice of adapting literature for the stage
(e.g., most ethnographers and stage directors), (including both the scripting and staging
one that has been evocatively summed up by processes). Clearly the dynamics I discuss as
Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean, in their characteristic of the adaptation process over­
introduction to The Spivak Reader: lap significantly with dimensions of theatrical
practice more generally (the staging of plays),
Whenever we set about reading “our” texts just as, of course, not all texts one would adapt
and find them leading us obsessively back to for the stage would open up the kinds of ques­
ourselves, it is a good idea not to stop there, tions around politics and power I am describ­
with ourselves as centers of meaning, but
rather to go on and to think through the
ing here. Still it troubles me that as surveys of
possibility that the personal might necessar­ the field of performance studies are written,
ily lead us outside “ourselves” to the politi­ adaptation as an interpretive artistic practice is
cal. (Spivak, 1996, p. 12) usually omitted, suggesting a lack of recogni­
tion of a significant current in performance
In Fictions of Feminist Ethnography studies with a long historical and professional
(1994), Kamala Visweswaran discusses the trajectory. For example, Marvin Carlson’s
deep connections between fiction and ethnog­ Performance: A Critical Introduction (1996)
raphy, calling to mind analogous projects link­ and Richard Schechner’s Performance Studies:
ing history and fiction such as Hayden White’s An Introduction (2003) ignore the practices of
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 369

performing and adapting literature in their and reconfigure their ideas, and become
respective surveys of the field, and the annual transformed. Indeed adaptation seemed to swirl
conferences held by Performance Studies inter­ around and through all aspects of the Divine
national have featured essentially no engage­ Days project—as a craft, an image, a defining
ment with the subject of adaptation. trope, a pedagogical practice, a survival mecha­
By contrast, Paul Edwards’ monograph nism, and as a way of being in the world.
“Unstoried: Teaching Literature in the Age of
Performance Studies” (1999) offers a richly
ADAPTATION AND THE
detailed institutional history of the performance
CRAFT OF ETHNOGRAPHY:
of literature and its evolution out of the elocu­
“SENSUOUS FIDELITY”
tionary movement, through oral interpreta­
tion’s transformation into performance studies, Divine Days can be at once read as a literary
and into a fraught present featuring what Judith ethnography, as a social and cultural history,
Hamera has characterized as “the now irrevo­ as a jazz oratorio, as an homage to orality, as
cable loss of a commitment” by the field “to the an autobiography, and as a kind of “critical
oral interpretation of literature” (1998, p. 273). race study.” Published in 1992, its 1,135 pages
Mary Strine suggests that the “cultural turn” draw heavily upon the rhythms and cadences
which precipitated a “virtual eclipse of interest of jazz to depict one transformative week in
in literature” has within it the potential to offer 1966 in the life of the narrating hero, the young
a return to literature “now as always a politi­ playwright Joubert Antoine Jones. During this
cally inflected cultural form and potentially week Joubert makes many interrelated discov­
empowering practice” (1998, p. 4). Many per­ eries about his own identity and cultural
formance studies students come to know adap­ legacy, which together mark a turning point in
tation and the performance of literature as what his development as an African American artist.
Edwards calls a “core interdisciplinary activity” Central among these is his epiphany about
(1999, p. 15) that directly engages the kinds the complex meanings of the death of the
of questions around power and politics central legendary and mythic figure of Sugar-Groove,
to courses in performance theory, cultural a shape-shifting mentor who dies on a moun­
studies, and ethnography. Conquergood speaks taintop seeking the meaning of life. It is
to this when he urges performance scholars Joubert’s developing understanding of the sig­
“to embrace a both/and complexity, instead of nificance of his inheritance of Sugar-Groove’s
an either/or polarization” (1989, p. 84). legacy that will ultimately lead to his coming
Through the Divine Days project, I came to of age as a man and as a writer. Joubert’s quest
see adaptations as more than theatricalized is to “adapt” the voices and stories of his
versions of the text but as dialogic and full- people into plays, and thus to foster a “Black
fledged cultural performances, described by literary revival” through performance.
Della Pollock as “performances on the edge The range of characters and situations with
of everyday life . . . that combine special roles, which Joubert comes into contact reflects the
rules and structures in the process of defining tremendous diversity of black life. He moves
cultural experience” (1990, p. 4). As the between members of the black middle class and
process unfolded, the adaptation and the those in artistic and intellectual circles, from
source text each appeared to flicker between the most impoverished citizens to preachers,
states of self-centeredness and of selflessness, healers, tricksters, criminals, derelicts, soldiers,
much like two people in intimate conversa­ and political zealots. As John Cawelti points
tion, who alternatively assert, listen, make out: “It is surely no exaggeration to say that
eye contact, avert each other’s gaze, reassert Divine Days is the most encyclopedic account
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370 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

yet created of the whole range of contempo­ undergirds the primacy of objectivity is the
rary African-American urban culture” (1997, false notion that we acquire perspective by
p. 58). The novel is about adaptation, and stepping away. Rosaldo suggests that culture’s
Joubert takes a profoundly ethnographic richest meanings emerge when we are in
approach in his efforts to sculpt a vast array of motion, operating dynamically and often
cultural experiences into performance. messily from inside the fray of culture.
Leon frequently pointed out during our Joubert’s apprehension about his own inextri­
collaboration that our relationship had pro­ cable and radically subjective ties to the cul­
nounced parallels to that between Joubert and ture and history he wants to address in his
Sugar-Groove in Divine Days. At many levels, plays is central to what he learns and comes to
he observed, I was Joubert, the young play­ accept through the process of Divine Days:
wright “trying to listen to those voices wher­
ever they take me,” and he was the mythic Out of my burden with the bones I can
mentor Sugar-Groove, ultimately dying on the reshape a new kind of theater. To write not
mountaintop, and imparting the wisdom from so much about the characters, but rather out
of their fabulous sagas and tales, in an imag­
the song “Nature Boy” that haunts the novel:
inative, and honest manner, so that they
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to finally, merely supply my imagination with
love and be loved in return.” Leon’s passion for the yeast, the spirit for a creative, zealous,
performance, the fact that his grandson was a thriving and throbbing theater. (Forrest,
student at Northwestern whom I had mentored 1992, p. 977)
and who had appeared in several productions
that I directed (and ultimately in Divine Days), Joubert’s artistic mission “to reshape out of
and the reality that Leon was very ill with [his] burden with the bones” carries with it the
prostate cancer throughout our relationship all recognition that these voices come simultane­
contributed to deepening and complicating the ously from within and from outside, and that
intimacy between us. It also focused for me the his writing cannot be separated from his active
implications of adaptation as a dialogic process participation in his own life and culture. What
made in this case more urgent, intense, and Joubert articulates and struggles with through­
vital by the complex dynamics of race and by out the novel is his own vision of the
the immediate claims of mortality. As Joubert playwright/adapter as a kind of critical ethno­
tries to come to terms with the death of Sugar- grapher, attuned to the ethical dimensions of
Groove, he is visited and haunted by the many his work, and sensitive to the problems of
voices that make up his heritage, and that appropriation. His distinction between writing
inform his work as a playwright: “about” the characters, and finding an honest
way to communicate “out of” the reality of
But why and how do these voices select me their worlds parallels the distinction ethnogra­
to do their talking and their bidding? To tell pher Johannes Fabian draws when he calls
their troubles to? Why do they talk to me? for doing ethnography with a group of
Their returning and revolving presence spins
me into re-creation as they transform them­
people rather than of them (1990, p. 259),
selves through me; and I through their ever- transforming the traditional relationship
expanding presence in my life, am racked between observer and observed into a form of
forevermore. They are determined simply partnership.
and cunningly to live. (Forrest, 1992, p. 12) For Fabian and for Joubert, as for perfor­
mance ethnographers ranging from Conquer-
Renato Rosaldo (1989) points out that the good to Anna Deavere Smith, the process
spatial paradigm which epistemologically becomes about an embodied form of active
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 371

listening, akin to what Conquergood has called political, and ethnographic concern as well.
dialogical performance: “This performative The kind of embodied listening that Taussig
stance struggles to bring together different and Joubert Jones describe is “sensuous” in
voices, world views, value systems and beliefs that the ears are not all that one needs to carry
so that they can have a conversation with one it out, but rather, as described by Mikhail
another. The aim of dialogical performance is Bakhtin, it is a process one engages “with his
to bring self and other together so that they can eyes, lips, hands, soul, spirit, with his whole
question, debate and challenge one another.” body and deeds” (1984, p. 293).
(1985, p. 9). The “conversation” that Conquer-
good champions requires an exceptional kind
of listening, one that is foundational to the craft The Adaptation of
of the ethnographer, the fiction writer, the Institutional Spaces and Contexts
adapter, and the stage director. The new space . . . is formed by
Michael Taussig has asserted that “the the inwardness of the outside, the
wonder of mimesis lies in the copy drawing on interiority of the “othered,” the
the character and power of the original, to the personal that is always embedded
point whereby the representation may even in the public. In this new space
assume that character and power” (1993, one can imagine safety without
p. xiii). Thus the process of mimetically “mak­ walls, can iterate difference that is
ing over” becomes an act of full-fledged prized but unprivileged, and can
originality, of remaking, or of imaginative conceive of a . . . world “already
remembering. Applying Taussig’s concept of made for me, both snug and wide
“sensuous fidelity” to the adaptation process open, with a doorway never need­
suggests that the adapted work, in its simulta­ ing to be closed.” Home.
neous endeavor to honor the polyphonic rich­
ness of its source and to remake this source —Toni Morrison (1998, p. 4)
in a new form, can derive “magical, soulful
power” from it through the very process of
undertaking to represent it. The craft of adap­ Many of the black students involved in
tation is suffused with this highly charged rela­ Divine Days indicated that they had previ­
tionship “between fidelity and fantasy,” about ously seen themselves as the unnamed antago­
which Taussig pleads with us to “please nists to what Joseph Roach has termed the
remember how high the stakes are here, insin­ performances of “gendered whiteness” (1996,
uated with the struggle for life” (p. 17). p. 31) that dominated the campus mainstream.
Joubert Jones is deeply attuned to these The adaptation and staging of the novel was,
“stakes” when he asks searchingly in Divine among other things, an attempt to create a
Days, “What must I do to produce a Black lit­ new space. The rhetorical power of this space
erary revival, in order to be saved? First of all emerged largely from the fact that the space
shut up my mouth! And listen to those voices carved out by the project was simultaneously
wherever they take me” (Forrest, 1992, p. 12). operating in each of the three terrains Henri
The concept of “sensuous fidelity” suggests Lefebvre names in The Production of Space—
a fully corporeal, dialogical commitment to lis­ the physical, the mental, and the social (1991,
tening to the source in a manner that is neither pp. 11–12).
overly self-effacing nor overly self-serving. For Perhaps the most radical problematic that
Taussig, as for Joubert Jones, this is not just an contributed to the project being resistant and
issue of artistic representation, but an ethical, threatening was its status as part of the
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372 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

campus mainstream. So many of its meanings called a “borderlands” existence. Within these
were negotiated, not on the fringe, but “in the borders and border crossings reside tense
same place as power” (Foucault, 1980, p. 142). intersections of power and difference, as well
Several African American students whom I as heightened opportunities for “creative cul­
knew well had expressed to me in confidence tural production” (1989, p. 208). I occupied
their own and their friends’ ambivalence or this borderlands turf anxiously. I felt keenly
hostility toward the Theatre and Interpretation aware that I was not always welcome, and
Center at Northwestern, and the institution of that not everybody assumed I had good inten­
the “mainstage” season that resides there, of tions. The mainstage production season at
which the production of Divine Days would Northwestern is made up of more than ten
be a part. These students articulated their productions annually, of which Divine Days
sense that this had heretofore been a place was the only one produced by the perfor­
from which they were excluded, and that they mance studies department (the others were
had developed their own vibrant artistic and produced by the theatre department). As soon
community forums in other spaces where they as I proposed Divine Days as a mainstage pro­
felt more at home. ject, there was controversy and hesitation
During the period in which I was begin­ from members of the theatre department, most
ning work on Divine Days, Khalid Abdul notably because of the number of African
Muhammad visited the Northwestern campus, American performers I was seeking. In the ten
amidst much protest from the campus Hillel years since I had begun as an undergraduate
organization and other student groups. In his student at Northwestern, there had been very
preceding visit to Kean College Muhammad few roles for African Americans on the main-
had said: “Jews are hook-nosed, bagel-eatin,’ stage, and even fewer projects that featured
lox-eatin’ impostors. . . . Everybody always this community in any substantive way. Taken
talks about Hitler eliminating six million Jews. together, the theatre and performance studies
But nobody ever asks what did they do to departments had an extremely small number
Hitler?” (Austen, 1994, p. 67). During the of African American majors, and quite natu­
same period, Northwestern had been on the rally people wondered where I would find the
national news for incidents of racial hatred black actors. Predictably, some also wondered
on campus. Muhammad’s visit to campus was aloud about the appropriateness of me direct­
adamantly supported by many of the very ing such a large-scale “black” production. The
students and student groups I was approach­ chair of performance studies tried to deflect
ing to talk with about Divine Days (and vehe­ these objections by underscoring the fact that
mently criticized by other groups with which I I had worked extensively creating perfor­
was allied). It was certainly more than peculiar mance in inner city environments and inter­
one evening to walk directly through a protest cultural contexts, as well as developing and
organized by the campus Hillel to attend a directing numerous multicultural productions
meeting in an attempt to recruit and build con­ through my professional theatre company
nections with the African American commu­ StreetSigns. Others commented in my defense
nity for our project. But this crossing soon that the fact that Forrest, the chair of African
became for me emblematic of the threshold American studies, had entrusted his work
work of the production: the innumerable to me and was so supportive of the project
crossings and adaptations that brought multi­ should be “good enough.”
ple worlds into creative collision. While I was gratified by their responses, I
As I embarked on the Divine Days project, worried about the paradoxical nature of my
I was conscious of entering what Rosaldo has own motivations. As I worked to subvert the
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 373

claims that the project was impossible, was I standard flyers and sign-up sheets in the
guilty of espousing a romanticized and self- theatre building was not going to suffice. The
serving notion of how the project would trans­ fact that there were so few African American
form the community, while suppressing the majors in theatre and performance studies
ways it might be motivated by my own per­ made this recruitment process especially diffi­
sonal goals and desire for prestige? During this cult (and crucial), because students would
time I found it hard to separate the “artistic” have to be sold on the fact that this extracur­
unease I felt, largely rooted in my desire to do ricular activity was worthy of an immense
justice to Leon and his text, from vexation investment of their time away from their other
about my fraught positionality in terms of the commitments; my friends at AATE had com­
project’s implications around power and rep­ mented that it was hard to draw African
resentation. In each context, the force of adap­ American students even to their projects,
tation seemed to be manifesting less in its because so many of them were, for example,
capacity to effect benign or eloquent transfor­ pre-med students, and did not have the luxury
mations than in its potential to be transgres­ of compromising their academic commitments
sive, and even to inflict violence. I found or risking grade slippage to commit to
myself increasingly apprehensive about who extracurricular work.
or what might be on the other end of this The Theatre and Interpretation Center is
unwitting violence (e.g., Forrest’s text, my only yards away from areas that African
own authority or reputation, the health of the American students populate comfortably and
larger community, the good-faith commit­ habitually (the Norris Student Center, for
ments of others who invested in the process). example), but there was an abyss to overcome.
I had developed relationships with a During the recruitment process, Leon and I
number of African American students who arranged an information session and reading
had become involved with the African- from the evolving script, with both of us pre­
American Theatre Ensemble (AATE), a group sent, to be held at the Norris Student Center.
that functioned as an alternative space for The selection of this space was itself the result
African American performance work on cam­ of much strategizing. Initially it had been
pus, and whose student productions I had planned in the Theatre and Interpretation
admired. A handful of these students had been Center, and an African American student of
in courses I had taught, or had participated in mine suggested that there would be black
other smaller productions I had staged. AATE people who might not attend if we held it
had used Shanley Pavilion as its performance there. In this sense the spatial values of campus
space, a charming, somewhat ramshackle site places became pointed and dramatically
outside the institutional confines of the theatre heightened, creating both additional possibili­
building and the department. From my discus­ ties and challenges for adaptation across literal
sions with students, it was clear that most of and figurative thresholds.
them felt extremely ambivalent (and several At this time Leon’s health was very precari­
were downright hostile) towards the “main- ous. He was being shuttled in and out of the
stage” apparatus, and even towards the build­ hospital numerous times each week, and he
ing where the mainstage theatres and all the had not had the strength to be on campus,
theatre classrooms were housed. or anywhere else in public, for some time.
It was apparent to me from the outset of Nonetheless we were talking daily at this point,
our work on Divine Days that I would have to and I was paying regular visits to his home and
operate outside the standard paradigm of how to Evanston Hospital. He suggested that we go
a mainstage production is cast. Putting up the ahead and plan a date for this event and he
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374 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

would do the best he could to make it, but that performers and representatives from campus
it was unlikely. On each day that we spoke he organizations. As he walked in the room in
would bring this meeting up and reassure him­ Norris and crossed the threshold from private
self about the date, the time, and the space. It to public space, from absence to presence, he
was clear to me how desperately he wanted to seemed to enact the mortal stakes in the pro­
attend, in order to signal to the community his ject, putting his own health literally on the line
personal investment in the project. His wife to underscore and mitigate the raced identity
Marianne later told me that Leon had worried issues that essentially defined the project. In
aloud a great deal about this session, repeat­ this way we began the long process of adapting
edly stating his concern that members of the the novel to the space and the space to the
community might try to “chew Derek up and novel, conjoining their respective politics in a
spit him out for his audacity.” way that amplified each in relation to the other
Very early on the morning of the event he and began to bring both home.
phoned me, sounding extremely weak, and It was clear that the event that afternoon
said that his attendance did not look promis­ took an enormous amount out of Leon, and,
ing. I reassured him that it would be produc­ when I drove him home, he was visibly weak.
tive even without him, and encouraged him to When I dropped him off, he sighed deeply,
rest and take care. Internally, though, I wor­ kissed me, and added, “Well, that went
ried about his absence, especially since he him­ exactly the way I hoped it would.” It was
self had seemed so concerned about the equally clear to me that while the project
community’s response. I knew that a number might now occupy a more powerful and viable
of people were planning to attend just to see position on campus, from the perspective of
Leon, as he had not been on campus much for many potential participants my authority was
several months, and I wondered about the absolutely borrowed from Leon, and would
mood in the room when I explained that he remain provisional and subject to continual
would not be there. negotiation.
Leon not only showed up that afternoon,
but he spoke with eloquence and read force­
ADAPTATION AS
fully from the script, his voice quaking with
CRITICAL PEDAGOGY
intensity, to the assembled students, faculty
members, and campus administrators. As Many of the performers in the Divine Days
depleted as he was, he remained a very fine production had the opportunity to take an
performer of his own writing. Bruce advanced course, developed around Forrest’s
Rosenberg has described his reading of his novel and related issues of performance and
own work as characterized by “a preacher’s adaptation, which I taught immediately prior
histrionic skill: intonation, gesture, expression, to the rehearsal process. I defined the course as
and eye contact are all active” (1997, p. 125), “a scholarly performance workshop,” in
and this afternoon was no exception. which the focus would be the adaptation and
The reading seemed the perfect enactment staging of Divine Days. I also saw it as a vital
of all the claims about the project I had felt opportunity to rehearse the processes of
myself straining to make. The attendees went ensemble-making and community-building
away energized and the project now felt infi­ that I felt were crucial to the success of the
nitely more possible; we were underway. production. My greatest hope was that the
Through his own determination, Leon brought sense of community engendered in this forum
the great weight of his tenuous presence to bear would not only establish a strong foundation
on the space of my interaction with potential for the rehearsal process, but would create a
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 375

space where race relations and issues of across the circle. There was something joyously
power could be discussed and performatively bad about what she was saying that seemed, at
explored within what for some was the previ­ least for the moment, to connect and to liber­
ously unfamiliar (or inhospitable) territory of ate us. In that apparently cathartic release,
Northwestern’s Theatre and Interpretation she was uttering a kind of secret. Her speech
Center. The students created an expansive acted to create not only a “they,” but to posit
range of often intertextual performances a “we,” to generate a collective “us” already
throughout the course, and there were myriad bonded even if in a tentative and fragile way.
ways in which adaptation became a tool for Her cry seemed to acknowledge that our pro­
negotiating the text through and in relation to ject might forge what Darlene Clark Hine and
their own diverse identities, institutional rela­ others have called a “culture of dissemblance”
tionships, and life histories. In this way adap­ (2000, p. 20), replete with opportunities for
tation became a methodology for pursuing “talking back” and for signifying. In so doing
what Giroux has termed “border pedagogy,” she performed community by effectively citing
in which knowledge and power come together the terms of our mutual identification.
“not to merely reaffirm difference but to inter­ As we proceeded to talk that day, the “they”
rogate it, to open up broader theoretical con­ that the student had invoked so vividly contin­
siderations, to tease out its limitations, and ued to be dramatized. “They” grew in stature,
to engage a vision of community in which and it became clear that this “they,” however
student voices define themselves in terms of elusive to define, was an important character in
their distinct social formations and their our community—one of the main ingredients
broader collective hopes” (1992, p. 29). out of which our project might forge a mean­
To my surprise, 26 students enrolled, 17 of ingful “we.” As we spoke of this “they” on that
whom were African American. These students first day, an African American student who
constituted a cross-section of undergraduates had never previously taken a performance class
and graduate students, as well as representing aligned his feelings about being black at
a wide variety of majors and areas of interest. Northwestern with W. E. B. DuBois’s notion of
On the first day of the course, as we went “double consciousness,” which DuBois defines
around the circle introducing ourselves, one of as a “contradiction of double aims” felt by
the three African American theatre majors in those “striving to be . . . co-worker[s] in the
the room—indulging in a moment of deliber­ kingdom of culture” (1989, p. 51). As described
ate parody and carnivalization which seemed by David Lionel Smith, the black intellectual
to broadcast explosively the subtext of the becomes implicated in white culture through
moment—stood, shrieked, shook, fell over, education, and in black culture through social,
and cried out: “Yes, black people! I never political, and emotional ties, “thereby repre­
thought I’d see so many black people in this senting both and neither” (1998, p. 186).
place! They’re never going to believe this!” to Several of the white students also offered that
a chorus of laughter and applause from the they felt they were experiencing a new sensation
other students. of “double-consciousness” in a class dominated
As the student continued to play the scene, by African Americans. One student said, “It’s
mining it for all its mimetic excess, lying flat on strange to have walked into this theatre hun­
her back in slapstick ecstasy and letting her dreds of times, and to walk in today and, for the
repeated cries of “Black people! Black people!” first time feel like an outsider.”1 Her comments
resolve into a kind of ceaseless, fervent whis­ suggest the ways in which the context of this
per, the rest of us seemed to celebrate too, course racialized whiteness in a way that felt
though a bit more timidly, as our eyes met new for many of the students.
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376 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

Throughout the course, students would double-consciousness, taking on Hans’s “split­

build on and deepen the precedent they estab­ ness,” his “lost-found-ness,” in bodily terms.
lished the first day, which Giroux argues is a For some students, this splitness manifested as
central feature of border pedagogy, as students the constricted dance of a tightrope-walker,
are given the opportunity “to air their feelings while for others it evoked more violent kines­
about race from the perspective of the subject thetic sensations, such as bodies being pulled
positions they experience as constitutive of apart to the persistent sounds of diabolically
their own identities” (1992, p. 137). They loud sawing. These performances engaged
would also replay these identities through the the doubleness of self and literary Other to
sensuous, affective work of performance, shift­ address the complexities of being torn by twin
ing from a constitutive to a performative sense identifications with whiteness and blackness.
of identity. It was through that trickster-shift In so doing, they performed the function of
that we began to explore and to define the finding and communicating the echoes of
many facets of the adaptation process together. raced binarisms in our immediate context.
One of the first assignments for the class As several of the students who participated
was to develop performances from the first in the course but were not in the cast of the
sections of the Divine Days text, where they production pointed out to me, the ghosts of
found the theme of “double-consciousness” the Hans Henson performances were visible
that was so central to our first discussion six months later in the production onstage,
reflected through the figure of the “lost­ manifesting both as specific choices about, for
found” mulatto orphan Hans Henson, who example, character movement and gesture, but,
haunts the narrating hero Joubert. The figure more profoundly, as a kind of stylistic founda­
of Hans Henson embodies the split between tion for many aspects of the overall work,
whiteness and blackness, a split many of the including elements of its choreography, design,
students, black and white, connected to and musicality, choral work, and acting style. In
about which many students chose to create this and other performance rounds, students
introductory performances. also built on Forrest’s and Joubert’s extensive
use of intertextuality by juxtaposing and riffing
Yes, I am a black orphan nigger child of the between Forrest’s text and any number of
world—with a German mother and a black other critical, literary, and musical texts. These
G.I. American father—that’s what I see and embodied, critical “stagings” posited adapta­
hear about me and that’s that. Half of me is tion as not only a technique we might use on a
black and the other half is white. That’s like
a joke too at the circus, where a clown is
text, but as a richly dialogic way of engaging
outfitted in a suit of two colors. But the with, against, and across texts.
world in my case can’t see the white half As the course progressed and we moved
looking for the black half, when actually deeper into the book, the students’ eventually
I’m yellow. So be it. (Forrest, 1992, p. 20) found W. E. B. DuBois’s notion of double-
consciousness directly alluded to, and in fact
The performances the students in the course critiqued, by the character of the fair-skinned
created about Hans Henson were at once Negro reporter Warren Wilkerson, whom
adaptations of Forrest’s text and of the Joubert encounters at the end of his journey to
students’ own polysemic identities, predica­ uncover the mystery of the death of his mentor
ments, personal investments in the project, Sugar-Groove. Sitting up in bed in the nursing
and reactions to the material. Without being home sucking on a bottle of Old Forester
directed to, more than half of the students whiskey “like an ancient white monkey,” the
began to physicalize Hans’s (and their own) 87-year-old Wilkerson pontificates:
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 377

That will to synthesize was what DuBois The Divine Days course left me with the
never understood . . . to absorb and rein­ conviction that to teach adaptation is to riff
vent; to take it all in and to masticate it,
on any number of the binary divisions that
and process it, and spew it back out, as
lyrical and soaring as a riff by Father have characterized double-consciousness in
Louie. . . . DuBois never understood that the American cultural imagination, such as
with his double consciousness theories. those between the teacher who knows and
(Forrest, 1992, p. 889) the student who learns, artistic and intellec­
tual production, oral interpretation and
In one of the final class sessions, the same performance studies, cultural politics and aes­
student who had referred to DuBois on the thetic practice. Understood in this way, adap­
first day pointed us to this Wilkerson passage. tation may be a crucial means of dismantling
He spoke of how right Wilkerson/Forrest and reinventing power structures that those
was, how the process and the text had actually binaries have held in place. To teach adapta­
transformed his initial sense of “double­ tion is to conceptualize literature as a space
consciousness”: out of which to make meanings rather than as
merely a place to find them. It is to accentuate
I really get what Wilkerson is saying. It’s the students’ intellectual, political, and artistic
more like layers on top of one another than
agency to build on the texts, to learn from
a “this is over here—that is over there” type
of thing. Now that we’ve chewed all this each other in an embodied, performance-
text up and spewed it out, as he says, I see centered way, not only to learn the course
how it can all be one thing, how it’s not material but to produce it and transform it, to
black here and white there . . . but how it’s adapt it.
more like riffs and streaks . . . like all these
really great jazz riffs in here. I feel like that
split I talked about on the first day, which Adaptive Processes of
was both inside me and outside me, isn’t Casting and Production Design
really a split now. It’s riffs.2
At an early production meeting for Divine
Just as Forrest’s novel itself defies double- Days, the concern was raised by a faculty
consciousness with its riffs on literally hun­ member in the design program that “every
dreds of cited intertexts from Joyce to time we have tried to light black faces here,
Dostoevsky to Ellison to Billie Holiday and they have come out in very strange, frighten­
Bessie Smith, so the staging itself was informed ing tints of green.” Our lighting designer con­
by a jazz logic, an aesthetic of “riffing.” For fessed that he was nervous about the challenge
the student performers, their commitment to of illuminating black faces and would look to
exploring this unfamiliar style was in the end faculty members with more experience in that
rooted largely in their understanding of its area for support. The costume designer then
political meanings and the more individuated expressed particular concern about make-up,
personal resonances they explored in the since she had “never made up dark faces.”
course. I believe that when the student per­ This led to a conversation about whether the
formers later commented on the agency they cast would be buying make-up kits, which is
felt in performing Divine Days, much of this normally demanded of actors in mainstage
feeling can be attributed to these moments in productions. Two of the cast members had
which the text and the process of performing already expressed to me their concern about
appeared to become inseparable from the con­ having to pay for these, which they, as biology
text and processes by which they were made, majors, might never use again. In quotidian
understood, and deployed. dialogues like these throughout the process,
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378 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

we frequently found ourselves in uncharted change this perception, through announce­

and delicate terrain. ments in acting classes and pointed notes on
The process of casting the production was the callboard. It seemed ironic that, having
itself a site of complex negotiation. Like most been told this project was impossible because
academic theatres, the Northwestern main- of the number and quality of African
stage season had typically engaged in racially American performers I sought, that my biggest
restrictive casting. Students of color almost concern was finding strong white performers.
never appeared in what were perceived as Throughout this period I worried that these
“white” roles unless these roles were very parts of the process could not help but reify the
small, and over time a vicious cycle had separation between the African American and
evolved, in which most of these students did non–African American communities.
not bother to audition for or attend these pro­ Casting always involves painful and diffi­
ductions. Part of the problem, as Ellen Donkin cult decisions, especially in academic environ­
points out, is the critical lack of directors of ments where the auditioners are often one’s
color in academic institutions. Additionally, own students, whose development one has
Donkin argues, had the joy of witnessing over months and
years. But this process was particularly
Students of color in these same institutions, wrenching because so many of the students
many of whom are already under pressure
had become so invested in the project, whether
to bypass the arts for preprofessional pro­
grams of study, are often doubly reluctant through the seminar, their own relationship to
to undertake a storming of the barricade. In Leon and his work, or simply their sense of the
the meantime the campus theaters continue meanings this project was starting to accrue on
to generate representations on the stage that campus, which by now seemed to be resonat­
reinforce the public perception of student as ing outside the orbit of my own day-to­
white and minority as minor. Faculty direc­
tors respond to a situation that is in good
day encounters. Over the weeks in which I
part their own making by declaring that labored over casting decisions, I felt cruel that,
there are no minority actors and that, as a with Leon’s help, we had succeeded in gener­
consequence this year, again, there can be ating desire, commitment, and even a sense of
no minority show. The campus theater agency within students around this project,
becomes a locus for erasure of the minority
and now I was in the position of selecting the
student presence and for that reason carries
a special burden of responsibility for figur­ small percentage of these students who would
ing out a way forward. (1993, p. 79) really get to participate in the main event.
While most students were publicly under­
In the end, 187 people auditioned for Divine standing about these decisions, and some even
Days, of whom 71 were black females, 18 were continued to participate in the project in other
black males, 86 were nonblack females, and 12 substantive ways, the irony of the power I was
were nonblack males. Whereas Leon and I had wielding was not lost on me. Whereas nor­
once wondered whether we could find the mally during and immediately after casting I
African American performers we needed, we do not actively seek out contact with those
were, in the end, faced with an embarrassment who were not cast, in this case there were
of riches. By the time the auditions were many students with whom I felt compelled to
posted, two false rumors had spread: first, that meet individually in order to attempt to signal
there were no good roles for non–African my continued appreciation and gratitude for
American performers, and, second, that partic­ their work. I was rarely more aware during the
ipants in the course had an inside track or were entire process of my status as a white male
precast. It took significant localized efforts to than in these meetings; some of the meetings
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 379

were quite emotional, and some were the entire company in which he repeated the
awkward, but in the end I felt that these meet­ refrain “30 years” several times. His message
ings were crucial sites of adaptation, where the was that in 30 years of professional acting all
conditions of power foundational to the mean­ over the world, it was Forrest’s material that
ings that mattered most in this project were had spoken to him the most deeply—the one
negotiated. that most powerfully intersected with his
own identity and history. “Take it from Sugar-
Groove,” he went on to say, “You won’t have
Adaptive Processes of
another opportunity like this for at least 30
Rehearsal and Performance
years.” From then on, whenever Ernest would
In discussing the production of Femi sense things getting off-track, or when he felt
Osofisan’s Yoruba play Farewell to a Cannibal the cast just needed a reminder of the stakes,
Rage which she staged at Stanford, Sandra he would simply say “30 years.” Shortly
Richards says: “My twenty-year experience in before we opened the production, after a late
working with student productions had taught rehearsal in which we all felt depleted and
me that—feeling embattled, guilty, or con­ worn down, Ernest posted a large sign on
fused—African American students often used the callboard and distributed copies to the
a theatrical production as an arena in which to company. Under the word “URGENT” in
confront their relationships to elite white insti­ large capitalized letters he had written the
tutions and to impoverished black communi­ following, in verse form:
ties” (1996, p. 179). Rehearsal is largely a
pragmatic space, characterized by familiar WE SAT IN THE CIRCLE
structures of modification and repetition, as VERBALLY COMMITTED,
well as a politics of authority that is usually DEDICATED
unspoken but inherently understood. There is SO WE SAID
a kind of silent contract about how the actors, LEON’S WORDS ARE VITALLY
director, stage manager, choreographer, and IMPORTANT THIS OPPORTUNITY
designers all relate to each other. Paradoxi­ THINK IN TERMS OF THIRTY YEARS
cally, these central relationships seem to func­ WE MUST RESPECT THE WORK
tion a little differently in every project, and yet WE MUST COMMIT SERIOUSLY
the understandings about these relationships, WE MUST BE ON TIME
which are suffused with implications of READY, PREPARED
authority and are so central to the health and WE MUST BE HELPFUL
coherence of the creative process, usually WITHOUT THREATENING
remain unspoken. If they are ever discussed WE MUST WORK TOGETHER
overtly it is most often because there is conflict HARMONIOUSLY, CREATIVELY
or disagreement. Everyone who worked on the SLAVES, BLOOD, SACRIFICE
Divine Days process found that these nor­ LEGACY
mally implicit presumptions and silent mutual WE OWE IT TO OURSELVES
understandings became sites of active, explicit WE OWE LEON FORREST
negotiation and adaptation. WE OWE DEREK GOLDMAN
After a long rehearsal about two weeks into SO FAR WE ARE GOOD
the rehearsal process, one of our guest artists, SHOULD WE SETTLE? OR
Ernest Perry, an accomplished veteran actor SHOULD WE BE GREAT!
who, as a guest artist, was performing the role
of Sugar-Groove, made a passionate speech to —SUGAR-GROOVE ’98
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380 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

Consistently throughout the process, Perry’s One of the reasons that race seemed to be less
outward contextualization of the project in of an issue than it might have been was that
in the work we always do to build ensemble,
historical terms (“Slaves, Blood, Sacrifice/
and the work I do with them just to develop
Legacy”) rhetorically emphasized for the my material, I get so much from them. I use
students the magnitude of the work in which a lot of their movement material—and you
they were participating. This form of spiritual had had this whole class where they had
leadership had both an ideological and a more generated very specific, often personal mater­
practical function. The vast majority of the ial which clearly influenced your thinking
about the piece, and they saw this. So I really
students working on the show had never been
believe the performers felt like they were in
asked to give this amount of time to any project deep dialogue with the two white guys stag­
before, particularly one for which they were not ing the show, as opposed to them feeling like
receiving credit and which in most cases was we had it all figured out—and this made a big
not part of their chosen course of study. Not difference in all aspects of the process.3
only was the rehearsal schedule necessarily
intensive, but the demands of learning Forrest’s In his work as a choreographer, Carpenter
text, with its precise musicality, as well as mas­ is concerned with tapping into the ensemble’s
tering the demanding physical choreography, “kinesthetic imagination.” Thus the body and
far exceeded the students’ expectations. In its history and sensuality are incorporated
addition, most of the students had meaningful into processes of memory that move fluidly
other commitments—Northwestern Commu­ between highly individuated, unique manifes­
nity Ensemble gospel choir, a cappella groups, tations and shared, collective, and communal
science lab sessions, campus organizations— material. While the work is very physical, it
that had in the past been at least as important has never been central to our theatre-making
as any theatre work they had done. For the aesthetic that the performers consider them­
artistic team this meant walking a difficult line selves dancers before the process begins. In
between enforcing the special demands of this fact, much of what I believe makes Carpenter’s
project by asking these students to make a pro­ choreography so moving to watch is our
found shift in their priorities, and being sensi­ awareness of the vast range of “training”
tive to the grueling balancing act the students among the performers within a style that both
had to perform in their lives in order to be part highlights their individuality and their capacity
of this project. Perry’s capacity to get the to work together as an ensemble. There is
students to invest in their crucial role in the normally some initial resistance from the
making of what he insisted was a culturally his­ performers to this way of working, which
toric event inspired all of our adaptive capaci­ Carpenter says stems from the fact that “so
ties as we negotiated a seemingly infinite array many of them have not used their bodies
of divergent personal, cultural, and artistic that way before, and there’s some fear of the
investments and perspectives. style.” One of the participants in the project
Through dozens of collaborations, choreo­ described Carpenter’s process as follows:
grapher Peter Carpenter and I had worked to We move how we can, and then he pushes
develop and hone a style and performance aes­ that to dance. At first he lets you stay totally
thetic built upon a foundation that came from within the comfort zone, and then he gives
the performers’ own creative, kinetic response you options to push that and stages a ver­
sion with you “pushing,” but by then it feels
to the material. Carpenter describes how
organically connected to your own comfort
important this approach to developing mater­ zone. Your own expressive capacities are
ial was to the collaborative community mak­ the foundation, and yet we all feel truly like
ing Divine Days: dancers.4
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 381

Over time, the performers start to see that production that would be “multivocal” in its
what Carpenter builds is a layering process, capacity to be read and appreciated by audi­
that the foundation of material they are devel­ ences with different kinds of cultural awareness
oping, which might at first seem too abstract and experience. Much of this multivocal quality
or too facile, will go through many organic was already a part of Divine Days as both form
transformations, expansions, and distillations and subject. Consequently, the material seemed
before it is sculpted into the ultimate produc­ disposed toward a multivocal production—that
tion. As such they are engaged in a continuous, is, through its exhilarating but demanding cen­
embodied process of adapting material they trifugal force it spun out in many directions,
themselves have generated. As a result they are and thus aspired to offer audience members
physically invested in the layers of meaning multiple points of entry. This is not to say that
their material contributes to the production. the novel adapted itself to the stage in the sense
An important part of this process happens of either pouring forth an appropriate script or
when their own material is taught to and of accommodating the social conditions of the
absorbed and transformed by other ensemble Barber Theater and Northwestern. Rather, the
members. Through the dialogic, embodied production generated a heightened awareness
nature of this work, they experience them­ of the possibility of various kinds and points
selves as engaged in a kind of coauthorship of of engagement. Through it we positioned
the staged work. ourselves to meet with different, even contra­
In response to the production, we noticed dictory, audience perspectives. As a result
that many white audience members focused on “adaptation” began to describe that meeting
the virtuosity of the performance, in particular place, that contact zone, as coursing and unpre­
the athleticism of the dancing and the extraor­ dictable as it was. Adaptation was as much
dinary gospel singing, while African Americans about the moments and reckonings to which we
tended not to comment on this at all, but to rose—embodied in the afterwards of the pro­
talk in much more depth about the content duction—as it was embedded in the process of
of the piece, especially around Forrest’s non- the production per se.
stereotypical characters, such as the complexity
of the women represented, and the very rare
portrayal of black homosexuality in the char­ Adaptation and Remembrance:
acter of LaSalle. One white professor from the The Fragile Body
theatre department who had voiced some con­ In his essay “From Speech to Writing,”
cern about the project physically grabbed me Roland Barthes articulates the immeasurable
in the hallway after seeing it and, shutting loss of all the “scraps of language” that dis­
his office door behind him, whispered with solve away in the move from the embodied,
extreme intensity “Where on earth did you dig interpersonal encounter to the written repre­
them all up?” In our ensuing conversation, his sentation of that encounter:
praise was fervent but entirely fixated on one
issue: “How had I ever gotten them to speak When we speak, we want our interlocutor
so clearly?” Another faculty member kept his to listen to us; we revive his attention with
feedback on the production to four words: meaningless interpellation (of the type
“They sure can sing.” “Hello, hello, can you hear me?”); unas­
suming as they are, these words and expres­
Presenting a notoriously demanding African
sions are in some way discreetly dramatic:
American novel in the context of a subscription they are appeals, modulations—should I
season attended primarily by older, white audi­ say, thinking of birds: songs?—through
ences meant we were conscious of fashioning a which a body seeks another body. It is this
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382 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

song—gauche, flat, ridiculous when written radically transformed by his ever-increasing

down—which is extinguished in our writ­ vulnerability to the cancer that was ravaging
ing. (1985, p. 4)
his body. While our early meetings had taken
place in his campus office and at local restau­
Barthes’ subsequent discussion of how rants, possessing the veneer of polite formality
the “fragile (or frantic) body . . . flings itself characteristic of people who are just getting to
toward another body” (p. 5) in dialogue is know each other, our later encounters were
suggestive of several layers of meaning as I try filled with bedpans, blood clots, bags of urine,
to write about the Divine Days project. It and scenes of me lifting Forrest’s diminished
evokes both the fear of what will inevitably be body every two or three minutes, in a fond yet
lost in the writing, as well as an acute, dis­ vain attempt to ease the painful pressure on his
tinctly separate awareness of what is already enormous tumor.
lost to me as I work to remember it, as in some Often I would try, in the frantic fragility
moments I listen to a Dictaphone recording Barthes describes, to “write” those sensations,
of a meeting with Leon, and in others ponder but as field notes viewed from the unavoidable
coffee-stained pages of notes—all faint, distant distance of critical reflection, many of them
traces of his actual bodily presence. Nor is this fall into cliché or sentimentality. At several
loss entirely the product of memory’s failings points throughout my notes, in the midst of
and the passage of time, for I can connect furious scrawls on themes of artistic reinven­
Barthes’s description to a very strong physical tion, chaos, and polyphonic jazz structures,
sensation I often had during these meetings— can be found little sentences and fragments
a conscious awareness that many of these like “so generous of spirit today,” and “he
meetings’ richest meanings were happening in seems weaker,” and “I’m grieving his loss and
an unrepresentable “now.” This awareness is he’s still here,” and “blood count low, trans­
also at the heart of the text of Divine Days fusion tomorrow,” and simply, “I love him.”
itself, haunting Joubert’s consciousness as he These are moments of narration innocent of
sits with Sugar-Groove and hears the troubled, the distance of critical perspective. They read
profound stories of his origin, wondering with as miniature enactments of that state which is
private intensity, “How do I write this?” engendered, above all, by proximity to death
The sensation of loss Barthes describes, in (and to birth): a state in which one feels more
which ideas are “constantly overwhelmed by known by what is real than knowing of it.
the body,” is heightened in a context such as As I sit three and a half years after the pro­
my later meetings with Leon, scenes in which duction in that same apartment in Evanston
body and spirit seem to be held at arm’s length visiting Marianne Forrest, Leon’s widow, my
from one another. It is heightened first because eyes wander again over the familiar terrain of
we are involved together in envisioning and his bookshelves—where copies of his own his
mapping a new, embodied event for the own works sit aside those of his personal
theatre, a place that Barthes himself calls “a friends Ellison, Wideman, and Morrison, as
celebration of the body” and, even more pro­ well as hundreds of authors who inspired him,
foundly, it is heightened because one of the from Faulkner to Joyce to Marquez.
bodies in this generative space is not well. There is one book on the shelf that was not
Here the very circumstances of the meeting, there when Leon and I were working in that
its location, duration, the energy it demands, room together. In a bright white sleeve with
even the physical sensations of sight and smell, a vibrant, multicolored image from Romare
all conspire to foreground the body in all of Bearden on it, there sits a hardcover copy of
its vulnerability. The very nature of my Meteor in the Madhouse, Leon’s just published
collaborative relationship with Forrest was posthumous work of novellas, a sequel to
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Ethnography and the Politics of Adaptation 383

Divine Days. Leon had shared pieces of this 3. Peter Carpenter, from personal interview,
writing with me during our time together, and November 8, 2000.
4. Lynn Johnson, from personal interview,
near the end of his life finally felt that the work
October 10, 1999.
had taken on a shape. Marianne quietly tells
the story of how, after he could no longer
write, Leon dictated the end of the book to her REFERENCES
in the hospital. Leon’s final words as a writer
Austen, R. (1994). The uncomfortable relationship:
were spoken, not written, “songs” that flung
African enslavement in the common history of
themselves towards all the surviving bodies blacks and Jews. Tikkun, 9(2), 65–69.
that might someday hear. In the final passages Bakhtin, M. (1994). Problems of Dostoevsky’s poet­
Leon spoke to Marianne, Joubert is dying, but ics (C. Emerson, Ed. & Trans.) Minneapolis:
in this death there are seeds of ferocious rein­ University of Minnesota Press. (Original work
vention. The swirling voices of Shakespeare, published 1973)
Barthes, R. (1985). The grain of the voice:
Jesus, Coltrane, and the “tear-drenched”
Interviews 1962–1980 (L. Coverdale, Trans.).
nurses all gather to lift him off to another New York: Hill and Wang. (Original work
world where he will encounter still more published 1984)
voices: Breen, R. S. (1986). Chamber theatre. Evanston, IL:
William Caxton.
No wonder I had to go down dead in this Carlson, M. (1996). Performance: A critical intro­
madhouse—in order to breathe upon the duction. New York: Routledge.
righteous and rowdy riffs of existence again. Cawelti, J. G. (Ed.). (1997). Leon Forrest: Introduc­
Oh, yes, and now to wail with a horn full of tions and interpretations. Bowling Green, KY:
plenty: LET THERE BE LIGHT, Baby, LET Bowling Green State University Press.
THERE BE LIGHT. Conquergood, D. (1985). Performing as a moral act:
LET THERE BE LIGHT, Baby, LET Ethical dimensions of the ethnography of per­
THERE BE LIGHT. But then as I let my formance. Literature in Performance, 5, 1–13.
eyes filter across the room, they fell upon Conquergood, D. (1989). Poetics, play, process, and
the tear-drenched eyes of my nurses. I could power: The performative turn in anthropology.
feel no evil for the Lord is with me, His staff Text and Performance Quarterly, 9, 82–88.
is with me, and then I could feel a swoop of Conquergood, D. (1991). Rethinking ethnography:
angelic voices beneath my gown as I sailed Towards a critical cultural politics. Communi­
out to other voices and other democratic cation Monographs, 58, 179–194.
chambers and other spheres into the dis­ de Certeau, M. (1988). The writing of history.
tances of time. (Forrest, 2001, p. 254) (T. Conley, Trans.). New York: Columbia
University Press. (Original work published
1975)
As Joubert departs, there is no divide or
Denzin, N. K. (2003). Performance ethnography:
clear threshold between this world and the Critical pedagogy and the politics of culture.
next. There is music, and dancing, and flight, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
but no resolutions, endings, or conclusions Donkin, E., & Clement, S. (Eds.). (1993).
are in sight. There are only new “voices,” Upstaging big daddy: Directing theater as if
gender and race matter. Ann Arbor: University
“chambers,” and “spheres”—spaces where
of Michigan Press.
the processes of adaptation that have con­ DuBois, W. E. B. (1989). The souls of black folk.
sumed his life will carry on in forms that are, New York: Bantam.
as yet, unimagined. Edwards, P. (1999). Unstoried: Teaching literature
in the age of performance studies. Theatre
NOTES Annual, 52,1–147.
Fabian, J. (1990). Power and performance:
1. Holly Frank, from class transcript, Ethnographic explorations through proverbial
September 23, 1997. wisdom and theater in Shaba, Zaire. Madison:
2. Glenn Jeffers, from class transcript, University of Wisconsin Press.
December 8, 1997. Forrest, L. (1992). Divine Days. New York: Norton.
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Forrest, L. (2001). Meteor in the madhouse (J. G. Roach, J. (1996). Cities of the dead: Circum-
Cawelti & M. Drown, Eds.). Evanston, IL: Atlantic performance. New York: Columbia
Northwestern University Press. University Press.
Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected Rosaldo, R. (1989). Culture and truth: The remak­
interviews and other writings. New York: ing of social analysis. Boston: Beacon.
Pantheon. Rosenberg, B. A. (1997). Leon Forrest and the
Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural African American folk sermon. In J. G. Cawelti
workers and the politics of education. (Ed.), Leon Forrest: Introductions and inter­
New York: Routledge. pretations (pp. 114–127). Bowling Green, KY:
Hamera, J. (1998). Debts: In memory of Lilla Heston. Bowling Green State University Press.
In S. J. Dailey (Ed.), The future of performance Savigliano, M. E. (1995). Tango and the political
studies: Visions and revisions (pp. 211–216). economy of passion. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Annandale, VA: National Communication Schechner, R. (2003). Performance studies: An
Association. introduction. New York: Routledge.
Hine, D. C. (2000). Rape and the inner lives of Smith, D. L. (1998). What is black culture? In
women. In V. Ruiz & E. C. DuBois (Eds.), W. Lubiano (Ed.), The house that race built
Unequal sisters: A multicultural reader in U.S. (pp. 178–193). New York: Vintage.
women’s history. New York: Routledge. Spivak, G. C. (1996). The Spivak reader: Selected
hooks, b. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
thinking black. Boston: South End Press. (D. Landry & G. Maclean, Eds.). New York:
Lancaster, R. (1992). Life is hard: Machismo, dan­ Routledge.
ger, and the intimacy of power in Nicaragua. Strine, M. S. (1998). Mapping the “cultural turn”
Berkeley: University of California Press. in performance studies. In S. J. Dailey (Ed.),
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space The future of performance studies: Visions
(D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Oxford, England: and revisions (pp. 3–9). Annandale, VA:
Blackwell. (Original work published 1974) National Communication Association.
McQuade, M. (1995). The yeast of chaos: An inter­ Taussig, M. (1993). Mimesis and alterity: A par­
view with Leon Forrest.” Chicago Review, ticular history of the senses. New York:
41(2–3), 43–52. Routledge.
Morrison, T. (1998). Home. In W. Lubiano (Ed.), Visweswaran, K. (1994). Fictions of feminist ethnog­
The house that race built (pp. 3–12). New raphy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
York: Vintage. Press.
Pollock, D. (1990). Telling the told: Performing White, H. K. (1975). Metahistory: The historical
Like a family. Oral History Review, 18, 1–36. imagination in nineteenth-century Europe.
Pollock, D. (Ed.). (1998). Exceptional spaces: Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Essays on performance and history. Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Richards, S. L. (1996). Ancient songs set ablaze:
The theatre of Femi Osofisan. Washington
DC: Howard University Press.
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22
“She Attempted to Take Over the
Choreography of the Sex Act”
Dance Ethnography and the
Movement Vocabulary of Sex and Labor

BARBARA BROWNING

T he ethnographic analysis of dance is

most meaningful, of course, when move­
ment aesthetics can be convincingly related
the Journal de Psychologie Normale et
Pathologique. It’s a seminal text—pithy,
funny, but profound. It raises, for me, some
to their larger sociopolitical context. In this of the most salient questions in dance scholar-
essay I want to survey briefly two protodance ship—and, for that matter, in dance produc­
ethnographic texts which suggested possible tion. These are questions plumbed by some of
strategies for making these links; two deeply the most incisive works in the field of dance
influential texts which would help to establish ethnography, but also in the choreographic
this area of scholarship; several of the more experimentation that we broadly construe as
recent and interesting books in the field; and “postmodern,” both here in the United States
finally my own reading of the transformation and abroad. In the essay, Mauss bemoans
of the movements of the body politic into par­ the fact that so much of what interests him
ticular cultural dance forms, ultimately into in human behavior tends to be relegated to
politically engaged and aesthetically challeng­ the category of “miscellany” in sociological
ing experimental choreography. and anthropological studies. He refers to the
underexamined banal activities we tend to nat­
uralize, and hence ignore. Mauss argues that
TECHNIQUES OF THE BODY:
acts of quotidian movement—walking, squat­
WORK AND SEX IN MAUSS AND BOAS
ting, sitting—are by no means “natural,” but
Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) published the are in fact highly culturally specific: “A young
essay “Techniques of the Body” in 1935, in Frenchman has no idea how to sit up straight;

385
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386 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

his elbows stick out sideways; he puts them Mauss’s near-contemporary, Franz Boas
on the table and so on” (Mauss, 1992, p. 458). (1858–1942), also expressed an interest in
While Mauss emphasizes the cultural context the choreographic aspects of quotidian move­
of body techniques, he cites yet another pri­ ment. Boas, like Mauss, is not remembered
mary category in any given culture that differ­ primarily as a dance ethnographer, and yet he
entiates the ways in which people accrue promoted and participated in the foundation-
movement techniques: “Sexual division of laying work of his daughter, Franziska Boas,
body techniques (and not just sexual division and a number of his students and protégés
of labor)” (p. 460). That is, while it goes with­ who would establish the emerging field of
out saying that a society’s sexual division of dance ethnography. In 1972, Franziska Boas
labor will lead many men and women to would publish a series of papers presented by
accrue a different set of techniques, even non­ her father and several others some 30 years
functional gestures, such as making a (non­ earlier in a seminar on the function of dance in
pugilistic) fist, might be learned differently by human society. Franz Boas, while not positing
the different genders. himself as a dance specialist, pays close atten­
So will sexual techniques themselves. tion to the relationship between quotidian ges­
Mauss’s “Biographical List of Body Tech­ tures and more recognizably choreographic
niques” begins and ends (or nearly ends) with movement among the Kwakiutl. In the ques­
gender-specific activities related to sex and tion-and-answer period, someone asks: “What
reproduction: He starts with “Techniques of is the relation of ordinary movement in every­
birth and obstetrics” (Buddha’s mother, he day activity to the movements of the dance?”
tells us, gave birth in a standing position, (p. 18) Boas goes on to reflect, like Mauss, on
clinging to the branch of a tree) and ends, the cultural specificity of walking, and then,
almost,1 with “Techniques of reproduction.” prompted by another question, of the habits
Of the latter, Mauss notes matter-of-factly: of sitting provoked by the use of a canoe. He
“Nothing is more technical than sexual posi­ ponders the aesthetics of “movements having
tions” (p. 473) (he cites specifically a position to do with work” (p. 19) and their relationship
in which a woman’s knees are suspended from to choreographic patterns in cultural dances.
a man’s elbows—a technique he insists enjoys While, as I said, Boas isn’t typically catego­
popularity throughout “the whole Pacific”). rized as a dance scholar,2 he actively encour­
Labor and sex are, doubtless, highly aged the development of the field, urging his
choreographed activities. Mauss’s occasionally students (among them Margaret Mead and
comical suggestions regarding the cultural Claire Holt—both contributors to his daugh­
specificity of certain techniques don’t under­ ter’s 1972 volume—as well as his daughter3)
mine the force of his call for more serious con­ to examine seriously movement and gesture.
sideration of these seemingly banal body And Boas’s sensitivity to gender and race poli­
techniques as significant elements of culture. tics in the field of anthropology4 seems to me
And one might—in fact should—extend his directly related to his inclination to link cul­
observations on the importance of the intra- tural aesthetics to movements of labor, which,
cultural choreographic differentiation of nor­ following Mauss’s argument, cannot be extri­
mative gender body techniques to comprehend cated from sex, class, and ethnicity.
class as well. That is, again, it’s not simply a In other words, I’m suggesting that seeing
matter of class division of labor, but of the the connections between the quotidian move­
ways in which individuals are choreographed ments of sex and work and that movement
into their class through a variety of naturalized more easily construed as “dance” is an inher­
quotidian movements. ently politicized project.
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“She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act” 387

DEREN, DUNHAM, AND THE costumes in the “lyric dance drama” of their
GRACE OF THE BODIES’ BEARING daily struggles.
Interestingly, long before she became inter­
There is a passage in Maya Deren’s Divine
ested in Haitian dance, Deren (1917–1961)
Horsemen which might, and should, give one
was a committed labor activist. She spent
pause:
her college years at Syracuse University and
If a visitor to Haiti were to spend most of his NYU working for the Young People’s Socialist
time on a country roadside, he would have League, and later participated in the Trotskyist
the sense of being spectator at some theater­ movement in New York. How is it that a
in-the-round, where a lyric dance drama of woman with such an interest in class politics
prodigious grace and infinite variety is in could slip into such an apparent romanticiza­
continuous performance. One could say that
tion of the choreography of exploitative labor?
the beginning is an overture in the pre-dawn
dark, when small groups of “voyageurs,” Divine Horsemen, in fact, is a book rife with
making their way market-ward from the dis­ such awkward moments, where issues of class
tant mountains, pass unseen along the road, and aesthetics seem at odds. The “Author’s
trailing a melodic line. . . . The bodies of the Preface” presents an even more vexing maneu­
market-bound women are like fine dark
ver, when Deren suggests that her “own ordeal
stalks, at once supple and steady, bearing
tremendous blooms of egg-plant purple, as an ‘artist-native’ in an industrial culture”
tomato red, carrot orange, greens of all lent her an insider’s vantage point in addressing
shades, on their heads. . . . Whether here, or Haitian peasant culture:
in the men walking toward the fields, the
grace of the bodies’ bearing is so manifest Of all persons from a modern culture, it is
that it imparts elegance to even the most the artist who, looking at a native looking at
poorly cut dress and the most patched and a “white” man—whether tourist, industrial­
baggy overalls. In the backyard, the women ist or anthropologist—would mutter the
cooking, tending the children, carrying water, heart-felt phrase: “Brother, I sure know
forever doing laundry or braiding each other’s what you’re thinking and you can think that
hair, possess, also this same grace of the thought again!” (Deren, 1953, p. 8)
body, which, since so much is demanded of
it, has discovered how to achieve by balance
what might otherwise require muscular force. One can sympathize with Deren’s observa­
(Deren, 1953, p. 226) tion about the lack of support for artists (an
observation certainly valid today) and still
Deren calls this technical prowess a “nat­ cringe at the suggestion that the underfunded
ural grace,” but also a “stylization,” learned and misunderstood North American experi­
through habit and necessity. Stylization, one mental filmmaker suffers parallel indignities to
might also note, is inherent in the description those of an impoverished Haitian laborer.
itself, which effectively choreographs a context And yet if one reads Deren with some indul­
for thinking about Haitian movement aesthet­ gence, taking on good faith her longstanding
ics. The passage itself is highly theatricalizing, commitment to thinking seriously about labor
even as it attributes theatricality to the land­ politics, there might be reason to want to recu­
scape and the culture of Haiti. perate something from the description of the
Of course what is disconcerting about the “grace of the [workers’] bodies’ bearing.”
passage is the aestheticizing of the labor of a That “lyric dance drama” that Deren
peasant class working under brutal conditions, describes is a well-worn cliché among many
such that the very trappings of their poverty so-called ethnic dance companies, who are
(the poorly cut dress, the patched overalls) often pressed by funders, venues, and audi­
acquire an air of elegance, becoming mere ences to give a sense of the larger social
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388 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

contexts from which their “cultural” dances that Deren herself, in developing her public
emerge. How many African, Caribbean, and and artistic persona, cultivated “a fecundity
Latin American companies have initiated their which minor men would call promiscuity.”
programs with graceful women bearing bas­ The first volume of the massive documen­
kets or jars on their heads, sashaying onto the tary biography, The Legend of Maya Deren,
stage with dignified grace, as muscular men compiled by VèVè A. Clark, Millicent
rhythmically haul in fishing nets, drag hoes, or Hodson, and Catrina Neiman, contains mate­
wield machetes? Is there a way to read through rials relating to Deren’s activities up until the
the romanticization of the scene, and think period when Deren began working for
deeply about how labor’s movement is chore­ Katherine Dunham, prior to the flourishing of
ographic, but not ever merely aesthetic? Could her film experiments and the research travels
that observation help us to understand how to Haiti which would eventually lead to the
even more obviously aesthetic dance perfor­ publication of Divine Horsemen. There are
mances bear resonances which should make us various colorful anecdotes regarding Deren’s
reflect on labor and class issues? personal life in the late ’30s, when she was
And what of sex? Again, in the case of living in Greenwich Village and was active in
Deren, one is tempted to suggest that certain the Trotskyist movement. An old acquain­
aspects of her sexual politics which preceded tance, Louis Zwerling, provides a couple of
her research in Haiti might have inflected her interviews on the Bohemian political and
manner of reading sexual choreography in social scene in which Deren circulated. And in
Haitian dance. The section where she consid­ a decidedly minor and yet amusing passage,
ers most closely the erotics of Haitian dance, Zwerling remembers,
not surprisingly, is the section dealing with
Erzulie, the “Goddess of Love.” Erzulie pos­ She had an apartment in the Village. She was
sesses, Deren writes, “a fecundity which minor one of the few people around who had an
men would call promiscuity. But her several income of her own and an apartment of her
own. It was a very small apartment—all I
lovers among the [deities], who are major can remember is the bedroom (Laughs). The
men, and the serviteurs, who have learned to memory is kaleidoscopic. She was never at
see her through their eyes, have never called it rest. She was constantly involved in some­
that.” (1953, pp. 141–42) thing—either writing, packing things or
Deren describes not only Erzulie’s dancing, putting things away. Whatever she was doing
always had a sense of energetic need about
but also her ritual obligations which fall outside
it. . . . I think I spent about two or three nights
of what would typically be understood as there at the most. The thing that I remember
dance: “Her first act is to perform an elaborate most is that she attempted to take over the
toilette. . . . It is the elaborate formalism of choreography of the sex act (Laughs). (Clark,
her every gesture which transforms this toilette Hodson, & Neiman, 1984, p. 319)
from a simple functional activity to a ritual
statement.” (1953, p. 141) The quotidian act of The Legend of Maya Deren is an interesting
Erzulie’s sexual toilette becomes, for Deren, the project precisely because of the editors’ disin­
very essence of aesthetic refinement, exemplary clination to editorialize—or to prioritize the
of “the painstaking process by which a work of Deren archive. Clark, Hodson, and Neiman
man—be it art or myth—is created” (p. 142). refrain from deleting or commenting explicitly
It strikes me as by no means insignificant on some of the more questionable or even
that it is Erzulie that Deren will claim to tasteless reminiscences (Zwerling goes on to
receive, spiritually, into her own body. And it remember: “She was very hairy [Laughs].”
also strikes me as by no means insignificant Clark et al., 1984, p. 322).
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“She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act” 389

But the very “miscellany” of Deren’s own father of them all, Franz Boas, just before I
persona—the choreography of her sexual and left New York for the Caribbean” (Dunham,
political being—are intensely meaningful. As 1969, p. 66). Dunham represented, for
are Erzulie’s. “Do you remember how she Herskovits as well as another mentor, Robert
walked?” they ask Zwerling. And he answers, Redfield, and Boas, the hope of an “insider’s
perspective,” at least relative to their own, in
Yes. I remember how she walked. She had a Haiti: this, on the basis of her race, as well as
very masculine walk, very straight, shoul­
ders pulled back. I danced with her a few
her dance training.
times. And I dance with great abandon. Dunham’s kinetic sensitivity is evident in the
That’s the only time she loosened up, the detailed descriptions of movement sequences
first night we were dancing at the Village in the dances of Vodou. She had earlier docu­
Vanguard. I used to go there often. She mented these dances in even greater detail in
was there that night. We danced and were
academic publications. Island Possessed isn’t,
seduced while dancing. She did have aban­
don when she danced, otherwise she was strictly speaking, a dance ethnography: it com­
very uptight. (Clark et al., 1984, p. 322) bines ethnographic accounts of various rituals
with observations on Haiti’s political history
But when wasn’t she dancing? Her “ener­ (including a scathing assessment of the rem­
getic,” incessant activity around her apart­ nants of the U.S. military occupation there)
ment, her “masculine” walk, her choreographic and a significant amount of personal narrative.
assertiveness in the sex act—these were as much Political history is inextricable in the book
a part of her dance with Zwerling as what from personal memoir, as one of Dunham’s
happened at the Village Vanguard. It’s all most intense relationships in Haiti was with
choreographic—and all deeply meaningful. Dumarsais Estimé, who would go on to serve,
When Deren first contacted Katherine briefly and under tremendous pressure, as
Dunham in 1941, she professed herself to have Haiti’s president. One of Estimé’s primary con­
“a very deep feeling for the dance with some cerns was the exploitative child labor prac­
uncultivated talent in that direction.” (Clark tice known as “‘ti moune,” or “little people.”
et al., 1984, p. 431) And although Dunham Dunham writes,
would take her on as an assistant on the basis
of her obvious intelligence and passionate The “ti moune” system was one of the preoc­
cupations of the Estimé whom I knew—and
interest in ethnological research, she was never
education for the masses, and shoes for every­
convinced that Deren really had a gift, uncul­ one, and sanitation in market places, which
tivated or otherwise, for dance. No one ever were the disseminating points of disease, and
questioned Dunham’s movement sensibility, recognition of Haiti on an equal level in the
or virtuosity. Dunham (b. 1909) conducted rest of the world. . . . Gradually I began to see
research on dance and religion in Haiti long the things around me with his eyes, with his
evaluations, though never losing the intense
before Deren, but her best-known book on the preoccupation with what I had come to Haiti
subject, Island Possessed, was published years for, the vaudun and the complex surrounding
later than Divine Horsemen—and in fact eight it. (Dunham, 1969, p. 42)
years after Deren’s untimely death.
Her research was encouraged by her Dunham does record the rituals, and their
anthropological mentor, Melville Herskovits, aesthetic principles as revealed through the
who was a student of Boas, and she had also dance. But she sees this choreography as part
had contact with others of his protégés, of a larger political dance. When she recounts
including Margaret Mead. In fact, Dunham her instruction in the dances of the deities, she
recounts, “The last handshake was with the also recounts the various body techniques she
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390 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

had to acquire in living under the deprivations contains some marked moments where a
of the Vodou community. She describes learn­ Maussian reading of the techniques of quotid­
ing among her fellow initiates to squat over a ian movement are directly related to Philippine
calabash in order to pee—a far piece from the dance aesthetics. In fact, her theoretical intro­
elegant amenities offered by the luxury hotel duction on “Ethnography and Choreography”
where she would receive the visits of the future argues that dance training sensitizes one to
president. These gestures are part of the move­ quotidian choreographies within one’s own
ment pedagogy which will allow her, ulti­ culture, as well as another’s. Ness recollects
mately, to dance among Vodou serviteurs. learning a modern choreography, “For Betty,”
Island Possessed trains its eye not only on from a company member of the Bill Evans
the aesthetic choreographies of Haitian Vodou Dance Company—a movement phrase which
practitioners, but also on their daily lives. involved a scooping arm movement echoed by
Dunham reflects, as well, on her own social a circling of the hips.
status moving through that world. She also The very stylization and specificity of the
reflects on her sexual traversal of that space. phrase lead her to consider her body tech­
While her reminiscences of Estimé are rela­ niques outside of the studio:
tively discreet (certainly more discreet than
those of Louis Zwerling), Dunham makes it Who was this “I” that learned the dance?
clear that she, too, exercised a certain “fecun­ Initially, the person learning “For Betty”
was the “I” of ordinary life, a being that
dity” which “minor men” might construe as
rode the city buses daily up and down
promiscuous. She owns that way of moving Seattle’s steep hills and lived in a run-down
through the world with a combination of dig­ college dormitory in its marginally safe
nity, self-possession, and grace. Central District. This “I” performed such
And ultimately, all of these techniques of the everyday actions as folding bathroom tow­
body—from the seemingly banal but immensely els and straightening bed sheets, buying
groceries at local health food coops, and
significant act of squatting over a calabash to drinking innumerable cups of Seattle’s
lying down beside Dumarsais Estimé to learn­ famous everyday coffee from the heavy
ing the incredibly challenging spine-undulation mugs and cups of its many coffeehouses.
of Vodou’s ritual choreographies—all of these This person who entered the studio of the
techniques of the body inform one another. repertory class was an “I” that had emerged
from a certain habitual posture, a daily
They also, without a doubt, went on to inform
“Seattlite” posture so well practiced that
her choreographic practice as one of the great it no longer needed to be mindful of the
movement innovators and experimentalists of relationships between its major bodily
twentieth century dance. members. This was an “I” that lived mainly
in its visual and aural imagination and
memory, up “inside” its head. It possessed
an arm, which served “me” throughout the
FOLDING THE TOWEL: “A-DEE, ordinary courses of the day, lifting mugs,
A-DAH, A-DEEEEEE . . . DAH” holding books, clutching bags, and so forth.
However, in the process of acquiring the
The connections between the movement tech­ choreography, this normal “I” that had
niques of labor, sex, and dance are implicit started out to learn the movement turned
in Deren and Dunham. In some of the more out to be inappropriate for the task.” (Ness,
provocative dance ethnography of the last 1992, p. 4)
fifteen years or so, these connections have
become explicit. Sally Ann Ness’s Body, The acquisition of an unfamiliar movement
Movement and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual pattern through choreography, that is, brings
Symbolism in a Philippine Community (1992) one into awareness of one’s existing body
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“She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act” 391

techniques in a way that makes them strange. Appearing three years after Ness’s book,
“There is something,” Ness says, “essentially Marta Savigliano’s Tango and the Political
anthropological about choreographic phe­ Economy of Passion (1995) conjoined issues
nomena” (1992, p. 4). The making-strange of political economy with libidinal economy.
parallels the inherent destabilization of natu­ In an ambitious if at times unwieldy effort to
ralized movement techniques which occurs in demonstrate dance’s imbrication in the power
ethnographic fieldwork. struggles of ethnicity, labor, and sex, Savigliano
Ness goes on to explore everyday activities argues that dance’s aesthetic and “affective”
in which one might suddenly become aware of qualities cannot be abstracted from their polit­
“dancelike moments”: ical context: “A trackable trafficking in emo­
tions and affects has paralleled the process by
Sometimes, when I am performing ordinary which the core countries of the capitalist
daily tasks—folding up a bath towel, mov­ world system have extracted material goods
ing a potted plant from a table to the floor,
or walking to the corner store—I feel almost
and labor from, and imposed colonial state
as though I am doing someone’s dance. It bureaucratic apparatuses and ideological
happens when the rhythm of the action is devices on, the Third World periphery”
especially clear, clear enough to vocalize as (pp. 1–2). Tango is, itself, a “Spectacle of Sex,
a sound phrase. In the case of folding a Race and Class” (p. 30) in which these related
towel, holding it by both corners, one in
power struggles are given choreographic form.
each hand, and pressing the center of the top
edge to my sternum with my chin to hold it While Savigliano doesn’t perform movement
steady, the phrase might emerge as: analysis on specific, embodied aspects of these
struggles, she does suggest that an initiation
“a-dee, a-dah, a-deeeeee . . . dah” into the dance form is an initiation into larger
dances of sex and labor. In two accounts of
(one fold, another fold, holding center/releas­ her own pedagogical experiences of the tango,
ing chin and letting top half fall over bot­ “First Steps in Tango” and “Latest Tango
tom . . . folding finished). (1992, p. 7)
Steps: Postmodern Uses of Passion,” Savigliano
indicates that her uncle’s choreographic instruc­
While Ness quite self-consciously situates
tion was meant not only to steer her across
her movement world within a relatively com­
the dance floor, but into the world of sexual
fortable middle-class life of U.S. privilege, it
conflict, and her theoretical inculcation into
strikes me as not inconsequential that the
postmodern cultural theory was meant to
exemplary quotidian movement in which she
choreograph her understanding of the politics
understands herself to be always, on some
of intellectual labor. Further, she suggests that
level, dancing is an act of domestic labor which
the very stylization of her writing about these
tends to be understood as predominantly
dances, literal and figurative, takes on both the
women’s work: the folding of laundry. She will
aesthetic and the political strategies of the dance
go on to remark on certain “resilient” aspects
itself. She proposes a partnering with her
of quotidian movement among the people of
reader—one which is agile, tricky, and not
Cebu City, such as the manipulation of chess
infrequently antagonistic. This is, precisely, her
pieces,5 performed with a certain agility and
manifestation of intellectual labor as a dance:
precision. These quotidian movements will
inform her reading of the Cebuanos’ dances.
Poststructuralism refreshed my memories of
But in keeping with Mauss’s observations, it
tango and provided me with a scholarly dis­
isn’t merely national or local culture which course to write about it; at the same time,
choreographs our body techniques. Class and tango allowed me to perform poststructural­
gender inflect them as well. ist strategies quite “comfortably”—with the
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392 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

sense of ownership, of dancing the tango— observations of “the grace of the bodies’
and it pushed me into a critique of the mul­ bearing,” Taylor insists that the suffering is also
tivocal, multilayered game. “Latest Tango
what is manifested in the dance—the dance
Steps: Postmodern Uses of Passion” is actu­
ally a tango about postmodernism—a tango insists that we not forget it, that we look at it.
in prose, melodramatic like the tango. It is a Alma Guillermoprieto’s Samba (1990) also
tango account of postmodernism, as the considered a dance form which is often char­
First Steps are a poststructuralist, feminist acterized as manifesting outward ebullience
account of tango (caricatures, representa­ and grace in the face of desperate social condi­
tions suited to what I wish to emphasize,
tions, and this narrative is certainly a part
both ways). Postmodernism is a universaliz­
ing, naturalizing and totalizing version of of that book’s stance. But her more recent
the cynicism and fatalism displayed by the Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the
tango. This is what I have tried to express Revolution (2004) presents a more nuanced
in the “Latest Tango Steps.” (Savigliano, and ambivalent account of the relationship
1995, p. 223)
between dance and the politics of labor and
sex. In some ways, Dancing with Cuba echoes
In a somewhat less formally complex man­
Dunham’s Island Possessed: it looks back on
ner, Julie Taylor’s Paper Tangos (1998) also
the author’s experiences, years before the
attempts to find in the tango itself a model for
penning of the book, in an unfamiliar but
a kind of psychic labor which might allow
politically compelling culture, replete with
Taylor to break through and discover the
interwoven sexual relationships and aesthetic
deeper political ramifications of the disciplin­
revelations. Guillermoprieto spent six months
ing of the body through choreographic peda­
in Cuba in 1970 as a modern dance instructor
gogy. “In Argentina, the tango,” she writes,
in the National Art Schools. She arrived a rel­
can create a space to reflect on power and atively unpoliticized aesthete, and gradually
on terror. The tango can talk about how to absorbed some of the political idealism of the
think about these things, how to carry them followers of the revolution. Her class politi­
with dignity and grace, and how to demon­ cization was thoroughly intertwined with her
strate the nobility of the human spirit by
developing sense of her sexual self, and her
learning to bear such suffering and never­
theless to dance.” (Taylor, 1998, p. 72) views of dance couldn’t be extricated from
either of those things. She leaves, however,
Paper Tangos, as its title implies, replicates ambivalent about it all, and the retrospective
structurally some of the strategies of the stance of the book, reflecting on Cuba’s polit­
dance’s partnering, drawing the reader into a ical trajectory since then, remains ambivalent.
complicit and intimate political and psychic The “Epilogue” compresses Guillermopri­
tango. She convincingly lays bare the memo­ eto’s own trajectory:
ries of political violence that Argentines both
exercise and exorcize through the dance; and
In the early months of my return I lost a
she confessionally bares her own history of good number of my dance-world friends,
sexual trauma which likewise surfaces in who couldn’t understand the new vocabu­
choreographic maneuvers. The political disci­ lary I’d brought back from Havana or my
plining of bodies during the Dirty War, and reproaches for their lack of solidarity with
the terror of Taylor’s childhood sexual abuse, the world’s sufferings. I made new friends
who shared my concerns. I protested against
are read as choreographic phenomena which
the Vietnam War in New York and in
are merely rendered visible in the dance. Washington, and I dedicated long hours of
While the language of gracefulness under the work to Latin America’s struggles for liber­
pressures of suffering may seem to echo Deren’s ation. I stopped dancing. . . . (2004, p. 283)
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“She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act” 393

But did she stop dancing? Or had the sexual freedom, as well as aesthetic freedom,
understanding of the choreographic complex­ would ultimately complicate Guillermoprieto’s
ity of labor and sex become ingrained in her enthusiastic embrace of the revolution’s politics
way of looking at the world? of labor. Whether or not one agrees with
Guillermoprieto documents both the utopi­ the conclusions she drew, one can see that these
anism of the revolution and its missteps. The are inextricable choreographies.
emphasis on the zafra, the collective participa­
tion of all members of society in the sugar har­
“RAW SELF . . . SOCIAL
vest, regardless of individuals’ mastery of the
BODY . . . STEREOTYPES . . .
body techniques of agricultural labor, begins
ALL AT THE SAME TIME . . .”
to look like an unstrategic choreographic
choice on Castro’s part. The dance of the state My own work in the field of dance ethnography
is shown to be at times as awkward as Guiller­ has concentrated on Brazilian dance—including
moprieto’s efforts to teach modern dances religious, martial, and secular movement arts.
which seem, even to her, woefully out of place. My first book, Samba: Resistance in Motion
The most evocative dance description in (1995) examined samba, the divine choreogra­
Dancing with Cuba is not in the passages phies of Candomblé, capoeira, and the vari­
recounting either the awkwardness or the ous, constantly evolving popular dances of the
agility of her students as they learned both the carnaval and other popular festivals in
“folkloric” dances of their country or the Salvador, Bahia. I later published Infectious
Cunningham technique Guillermoprieto had Rhythm: Metaphors of Contagion and the
been contracted to teach them. Rather, it is a Spread of African Culture (1998) in an effort
description of a cosmic ballet spontaneously to place the African diasporic cultural forms of
danced by Guillermoprieto on the eve of her Brazil in a larger sociopolitical context. That
departure. She is out with a small group of political contextualization was in Samba in a
friends, some politically committed but vul­ somewhat embryonic form. Infectious Rhythm
nerable gay nondancer intellectuals who have had little direct analysis of dance or movement
become her most intimate and elucidating arts, but many of its insights regarding the
companions in Cuba. They are trying to global dance of the exploitation of black labor
explain to Guillermoprieto the mechanics of a and sexuality were derived from my experi­
lunar eclipse, and finally decide to demon­ ences with dance.
strate it to her by choreographing themselves In Samba, I documented the process of
into the alignment of the heavenly bodies. my initiation into Brazilian movement culture
They cast Guillermoprieto as the earth, as they under the instruction of a number of individu­
embody sun and moon, and each takes on his als, including the Candomblé priestess Mãe
or her appropriate orbital pattern and speed of Aildes, the capoeira master Mestre Boa Gente,
revolution: “And we laughed and spun and and the charismatic and versatile movement
laughed and spun, until the eclipse occurred” artist Loremil Machado. I also studied at
(Guillermoprieto, 2004, p. 282). the Federal University of Bahia under the
The cosmic choreography, of course, is an extremely talented Rosângela Silvestre, who
extreme figure of a naturalized understanding would go on to establish a bicontinental career
of how we dance together. But the eclipse con­ as an innovative choreographer merging
figured by Guillermoprieto in this passage is a “traditional” forms with other movement tech­
very worldly one: the political ambivalence she niques. Silvestre has developed a movement
experienced in watching both the successes and pedagogy and a choreographic system (which
the failures of communism. Encroachment on she formerly described as “contemporary
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394 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

Afro-Brazilian dance” but now more techniques of women’s labor is a powerfully

specifically labels the “Silvestre technique”). meaningful emphasis with deep political
One of the marked aspects of her training ramifications.
process is that it draws on the movements typi­ Rosane Chamecki and Andrea Lerner, two
cal of black women’s labor in Brazil. That is, New York–based Brazilian choreographers,
many of her preparatory exercises are recogniz­ have a somewhat more attenuated relation­
ably mimetic of certain forms of domestic labor: ship to “traditional” forms, and yet their
the muscular stirring of an enormous bowl choreographic rendering of sexual body tech­
of acarajé or bean batter for frying; the full- niques also speaks volumes to the relation­
bodied, undulating rubbing of laundry in the ship between dance and sexual expressivity
waters of a lagoon; and the more minute but in Brazil—and the ways that relationship is
equally choreographic gestures of the toilette. seen throughout the world. Recently, their
The acknowledgement of the technical and company, chameckilerner, staged “Costumes
even athletic aspects of quotidian movement by God” at the Dance Theater Workshop in
occurs in other areas of Brazilian movement New York. Chamecki and Lerner’s program
pedagogy. My capoeira master, for example, notes state: “In our latest pieces we’ve been
used to scoff at the idea of a “warm-up.” breaking up from our polished and complex
One’s entire day, he argued, should be consid­ physical structures—we allow the body to
ered an opportunity to attend to one’s be its raw self, the social body, full of refer­
strength, balance, and flexibility. He would ences and stereotypes, all at the same time.”
tell a student working as “boy” in an office (chameckilerner) What does this mean, to
(tellingly, this denigrating term was used in allow the body to be “raw,” “social,” and
English) that any time he dropped a pencil on “stereotyped” at the same time?
the floor, he had the opportunity to lunge, As the audience took their seats at the
stretch, and reach for the pencil in a way that opening of “Costumes by God,” a naked man
would prepare him for his evening movement and woman, Levi Gonzalez and Jennifer Kjos,
classes. Silvestre also draws to some extent on assumed a variety of tableaux vivants, not
capoeira in both her technique and choreogra­ explicitly sexual in nature—yet their nudity
phies. But women’s movement vies with men’s evoked the title of the piece, and seemed to
in its physicality, force, and dramatic power. gesture simultaneously toward nature (they
While she herself derives many movements were both au naturel, of course, but also not
from the religious dances of Candomblé, and particularly “dancerly” in body type—in other
while her own mother is a priestess who per­ words, however technical their training
forms “folkloric” dances regularly, Silvestre history might have been, their bodies didn’t
abstracts these movements, as well as the bear its visible trace) and stylization (their
movements of labor exercised by her mother gestures were oddly formal, frozen—and of
and so many other working class women, in a course, there they were on a proscenium
way which doesn’t romanticize the challenges stage). After they exited the stage, the four
they face, but rather manifests the literal principal dancers (Luciana Achugar, Maria
strength they need to face them. Hassabi, Michael Portnoy, and Jeremy Wade)
In some ways, Silvestre’s efforts to develop came on, dressed (one of the male dancers
a technique and a choreographic style blurring wore merely a twisted bed sheet, but the rest
the boundary between the traditional and the wore vaguely professional street clothing). For
experimental obviously parallels Katherine the rest of the evening, to Beco Dranoff’s elec­
Dunham’s development of her own technique. tronic/samba mixed score, these four dancers
Silvestre’s insistence on highlighting the body assumed an assortment of very explicitly
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“She Attempted to Take Over the Choreography of the Sex Act” 395

sexual poses—usually in pairs, but in forms, but their inscriptions of sexuality are
constantly changing configurations. Many of by no means evidence of a “natural” state. As
the poses were nearly still, yet evolving, and Mauss so succinctly argued, “Nothing is more
some involved the kind of awkward, humping, technical than sexual positions.”
inelegantly convulsive movement one would Except, possibly, the choreography of
tend to attribute to the most “natural,” unself­ labor. Sally Ann Ness said that learning chore­
conscious moments of sexual activity. But of ography taught her about the defamiliarizing
course even these gestures were entirely chore­ and denaturalizing possibilities of ethnogra­
ographed. And in between segments, a virtu­ phy. Ethnography might likewise teach
osic Brazilian samba dancer, Fernanda Meyer, dancers about the denaturalizing possibilities
entered, in feathered headdress and white of dance. Experimental choreography which
jeans and tank top, rhythmically and grace­ deals with naturalized notions of “culture”
fully gliding across the stage. does much of the same work as the most rig­
Was this “Brazilian dance”? What did this orous dance ethnography. Dunham knew this.
layered choreography, in which the categories And maybe if we keep writing it, and dancing
of “raw,” “social” and “stereotyped” sexual­ it, we’ll eventually be able to remember it.
ity overlapped, mean? The program notes
cited Bataille on eroticism (“Human sexual
NOTES
activity . . . is . . . erotic . . . whenever it is not
rudimentary and purely animal”—but then 1. Here’s the brief line that follows the section
on sexual technique: “Techniques of the care of
again, the piece seemed to ask, when is it?),
the abnormal: Massages and so on. But let us
and Marguerite Duras on an ideal theatricality move on” (Mauss, 1992, p. 473).
which would create “the smell of sex.” They 2. In fact, this volume (Boas, 1972) documents
also cited, to my surprise, my own Samba: a charmingly inarticulate response on Boas’s part
“When I say that there are both internal and to a question about Kwakiutl dance aesthetics as
external stereotypes of Brazilian sexuality demonstrated in a particular “light” kind of stamp­
ing movement: “Lightness! . . . Very compli­
which get played out in dance, I should add cated . . .” (Boas, p. 19). Sally Ann Ness cites this
that these stereotypes are sometimes difficult passage as an exemplary moment illustrating the
to distinguish and always difficult to disentan­ challenges of dance description: “Franz Boas’s
gle from one another.” Fortunately, the sen­ exclamation, “Lightness!,” reveals the problematic
tence still made sense to me when I read it. nature of describing the quality of even a familiar
movement, such as a stamp.” (Ness, 1992, p. 238)
In fact, it made significantly more sense to me
Whether the suspended description of a gesture’s
after watching “Costumes by God.” “Lightness!” should be attributed to Boas’s own
In a global context, Brazilian dance contin­ lack of descriptive language or to the inherent diffi­
ues to circulate with “the smell of sex.” That culties in movement analysis is perhaps not so
is to say, it carries with it an international important as his own repeated insistence on the
stereotype of sexual excess promulgated not importance of ethnographic analysis being pro­
duced by those with personal familiarity with the
only by tourism and cultural export, but by cultural material in question, whether on the basis
the reabsorption of the stereotype itself into a of ethnicity, gender, or a history of dance training.
story the nation narrates to itself about its cul­ 3. Franziska Boas (1902–1988) established
tural identity. “Costumes by God” expressed her reputation as a dance therapist, but she was
a similarly ironic appraisal of the notion of also the founder of the Boas School of Dance,
which offered intercultural, or what today would
Brazilians as “naturally sexually expressive”
probably be termed “multicultural,” dance train­
to Marta Savigliano’s appraisal of the notion of ing. A surprising number of future experimental­
Argentines as “inherently passionate.” Samba ists worked under her, including, notably, John
and tango are indeed infinitely expressive Cage and Merce Cunningham.
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396 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

4. Boas’s explicit embrace of an antiracist Fire Video, 19 Gregory Drive, S. Burlington,

politics in framing the goals of U.S. anthropology VT 05403).
is surely his most significant, if controversial, intel­ Deren, M. (1953). Divine horsemen: The living
lectual intervention. gods of Haiti. New York: Thames and
5. Interestingly, Maya Deren also abstracted Hudson.
and stylized the manipulation of chess pieces in Dunham, K. (1969). Island possessed. Chicago:
her experimental film, At Land (Deren, 1944). University of Chicago Press.
Guillermoprieto, A. (1990). Samba. New York:
Random House.
Guillermoprieto, A. (2004). Dancing with Cuba: A
REFERENCES
memoir of the revolution. New York: Random
Boas, F. (Ed.). (1972). The function of dance in House.
human society. New York: Dance Horizons. Mauss, M. (1992). Techniques of the body. In
Browning, B. (1995). Samba: Resistance in motion. J. Crary & S. Kwinter (Eds.), Incorporations.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Cambridge, MA: Zone Books.
Browning, B. (1998). Infectious rhythm: Metaphors Ness, S. A. (1992). Body, movement, and culture:
of contagion and the spread of African culture. Kinesthetic and visual symbolism in a
New York: Routledge. Philippine community. Philadelphia: University
Clark, V. A. (1984). The legend of Maya Deren: A of Pennsylvania Press.
documentary biography and collected works Savigliano, M. (1995). Tango and the political
(Vol. I). New York: Anthology Film Archives. economy of passion. Boulder, CO: Westview
Deren, M. (1944). At Land [Motion picture]. In Press.
Maya Deren: Experimental Films (1943-58) Taylor, J. (1998). Paper tangos. Durham, NC:
[Digital video disc]. (Available from Mystic Duke University Press.
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23
Staging Fieldwork /Performing Human Rights
D. SOYINI MADISON

T o recreate for the stage the living

performances of everyday remem­
brances, imaginings, and deeply felt encoun­
polarizing sides for believing in the value of
both rights and tradition.
My fieldwork culminated in a performance
ters of ethnographic fieldwork is a radical act in June 2000 in Ghana entitled: Is It a Human
of translation. The substance of such a trans­ Being or a Girl?1 The performance dramatized
lation is only surpassed in its significance by the range of voices and contentions from var­
the overwhelming necessity of purpose and ied strands within and across human rights,
ethical obligation. traditional cultural practices, and corporate
This essay examines specific scenes from globalization. The performance was also an
a public performance based on fieldwork in enactment of the implications in representing
Ghana, West Africa. I lived in Ghana for nearly Otherness, blackness, and constructions of
three years conducting field research with local race and gender relative to my position as
human rights activists working in rural areas an African American and as a woman doing
who were making courageous interventions on ethnography in Africa. And, finally, the
traditional religious practices with the specific performance embodied selections from the
purpose of protecting the rights of woman and current literature on human rights and global­
girls. At the beginning of my third year, I began ization, thereby illustrating the connections
the process of adapting my field research into between poverty, corporate globalization, and
a performance to represent their work and the human rights violations.
volatile debates that erupted from their work. I hoped by adapting my fieldwork into
These debates ignited tensions between believ­ a public performance before an audience of
ers in human rights on one side and believers Ghanaians the performance (a) would help to
in traditional cultural practices on the other, assist local activists by inspiring more of an
as well as those who were criticized by the awareness among Ghanaians of human rights

397
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398 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

advocacy within their own indigenous context; traditionalists also claim the shrine protects
(b) would disentangle and clarify the pertinent the Faishidi (the females) from the amorality
issues of the debate, as well as illuminate the and the disgrace of their family’s transgres­
connections between the global economy, sion. Traditionalists vehemently deny there is
poverty, and human rights abuses in the global abuse because the Faishidi, as a result of their
South;2 and (c) moreover, it would support the education in the shrine, are esteemed as
efforts of local activists in their struggles for “queens” with special powers. Traditionalists
social change and for public policy initiatives contend that Faishidi are taught and nurtured
relative to women and children’s rights. in the shrine in their role to become symbolic
wives of the god Mawu.
The performance event was a montage
THE PERFORMANCE QUESTION(S)
of images, sounds, movements, and voices
Civic debate holds a beautiful and compelling intended to disentangle and clarify both sides
alchemy. When citizens of a society can trans­ of the debate. In addition, the performance
form their restless disturbances into public dis­ aimed to assist with the interventions of
course by taking a stand and choosing sides; Ghanaian human rights activists working to
they un-nestle the expected and the possibility reform the practice and who also wanted to
for alterity is born. For the ethnographer, such preserve the more humane elements of tradi­
debates are the structures of feeling3 put to the tion. Moreover, the performance captured
test and dramatized writ large. the added challenge of these activists as they
The debates centered upon a remote and found themselves, for better and for worse,
ancient religious practice known as Trokosi under the forces of the global economy, an
by human rights activists and Troxovi by tra­ economy that affects poverty and village life
ditional religious practitioners. According to and, in turn, affects human rights.
rights activists, the Trokosi practice involves The very notion of rights is fraught with
a child, usually a young girl below the age of fundamental disagreement: individual rights
twelve, being sent to a village shrine for a or collective rights; universal rights or indige­
period of years or for the duration of her life. nous rights; civil rights as/or against human
She is sent to the shrine for a crime or trans­ rights. As some describe, we are living in the
gression committed by a family member (usu­ midst of a “human rights revolution.”4 What
ally a male) in atonement or reparation for a I know is that here on the flesh-and-blood
violation that is deemed against the community ground of my fieldwork is the urgency for col­
and God. The girl is sent to the shrine to avert lective rights that are inseparable from human
the wrathful punishment of God upon her rights; and, there are indigenous rights that are
family and village. Rights activists refer to these universally imperative—certain things ought
females as Trokosi. They describe the Trokosi not to be done to any human being and certain
practice as human bondage where girls and other things ought to be done for every human
women labor mercilessly in the shrines as being.5 The more complex conundrum of civil
slaves without compensation or access to edu­ rights and human rights comes down to the
cation and where they eventually become question: Do my civil rights infringe upon
forced concubines of the shrine priests. your human rights or vice verse? The freedom
The traditionalists, however, refer to the of movement, the freedom to acquire wealth,
practice as Troxovi where women and girls, and the freedom to pursue happiness are rights
referred to as Faishidi, are NOT sent to the in the global North that are putting human
shrines as slaves or concubines but are sent rights in the global South in jeopardy. This
for moral training and cultural education. The debate is more than a two-sided argument
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Staging Fieldwork 399

between traditionalists and rights activists. question: How do I persuasively interrogate

There is a third side. This side must be unrav­ corporate globality without interrogating local
eled from its hidden abode6 and seen in plain corruption and rights abuses?
sight. This third side of corporate globality
and its forceful machinations links poverty to
THE PERFORMANCE PURPOSE
the abuse of human rights.
After “being there” in the various villages Scattered throughout my small apartment on
in the Volta region where Trokosi/Troxovi the campus of the University of Ghana were
was established and practiced; after spending stacks of fieldwork journals; piles of newspa­
a great deal of time getting to know and co­ pers and assorted clippings; what seemed like
performing7 with rights activists; after accom­ a mountain of audio tapes; an assortment
panying rights activists into the areas where of journals and articles on African literature,
the Trokosi/Faishidi women and girls live; politics, and philosophy; and, of course, the
after conducting several in-depth interviews stockpile of books on human rights and glob­
with practitioners of traditional religion who alization. The time had finally come; I had to
supported the practice; after talking with stop and sort it all out. The fieldwork must
others who were vehemently against it; after end. The first questions—the red, hot, burning
witnessing several Trokosi/Faishidi tell their questions—had been answered or at least
stories; after meeting with chiefs and shrine encountered. And this, for me, is the signal to
priests; and, after continuously returning to move on. Next. It was time to write. Write,
the spaces where Trokosi/Troxovi was prac­ that is, for the body and for performance—
ticed, I was convinced that Trokosi/Troxovi writing that will see, hear, and move. Not such
was not ONE thing. It was not one homoge­ a long distance from the field yet so differently
neous cultural practice. Some shrines were placed. I would take two years of fieldwork
radically different from other shrines. The and make a performance. It was a matter of
women and girls living as Trokosi/Troxovi in translating those layers and layers of witness-
one area could not be neatly compared to ing—written, spoken, lived, and remem­
those living in other areas. Trokosi/Troxovi as bered—that surrounded me and then make
a religious and cultural practice varied them into art that mattered in this locale.
depending upon where the shrine was located. Where do I begin? The moment that holds the
This variation of the practice was largely very beginning is at once an end and a begin­
determined by economic circumstances. ning: the end of the fieldwork and the begin­
The areas where human rights violations ning of a journey toward distinctions for art
were more severe were also areas where and politics. I must decide—pick and choose—
poverty was more severe. There was a stark from two years of living and listening in the
correlation between human rights abuses and field moments too loved and feared, too amor­
economic deprivation. As a result, several ques­ phous and concrete for writing, even for writ­
tions came to mind: How can I support the ing that honors the body.
rights activists I have come to know, admire, Moving from the field to the script felt
and respect without examining how poverty like I was about to cross the Sahara on foot
impacts their work? How do I represent the or, even more overwhelming, compress epoch
dignity of tradition and honor the beliefs of tra­ yearnings into one time-bound moment. Not
ditionalists without condoning abusive cultural impossible, just monumental. There were high
practices? How can I examine poverty in the stakes involved. I was about to stage a debate
developing world without implicating corpo­ raging between a community of Ghanaians
rate globalization? And the most challenging that held truth, dignity, and tradition at its
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400 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

core. Ghanaians are strongly invested in this that human rights is not an exclusive invention
debate. The debate constitutes implications for or concern of the West. The purpose is
to represent the courage and intelligence
how they define themselves and are defined
of Ghanaians themselves who are work­
by others as a country and as a people in the ing in their own country for human rights
twenty-first century: the battle over culture, and justice. And, finally the purpose is
African morality, and the process and evolu­ to clarify the impact of corporate globaliza­
tion of human development. Moreover, the tion on poverty and development in the
debate was also about something at the regis­ global South and show the links between
globalization, poverty, and human rights
ter of an even broader cultural politics. The
abuses.
performance would confront consequences
of globality and globalization on local life.
This performance must not only inform and As I looked about the apartment at the
enlighten, it must not only be beautifully beau­ mass of information surrounding me, it was
tiful, but it must have palpable effects for this clarity of purpose that provided the direc­
structural change and policy. Indeed, I felt the tion in choosing what to take with me into
weight of purpose, which was also the weight performance and what to leave behind. The
of representation. I remembered Stuart Hall’s focus on purpose lessens the weight of wal­
warning that how a people are represented are lowing in the thickness of too much data to
how they are treated, and Dwight Conquer­ the point that I am stifled by so many choices.
good’s assertion that images and symbolic rep­ Choosing brought about its own brand of
resentations drive public policy (Hall 1992, worries. There were narratives that were elo­
Conquergood 1997). quent and deeply poignant, yet beyond my
I wanted to join the band of believers that purpose. There were other narratives that
illuminate politics through passion, to do what powerfully enhanced the purpose but if made
Johannes Fabian suggests and proceed from public would leave the narrator vulnerable.
the informative to the performative (1983). These were definitional ceremonies8 per­
And, for me, this meant a combination of nat­ formed for the narrators themselves, for me,
ural intuition, performance technique, rhetori­ and for the tape recorder with the trust they
cal strategy, and beautiful art. I was about to would not be publicly staged. These stories
cross the Sahara and journey into epochs. And were the most difficult to relinquish because
so, I began to enter with classic expectation— (from the village to the city) at varying levels
grand, nervous, and dreaming. But, the motions of wisdom and poetry they recounted enor­
did not come with the necessary confidence. mous acts of courage and sacrifice. The
Something was missing. In moving from the process of elimination was about meeting the
field to the script, into more discoveries and goals of the project but it was also about trust.
more hard work, I needed to reassert, name, There were too many stories I had to file away
know, and embrace the guiding hand of clarity still wishing the tellers could be acclaimed and
of purpose in this next stage. I must write it appreciated through the performance, while
down, sing it, or repeat it like a mantra—what­ also knowing their stories would make a
ever it takes for me to call it up when I veer off strong and powerful impact on the show’s
into too much or too little thinking, writing, purpose, but I could not use them.
and dreaming. On a the back of a postcard And, there was another challenge that sur­
from the Kwame Nkrumah monument I wrote, faced. As much as I fought against any one of
the narrators appearing as a fool or a villain,
The purpose is to honor the work of indige­ and as much as I fought against blatantly pro­
nous human rights activists and to show moting one side of the debate over the other,
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Staging Fieldwork 401

there were narratives and points of view that performed narratives as the proverbial knower
were privileged over others, primarily due and known move between impressions of
to positioning and emphasis in the script. knowledge and come together in dialogic co­
Objectivity was not my aspiration in scripting performance. It is during the scripting process
the performance, but equity in presenting both that these performed narratives must now be
sides of the debate for my stated purpose was. positioned for the stage.
I DID have a “side” in this debate and I did After the rather painstaking process of
not wish to enact what felt like feigned objec­ deciding which narratives to leave in and
tivity, postmodern ambiguity, or safe and which I must leave out, the narratives were
meaningless fairness. What I did try to keep in finally selected. The next step was then order­
mind was that my side was synonymous with ing and juxtaposing them for the stage. It is at
my recognized and transparent intentions and this point in the scripting process where it feels
those intentions were best articulated first like you are both a social critic, building an
by Ghanaians themselves whose purpose and argument of logic and persuasion, and an
goals I shared. Also, my side was not without artist creating an object of imagination and
its own struggles and ambivalences about beauty. But, no longer feeling like I’m walking
having a side in the first place, which would the distance of the Sahara, I looked forward to
necessarily be part of this performance. rereading and relistening to the interview nar­
Moving from the field to the script, it is ratives a second time for the express intent of
purpose that energizes will; then, it is politics placing them in relationship between, against,
and beauty that energizes performance. and among each other: relationships of con­
trast, comparison, extension, and completion
for the purpose of persuasion and advocacy
THE PERFORMANCE SCRIPT
as well as relationships of texture, intonation,
If ethnography is about anything it is about tone, and lyricism for the purpose of linguistic
putting your body on the line. It is about being style and aesthetic imagery. After reading and
in a particular space for a particular period of rereading—listening and relistening—to both
time. You can’t always change your address the transcripts and live interviews, I took the
and live in the space (schools, police stations, timeworn and necessary next step: I grouped
cabarets, barber shops, etc.) but you must them. The grouping, like most methods of
embrace the power of habitual and accus­ classification, developed organically out of the
tomed visitation in rituals of return and in internal elements of the narratives: (1) Human
co-performance. You can’t do ethnography Rights and Traditional Cultural Practices,
without embodied attention to the symbols (2) Corporate Globalization and Poverty,
and practices of a lived space. In-depth inter­ (3) Positionality and The Ethnographic Gaze.
viewing is a component of ethnography, but it In the Human Rights and Traditional
is not ethnography, it is qualitative research. Cultural Practices section, the focus was
Something happens differently when your specifically on the debate itself, therefore the
body must move and adjust to the rhythms, performance must reflect a style of contesta­
structures, rules, dangers, joys, and secrets of tion and rebuttal: pro-Trokosi was to embrace
a unique location. Ethnography is as much, or the voice of tradition and anti-Trokosi was to
more, about bodily attention—performing in embrace the voice of human rights. To place
and against a circumscribed space—as it is the narratives in opposition reflected the ten­
about what is told to you in an interview. sions and volatility of the actual debate. As the
Ethnography elicits everyday ceremonies point-counterpoint format demonstrated the
of engagement. Interviews often result in disputes on each side of the argument, it was
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402 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

also intended to position the audience to ask objectivity, of being the omnipotent observer
the question, Where am I in this debate? without taking risks. If I enter the performance
The theme of Corporate Globalization and space or if I do not, it would be a problem.
Poverty would come after the first theme of Will bringing my own story change the subject
rights and tradition, not only to amplify the of inquiry and interest from the Other to ME?
critics of corporate globalization as respon­ Does it make the Other’s story more believable
dents to the debate, but to assert that the by exposing the subjectivity of the teller?
Trokosi practice is not simply all good or all These questions are certainly not a perfect
bad but that it is also a consequence of dubi­ measure against falling into ethnographic
ous globality and wretched poverty. It was solipsism, but they are always the questions
in this section where I needed to ask a specific that help me keep in mind that I am not the
question: How do I expand the good/bad subject for subject’s sake, but my subjectivity
deadlock in order to get at what I believe is a vehicle—it is of “use value” to contextual­
to be a fundamental cause of human rights ize and historicize the Other.
violations? Critiques of corporate globaliza­
tion were not always an explicit part of the
THE PERFORMANCE REHEARSAL
public debate carried out by the human rights
activists and traditionalists I interviewed. The rehearsal process for staging ethnographic
However, criticism was explicit in the discus­ data demands a discreetly yet powerfully dif­
sions among intellectuals, journalists, certain ferent set of considerations than staging a play
politicians, and other local activists I came to or a literary text. The play is already written.
know when the subject of the Trokosi/Troxovi The ethnography is not. It is always writing
and human rights were mentioned. This was and rewriting itself through the rehearsal
also the theme where I felt most implicated. process. Therefore, the ethnographic perfor­
The narrators in this section were clearly those mance not only constitutes an ethics of repre­
of us who benefited most from processes of sentation, it not only illuminates field
globalization, yet we were ironically the most experiences, but it is an act of data making.
critical of its consequences. This means the ethnographic rehearsal must
Positionality and the Ethnographic Gaze elaborate and clarify for truth’s sake the ambi­
raised the question of my own subject posi­ guities and risks of a people’s nonfiction
tioning in the geographic space of West Africa, worlds. This is paramount because sometimes
local rights, and the cultural practices of fiction is not always truer than fact.
Others. Therefore, this theme demanded that I The performance consisted of five cast
confront my privilege as a U.S. academic and members; all of whom were from the University
a beneficiary of the global economy. My field of Ghana at Legon where I taught.9 The first
notes, interview data, and the implications of days of rehearsal were filled with an intriguing
my role as researcher interpreter and advocate manner of cerebral evocation: thinking and
raised questions regarding the strategic staging talking about the meanings of Trokosi/Troxovi
of my own subjectivity. Do I bring my own and how to manifest meanings through a per­
point of view toward globalization and conse­ formance that must always already pick and
quently my own “Americanism” onto the choose the very meanings it will display. The
stage? If I do this I risk the common charge of first days consisted of deeply relevant combi­
navel gazing, making myself the subject, telling nations of conversation and improvisation. I
my story at the expense of the Other. If I do described the project in detail, my fieldwork,
not, I risk the charge of not making my own and the purpose of the performance. The cast
biases clear—of being unreflexive, of false thoughtfully discussed the practice and what
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Staging Fieldwork 403

side (if any) they stood on in the debate, as well interpreting that distinguishes performance
as how they felt about the project and its pur­ methodology from simply “acting out.”
(1994, p. 17)
pose. The rehearsal process consisted of three
dimensions: (1) Thematic Conceptualizations/
Reflective Enactment, (2) Movement Forma­ The “doing and reflecting” that a perfor­
tions, and (3) Symbolic Reality. mance methodology requires is an active intel­
lectual, emotional, and empathic process. We
grasp these textual and performative worlds
Thematic Conceptualizations/ and reflectively hold on to them; we relish the
Reflective Enactment various ways we as performers are continu­
The rehearsal method requires reflective ously interpreting what these worlds mean and
enactment (Bacon, 1979; Conquergood, 1982; do, and how they feel to us.
Pineau, 1994; Schechner, 1998). Reflective As a cast we read and reread the script, we
enactment is to match and embody a text, talked, we played, we improvised, we moved,
i.e., when the performance body and a body of we questioned, and we imagined in our evoca­
knowledge palpably join in a new textual for­ tion of reflective enactment. From this point, it
mation, sometimes with ease and sometimes was at the level of movement formation when
with struggle. The performer enters the world reflective enactment extended from our bodies
of a text, and her own history, ideology, mean­ and minds and began to shape the outer
ings, and values must now meet the history, domains of the stage with a feeling of wonder,
ideology, meanings, and values of the knowl­ apprehension, and surprise.
edges presented before her in the text. She
performs these knowledges: she feels their
meanings, senses their implications, and she Movement Formation
embodies their world. The text and context of To create movement for the stage, we begin
her difference, her ideological and symbolizing by forming small groups of two and three. We
body is actively cohered with the literal text would then come up with a concept from our
and context under examination for perfor­ discussions and the narratives. I asked them
mance. Through the performance and rehearsal to name the concept—idea or conflict—in the
process the performers get to know the stories form of a word or phrase, verb or adjective,
and become them. The performer is in the that describes the reflective enactment of a
moment of the “not me” and the “not not particular moment in the script. Examples of
me,” that is, she is herself within the self of the the words and phrases included: “suffering,”
text. She enters into an affective and cognitive “the matrix of human meanings,” “poverty,”
dialectic and coupling: Elyse Pineau states, “to furiously disagree, “ freedom,” “to observe
with intensity” “strength and dignity,” and
The active body learns in ways that are emi­ “translation.” The performance groups were
nently more personal, applicable, critical,
and long-lasting than any other teaching
then given time to create a stage picture or
method. Although this method bears resem­ stage image of the concepts. The amount of
blance to such practices as role-playing or time depended on how complex or detailed the
drama therapy, genuine performance means image of the concept needed to be. In creating
probing beyond the surface of observable the image, the groups were often given various
behaviors. Performance combines full body
options depending on what kind of movement
engagement with critical reflexivity, infor­
mation must be engaged somatically as well and how much movement was needed for a
as intellectually. It is the dialectical process particular narrative, transition between narra­
of doing and reflecting, experiencing and tives, or mood we wanted to depict on stage at
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404 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

a particular moment. The movements varied a series of exercises and games designed to
for each stage picture, including “still images” uncover essential truths about societies and
culture without resort, in the first instance,
like a photograph, moving images, or moving
to spoken language—though this may be
images entailing a limited number of move­ added in the various “dynamisations” of the
ments with a specific number of transitions. images. The participants in Image Theatre
For example: I might ask for three distinct make still images of their lives, feelings,
stage pictures or still images depicting “suffer­ experience, oppressions; groups suggest titles
ing” with two transitions between each move­ of themes, and then individuals “sculpt”
three-dimensional images under these titles,
ment, or I might ask a group to create one
using their own and others’ “bodies as clay.”
moving image of “translation.” However, the image work never remains
After the completion of each group’s image, static—as with all the Theatre of the
the other cast members “read” the image, dis­ Oppressed, the frozen image is simply the
cussing what they saw and how it illuminates starting point for the prelude to the action,
which is revealed in the dynamisation
the text—extends, interrogates, interprets, and
process, the bringing to life of the images
offers other possibilities. After the cast had and the discovery of whatever direction or
sufficiently commented in an open exchange, intention is innate in them. (1992, pp. xix)
then the group discussed how they interpreted
the concept and developed their image. After
Symbolic Reality
each group created their movement forma­
tions and after the cast discussed them—what This is the final image—what the audience
they represented, what questions and further will see—the movement that is kept for the
meanings they raised, and how they could be stage. These symbolic forms that evolve from
improved—the stage pictures were then set the rehearsal process are the images that
to the words and text of the script. Matching refer, like a compelling photograph, to a spe­
the movement formations to fieldwork data cific reality. Symbolic reality refers and re-pre­
opened a range of choices: we may decide to sents moments in the field that are now, in
place a complete narrative within one move­ their very representation, evoking for the audi­
ment formation, or only a word or phrase, or ence expanded meanings, implications, and
we may include several various movement for­ consequences beyond that original moment of
mations for one narrative, or several narra­ field experience. The symbolic reality can be
tives for one formation. In terms of matching “read” by an audience; it has its own perfor­
voices with both the script and movement for­ mance syntax10—enactments to be compre­
mations the choices were also endless: we hended—that tells the ethnographic story
sometimes included several different voices for through performance. Translating ethno­
one narrative—breaking up words and sen­ graphic data to the stage is obviously a differ­
tences with a different voice for emphasis—we ent kind of “reading” of ethnographic data
sometimes formed a chorus of voices for a that the written page cannot hold, it is to
particular passage or punctuated a word or “rehydrate” the written word through embod­
phrase by creating a repetition of voices—like ied techniques (Jackson, 1993).
a barely inaudible cacophony of sound. In How the performing body on stage creates
matching and arranging voices, movements, and extends meanings and images is the “thing”
words, and script, the possibilities become that is ultimately witnessed and consumed
endless. by the audience. The rehearsal process in the
Adrian Jackson describes Augusto Boal’s particular stage of reflexive enactment reforms
Image Theatre as and performatively “rewrites” ethnographic
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Staging Fieldwork 405

data that are then given over to movement and being American, because (in this instance)
formation in order to manifest their performa­ consciousness preceded doing. Therefore, the
tive rewriting through sound, motion, and theme I wanted to embody in the prologue
flesh. In rehearsal, symbolic reality now was the polarizing nature of the debate and
emerges from the dynamics of reflection the ethnographer’s dilemma in respectfully
and movement to culminate in a “product” representing both sides, yet being consider­
that both represents reality and represents ately partial to one.
representations of a people’s reality that The polarizing sides of the debate are deep,
must now be set to stage. Symbolic reality volatile, and absolute: Two actors fill the stage,
becomes the staged ethnographic performance each alternating the words: Trokosi / Troxovi /
that is a metaphor and metonym for the Faishidi. These words are repeated with force
deeply lived experiences of fieldwork. The and indignation to represent the controversy
symbolic reality made through a performance over naming, the power of a name, and the
of ethnography metaphorically recreates a human need to be honorably named.
particular world as a double performance—
performing in likeness the performances of
that world for interpretation. Symbolic reality (The actors “fill the stage” chanting the various
metonymically embellishes the fragments and names for the Trokosi practice)
interstices of field experience for metaexperi­ Trokosi / Troxovi / Faishidi (repeated)
ence in order to make the familiar, unfamiliar. Trokosi–Wife! / Trokosi–Slave! / Trokosi- Wife!
Symbolic reality is the culminating creation / Trokosi–Slave! / Slave/Wife
that celebrates, truly, the inseparability of
fiction and nonfiction. (In alternation, the words are repeated by the
cast with anger and force. Actor 1 and Actor 2
stand at a distance with their backs to each
THE PERFORMANCE EVENT other. As the words above are repeated they
take steps away from each other until they are
Excerpts from the Prologue on opposite ends of the stage.)
The Prologue was to become the first
Actor 1:11
image, the portal of imaginary action, staged
and replicated, where real, living voices defend The Trokosi system demands that a young girl
the righteousness and necessity of tradition be sent to a shrine by force
against those Other living voices who defend As reparation
the dignity and self-determination of human
As atonement
rights. It would signal the flurry of intentions
and the unheard truths on both sides. And, the For a crime committed by a member of her
prologue was to be something more; it was to family
be my own entry. It would open in plain sight Many of whom she does not even know
my intentions and my unheard truths uncover­
ing the ambivalences of my translations, my She is sent to the shrine where she must serve
biases, and my privilege. It would mark the the priest
“why” of my presence in Ghana and the She must serve his every need
“who” of my assumed authority to write
She labors in the shrine
about it. It would introduce the politics of my
restive double-consciousness in being African She labors on the farm
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406 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

She must have sexual intercourse with the For they are children of the god
priest
They are NOT sent to the shrine in atonement
She is a virtual slave to the shrine and the
But sent for training to lead a righteous path
priest in atonement for
because
An offence committed by someone else!
Their families can no longer teach them and
She must be sent to the shrine to satisfy God lead them
Or / tragedy will befall her family and befall To serve as role models in the society.
the community
These queens will lead us!
If a Trokosi dies / she must be replaced by
”If you educate a man / you educate an
another young / virgin / girl from her family.
individual
The Trokosi are in bondage
If you educate a woman / you educate a
The Trokosi have no freedom whole nation.”
The Trokosi are denied an education There are breakaway shrines—quack shrines
The Trokosi are denied the fruits of their own These shrines do NOT adhere to the proper
hard labor training
They are denied the protection and dignity of These shrines do NOT honor and protect the
their own bodies girls
They are denied the freedom to choose their These shrines do no NOT practice traditional
own destiny African religion
The Trokosi girl has committed no offence, no Genuine Troxovi shrines are Afegame (great
crime houses)
To train these girls as leaders—to be great
(All performers from their positions upstage of
women of
Actors 1 and 2 repeat the word “lies” turning
in all directions with focus on each other, off­ Moral and spiritual character
stage, and the audience. Throughout the per­
The Trokosi are honored
formance “lies” is spoken chaotically.)
The Trokosi are protected
LIES / LIES/ LIES (repeat)
The Trokosi are trained
(The performers upstage quiet down and
The Trokosi are loved
repeat “lies” in a whisper.)

Actor 2 (Performers begin moving in a weavelike pat­

tern in and out and between one another. They
The Trokosi system is a system of training and
raise their voices and repeat “lies” again in
education
every direction.)
Young women are sent to the shrines to learn
valuable lessons of LIES/ LIES/ LIES/ (repeat)

Social / cultural / spiritual / and moral behavior

(Performers now repeat the following lines walk­
The young girls are honored and distinguished ing in a frenzied pace filling the stage space.)
For they are trained to be wives of the god Christian chauvinists!
Their children are most ennobled and glorified Human rights activist!
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Staging Fieldwork 407

Traditionalist! in differing positions at shoulders, knees, hips

etc. They were to form a connecting bond
Offenders of human rights!
where their bodies were contorted to conjoin
Religion! one another in an intricate pattern of linkages.
Bondage! Within this matrix they were to change posi­
tions four times. One position moved to the
Training! next in slow motion, never letting the conjoin­
Slavery! ing bond unravel, but changing into different
combinations of connections. The Recorder
Training!
was to walk very, very slowly toward the
Slavery! matrix, encircling it in cautious curiosity, and
Religion! then back away from it in apprehension and
ambivalent fearfulness. She was to create a
Bondage! slow, deliberate rhythm of moving towards
the matrix and then away from it as if she
(Performers stop on the word “Bondage.” In dared to enter into its dense entanglements but
place, but not in a freeze, they repeat “lies”
could not transgress its complexity.
until it builds to peak volume and then they
The next formation symbolized the
will bring it down to a whisper, then silence.)
Recorder’s dilemma. She is trying to decipher
this human ball of entanglements—to analyze
LIESLIESLIESLIESLIESLIES (repeat)
and interpret means to disentangle and to deci­
pher, then to order, and, finally, to name—but
(Performers form a small circle downstage cen­
it is not easy to approach or enter into com­
ter. Their palms are touching in various pat­
terns to resemble a matrix of connections or plex webs of human meaning. The Recorder
levels. They will change positions periodically moves closer to the matrix and in this nearness
but they maintain the motif of the “matrix.” she begins to observe and trace some of the
Another performer, referred to as the connecting links, but then the matrix changes
Recorder,12 has been in the background, hardly form. She moves closer to this different con­
noticeable, comes forward to observe the ball figuration from another angle, but the matrix
of human connections.) changes form again, and then again. Finally
the Recorder, not really able to capture the
complexity of the human connections and
disconnections, spoke:
These voices that constitute the debate
are physicalized on stage as a human matrix
and the Recorder’s encounter with this human
matrix. The Recorder represents the researcher Truth is elusive
(me) and her role as “writer” and keeper of
It is becoming too difficult to disentangle
“written” knowledges. The label of Recorder
is also used ironically to trouble the notion of I cannot find it
writing and its entry toward orality and the
It is not neat and clear / not anymore
embodied experiences that ethnographers are
called upon to embrace. Not as I travel further / look deeper / and hear
I asked the performers to form a human more
matrix by moving into a tightly enclosed circle Am I looking in the wrong places?
and from that point they “connected” to one
I am only stumbling past a million half-truths
another with the palms of their hands, their
feet, and various points of their bodies touching Yet, all of them are partial and powerful
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408 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

I’ve met so many people here who are telling and rhetoric of pure rebuttal; it was also about
their side of the truth— dignity—the dignity of believing that what you
The women and girls known as Trokosi do stand for is right and true, but more impor­
live in servitude tantly that it is a divine calling. Each side was
taking up arms for “God’s truth.” It has been
Yes / I’ve seen them / I’ve listened to their known since the first prophets as a “cause.”
stories
That compelling force, reverently inspired yet
I’ve been to those places . . . servitude / it is unalterably demanding, grabs hold of the mat­
true ters of the world and seizes them—sometimes
But there is another truth with brute force, sometimes with love—until
they are, for good or bad, forever changed. It
There are women who are called Trokosi who was this force of a “true cause” that activated
live honorably within the rituals of an both sides of the debate.
ancient tradition
There is a truth somewhere between servitude
and honor
(Actor 3 is stage right as the other performers
I need to ask more questions
mime a scene upstage. Two other actors are
bending down as the Recorder takes notes and
“writes” on their backs. Another actor guides
This movement symbolized the elusiveness the Recorder’s hand as she writes.)
of “truth” in the field when confronted with Traditionalist–Actor 3
the ambiguity of human expression, the con­
texts of contestation, and the unknowing of Before you can respect the human rights of
outsiderhood. This formation also signified others you have to undergo certain tortures
the duality and reciprocity between inner self- Certain pains—as when you are sent to school
reflection and outer observation, as well as
It is painful to receive an education
literally demonstrating when the focus must
cease from self-reflection and move back into You must perform certain labors
the outer world of the subjects. This shift from
After that your raw nature is developed into a
inner reflection to outer observation is trig­ useful human being which can be used to
gered by two performers moving downstage— improve society
the Recorder’s “subjects” taking hold of her
and guiding her attention away from reflec­ So the place of reform and rebirth is always a
place of suffering and pain
tions of herself to a seat upstage (a space
designed for her by them) where she may
watch them and listen to them more closely. In (Actor 4 is center stage as the Recorder listens
and the other actors mime a scene that repre­
this formation, we are reminded of the power
sents the concept of “freedom.”)
of the Other to translate us when we are in
caught in the dilemma of translating our trans­ Rights Activist–Actor 4
lations of them. My dream. . . .
I wish these slaves were free enough to own
Excerpts From Scene One property for themselves
The debate constituted more than counter To have resources to determine their future
stances that took hold in oppositional speech for themselves and their children
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Staging Fieldwork 409

To leave the shrines because they can take

care of themselves (Actor 2 comes center stage as other actors
look on and the Recorder takes notes upstage
Money to buy a piece of plot and provide
left.)
capitol big enough to start life
They can do it Traditionalist–Actor 2
I get very disgusted about the way these
I want them to become women with their opportunists, disguised as human rights
destiny in their own hands free to think for activists are using
themselves
The system to discredit the Ghanaian society
I have another dream . . .
especially my society—the Ewes
This dream is to enlighten Ghanaian culture
I get very upset about it
about the role of women
And I must relate this to our religious practice I see that these people are using the system
to get money from the outside funders in
The Trokosi practice is just one of the Europe and the United States
many practices that hinder women from
developing To make themselves rich while defaming our
tradition!
I see the role of women as lighting two
candles together Those who are making the most noise about
traditional religion are the people who
The two bright lights will give both of us a claim they are Christians
brighter life—we can enjoy our lives
together They think that because they are Christians that
anything to do with our traditional religion
All these women who are kept illiterate and
subjugated . . . Is dirty / is bad
Imagine what they could contribute to our So those who are making the most noise are
social economy / our politics and culture those who don’t want anything to do with
Imagine what free men and women can do Our traditional religion
together
Our traditional practices are our own way of
Imagine what type of development we would getting people to behave properly
have in this country
(Actor 4 gently takes a “book” from Actor 2
and speaks to the audience as the other actors
Each narrative held its own particular and assume positions upstage and listen.)
engaging truth. This excerpt from Scene One, Rights Activist–Actor 4
in contrast to the prologue excerpt, inversely
conceptualized the theme of chaos into a Africans believe in god / they feel god.
theme of clarity. This scene would reflect the This is reflected in the tradition of their religion
skillful articulations of both traditionalists and
rights activists as they wrapped their language The Trokosi is part of the religion
in rhetorical strategies and poetic maneuvers We like their religion
that captured the logic and the passion of their
We admire it because like all religion, tradi­
cause, while each also skillfully legitimized and
tional religion practices morality
justified specific accusations cast against the
opposing side. But we must say to them—
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410 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

If your religion practices morality then don’t We do not

be wicked!
We only want to help the girls and women
We are interested in communal life / in the
village everyone helps out The shrines should and must remain / yes

The problem of one person is the problem People go there for healing
of all
The shrines help correct people
The Trokosi is not good for the people
We recognize and respect the freedom of
We respect the village and the religion religion
We only want to change the Trokosi practice
We come to tackle the Trokosi practice on the
It is wrong basis of human rights
We don’t want to break the shrines And not on the basis of religion
We do not want to abolish the worship system We don’t come out to say your religion is bad
But what they do with the girls is wrong and
We see there is an aspect we respect / but
it is going against progress / development
there is an aspect that is against the law.
And our modern society
Continue to live your religion but without this
Why can’t they release the girls and let them violation of human rights
go to school?
We don’t say accept Jesus Christ and the god
If someone commits a crime that person must you worship is bad
pay for his own crime
No we do not impose Christianity / not in any
They should punish the offender / not the
of our literature / not anywhere.
innocent girl!
Why? But we do oppose the violation of human
rights
If a boy-child insults his father / the father
should not punish the sister
The father should punish the boy-child who This acknowledgement of understanding
insulted him! both sides of a debate then awakens an age-old
question: Which side do I take? Or, perhaps
Some people think that if we punish the
direct offender the whole religion will be the more important question becomes: Can I
destroyed afford NOT to take a side?
Respecting the articulations on both sides of
We understand they must have a judicial sys­ the debate and embodying the ethnographer’s
tem for order / peace and morality
process in representing both sides while guided
This is good—lets keep that! by the tensions of empathy on one hand and
But do not sacrifice innocent girls by sending advocacy on the other, the thematic conceptu­
them inside the shrines alization that evolved became: the persuasive
force articulated, with passion and logic, by
It is wrong both traditionalists and rights activists under
They have the interpretation that we want to the ethnographic gaze AND the ethnographer’s
abolish the shrines and ruin their worship ruminations on ethics relative to taking a stand.
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Staging Fieldwork 411

into the dubious domain of corporate

(After listening to both sides of the debate globalization. This turn would land the per­
and several monologues that raise questions formance in a different territory from the inner
beyond Trokosi, the Recorder writes in her tensions of the debate. The new direction had
journal as she speaks out to the audience.) to make sense and the territorial shift had to
be enacted with justified authority and elegant
Recorder:
polemics, or else it would quickly flatten into
October 12, 1999, Dear Journal— trendy “globalization speak” or recede into
the abysmally incoherent. The influences of
I am in a dilemma in the fieldwork
globalization on the Trokosi practice are
Throughout the interviews I am led down sometimes obvious and sometimes not. When
other paths—beyond Trokosi these influences do appear obvious—influ­
The implications ences such as fair trade, third world debt, and
agricultural dumping—they are obvious only
Trokosi has greater implications
in their presence around us; however the
Rural life / The witch camps / The North / details of their consequences aren’t always
Nkrumah clearly linked to local poverty and human
Implications rights practices. The purpose of this scene was
to establish that link. The purpose of the scene
These are subjects for another time . . . yet was also to bring to light the stories that
These are subjects that are inside Ghanaian are not Trokosi stories but surround Trokosi
life history. Context is not overdetermined here
but necessarily evoked in the larger cause and
Witches, the first president of Ghana,
effects of the Trokosi practice—both the spe­
Northerners, life in the villages
cific practice and the larger cultural tradition.
Why do they keep coming up / again and The theme would reflect how the dialectic, in
again? theory and practice, between the global and
Experience is never neat the local become the context that profoundly
determines the level of human rights, from one
Culture is never narrow location to another, under the Trokosi system.
They say that Context is everything Finally, Scene Three would offer the possibil­
ity for a progressive and radical resolution to
Rural life / The witch camps / The North /
the Trokosi debate. The thematic conceptual­
Kwame Nkrumah
ization must inhere contextual influences and
I am listening global effects, but it must also unapologeti­
They say that context is everything cally culminate in the possibility for a clear
and attainable option. The performance
I have been listening intended to work against the notion of leaving
I hope for good purposes the audience conscientiously disturbed while
embracing ambiguous solutions that would
activate them toward creating and determin­
ing their own course of action.
Excerpts From Scene Three
This is a noble intent, one that I admire
It was in this scene where the performance and one that I often teach and practice relative
was to take a considerable turn and enter to performance for social change. But this
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412 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

performance, in this time and for this space,

required a more definite option or possible (The Recorder comes downstage as actors look
solution. The thematic conceptualization that on.)
evolved for Scene Three was: The link between Recorder:
global forces and local life and the possibility
for an inseparable coexistence between human I am in the middle of my fieldwork
rights and traditional African religion. And there are so many questions still
The challenge now was to create the forma­
Unanswered
tions that would flow between globality, con­
text, and resolution. I just wanted to understand the truth behind
In this movement the Recorder moves from the Trokosi system
the role of interviewer and comes downstage Just the Trokosi system
and speaks directly to the audience. She poses
But now there are other stories
a question to the audience regarding African
debt and development. She moves closer to Other connections
the audience to seek their response; however, Other surfaces that go so deep
before she can anticipate an answer, the inter­
viewees (actors) still sitting upstage on the The dilemma of listening for good purposes
platforms ring out in alternating voices What do I do with what I have heard
varying points of view on the global economy. With what I have seen
After the interviewees have spoken their
minds on globality, the Recorder returns A distant country
downstage to speak out to the audience, and A distant people
in a self-interrogating stance, she confesses
But this country / these people / are not so
her own ambivalences about being a privileged
distant anymore
American while acknowledging that self-
reflexivity withstanding, she must stop the They are part of me now
ruminations upon her own angst and return to Like an inseparable friend
the field and the debate.
Like an unforgettable lover
The movement illuminates the intersections
between human rights and the economy under This land / These people
the backdrop of the IMF and the World Bank. Can these notes capture the poignancy of
It positions local voices as being both critics their lives?
and inquisitors of economic policies that have
The everyday moments of their laughter and
proven to be ineffectual at best and regressive
at worst. This leap from the local debate Their suffering
surrounding the Trokosi practice to that of I cannot indulge in sentiment without politics
the world economy is linked by a pivotal
transition the Recorder enacts as she deliberates I cannot indulge in sentiment without politics
upon her double identity as an American Development
woman of privilege and a woman of African Democracy
descent living in an African country to which
she “belongs” and for which she must ulti­ Wealth / poverty
mately commit (and commit to) the political I can not indulge in aesthetic spectatorship
act of representation. without political engagement13
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Staging Fieldwork 413

What does Trokosi have to do with (The Recorder has acknowledged her ambiva­
Development lent and ambiguous position as a recorder who
is of two worlds, both worlds reaching beyond
What does Trokosi have to do with
the limits of the Trokosi practice, yet also reach­
Democracy
ing into that practice and complexifying it
What does Trokosi have to do with wealth through an economic dialectic that threatens
and poverty freedom and enlightenment. It is at this point
when the relationship between human devel­
America opment and economic development must be
American interrogated. The Recorder turns to the audi­
ence and asks:)
African
African American Could you clarify for me the problems some
Africans are having with the World Bank,
Advanced
The International Monetary Fund, and
Advanced country Structural Adjustment Programs?

Black
(The Recorder looks out to the audience for the
American answers. The Subjects seated behind her on the
platforms represent both her consultants and
Living
her audience. They all answer her question in a
In symbolic intervention to give voice and critical
agency to indigenous people who are affected
An
by the programs and policies of the IMF and
Advanced country World Bank but who are not heard and whose
philosophical and political awareness of these
What do I have to do with Trokosi institutions is grossly underestimated.)
BlackAmericanLivingInAnAdvancedCountry
[The actors are presented here as “voices”—V#
What do I have to do with Trokosi?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
I live in the richest country in the world
V#1: First of all the IMF and the WB need to
I will not give up my citizenship
listen!
I will not give up my privilege
V#3: People who put up an intellectual
I will not give up my citizenship? defense for the IMF and WB / I wonder
if they actually read the letters of intent
I will not give up my privilege? or conditionalities.
What does all this have to do with Trokosi / V#4: One thing we must recognize is that the
The witch camps / The North only way that we can extricate our­
The legacy of Kwame Nkrumah? selves is by developing technology—
getting our own technologies and
I live in the richest country in the world embarking on an industrial revolution.
What do I do with what I’ve learned here We must produce the products to meet
our own most basic needs—
I live in the richest country in the world
V#5: We are not talking about going to
What have I learned here? space. We are just talking about
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414 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

industrialization so we can meet our the people who are watching the performance.
most basic needs. The Recorder “listens” to the audience who
V#1: So no child will go to bed hungry, and represent the Ghanaian public to mark that
so that anyone who wants to work is it is they who speak these lines. The Recorder
given the opportunity to work. responds to these voices by acknowledging a
tension that is both far and near between the
V#2: It is not too much to ask for?
global and the local, but also a tension that is
V#3: In northern Ghana, where I come from, both helpful and harmful.
it is the breadbasket of the country. The
soil is productive for rice and agricul­
ture, but this import liberalization pro­
(The Recorder speaks from her position on
gram hurts the local farmer.
stage.)
V#4: The big agricultural businesses dump
The rich and the poor are at distances beyond
their imports like rice and so the people
comprehension
suffer. How? You don’t expect my uncle
who is a rice farmer about 50 miles Yet
from Tamale and who has just about The rich and the poor are strangers up close
two acres and who doesn’t have a trac­ and personal like opposing twins
tor—just a hoe—to compete with these
big agro businesses. My uncle pro­ One holds the other by global strings
duces about 15 bags of rice. He doesn’t Global and enormous
have the technology to produce a lot of
rice. He goes to the market to sell his Global
rice. Now, because he doesn’t enjoy
Together and apart!
the economies of scale and production,
his rice will be slightly more expensive
than the imported one. So, you can’t (On the line, together and apart, each of the
expect that peasant farmer to compete Actors picks up from the platform a journal—
with that big agro business. what is meant to be the Recorder’s Journal. The
Recorder turns and speaks to them:)
V#5: The IMF and WB don’t factor that in, in
terms of economic stability. Yes, the sit­ The UN Development Report documents
uation is better than it was some 18 or how globalization has dramatically
20 years ago. But it is not where it increased inequality between and within
could be or should be. It is aid-driven nations, but at the same time it has brought
and the social cost is enormous— people together like never before!
V#1: Plus, the indebtedness. . . . There is no
way we can ever pay back the loans— (Motivated by the dubious fact of globaliza­
tion, the Actors begin reading passages from
V#2: Close to 7 billion dollars. the Recorder’s journal. They read each pas­
ALL: There is no way! sage loudly but without emotion, as if they
were reading information from a book, taking
care to almost over-pronounce every word,
but without emotion. This technique of punc­
The performers turn their backs to the audi­ tuated reading without feeling results in dra­
ence and the Recorder after the line: There matizing the “facts” of globalization:)
is no way. The Recorder has been looking out
to the audience, actively listening, with ges­ V#1: We live in a world where the
tures of interest, alarm, and agreement, as financial assets of just 200 of the
though all that has been said is coming from richest people in the world are
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Staging Fieldwork 415

greater than the combined income V#1: Changes in our political

of the more than 2 billion people! institutions.
V#2: The majority of trade and invest­ V#4: By changes in our political
ments takes place between indus­ institutions
trial nations.
V#1: By changes in our political
V#4: Global corporations control a institutions
third of world exports
V#1: Of the 100 largest economies in
the world, 51 are corporations The Recorder then asks the question again:
Recorder: What does this have to do with What has this got have do with Trokosi? This
Trokosi? is a rhetorical question with the purpose of
underscoring an obvious answer that will
V#2: The global economy disrupts tra­ affirm the link between the local and the
ditional economies and weakens
global, a link that has been dramatized up to
their governments to help them.
this point in the performance. This section, in
V#1: They are left to fend for them­ amplifying the voices of Ghanaians themselves
selves against failed states in speaking to the dubious effects of globaliza­
tion, rather than having those effects always
V#2: Against destitution
told TO them, now turns in a reversal back to
V#4: Famine and plagues contemplations of Recorder.
V#1: They are forced to migrate
V#2: They are forced to offer their labor
at wages below what it takes for (The Recorder comes down to center stage.)
them to live
V#4: They are forced to sacrifice their Recorder:
children It is time to go back in the field
V#1: They are forced to cash in their It is time to go back to Trokosi
physical environments
There are more questions
V#2: They are forced to neglect their
personal health It is time to get back to the debate
Why is the debate about Trokosi so heated
V#3: They are forced to just survive?
Why is everyone so angry?
Recorder: What does this have to do with
Trokosi? Trokosi is not the subject
V#1: Education and health budgets are The subject is the debate
slashed to pay off debts
It has got to be about the Debate
V#2: The total wealth of the 358 global
Can I shut up and listen for good purposes!
billionaires equals the combined
income of 45 percent of the Anthropologist on board? Oh! BEWARE
world’s population.
Another westerner charges human rights
V#3: The recent transformation of the abuses in Africa against an oblique
world economy14 paradigm?
V#2: Has not been matched by Against her performance?
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416 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

Westerners . . . ah / here we come to save War II, by the French demographer, Alfred Sauvy,
Africa from herself to refer to the economic tiers monde or the world
of “poor countries”) in the global justice move­
We have the answers . . . we have the A-I-D ment. Other terms have been added: “developing
Listen while we show and tell you nations,” Majority World, and South or global
South. Generally, activists and scholars employ
To yourselves the terms North and South to refer to the division
Here we come, giddi yup / giddi yup / the between wealthy first world countries largely con­
wild, wild / West will show you and tell you centrated in the North and impoverished third
world countries concentrated in the South, and to
There are more questions the historical legacy of centuries of imperialism.
3. Raymond William’s notion of structure of
It’s time to go back to Trokosi . . . feeling is the idea that there are shared emotions,
beliefs, and ideologies by members of specific
There IS such a thing as a good purpose
groups, classes, and cultures based on common
values, practices, structures, etc.
4. The idea of a “human rights revolution”
The Recorder enacts her own resentments is discussed eloquently in Brian Orend’s book
relative to western knowledge, arrogance, and Human Rights: Concepts and Context (2002) and
Judith Blau and Alberto Moncada’s book Human
power as it relates to Africa and African people.
Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision (2005).
She employs the cowboy as a patriarchal trope 5. From Michael Perry’s book The Idea Of
for imperialist practices and arrogant percep­ Human Rights: Four Inquires (1998), p. 6.
tion toward African people. She implicates her 6. Hidden abode in its original conception
own intentions and methods against the often refers to the Marxist idea of the circuit and the
capitalist production that is hidden in the every­
inept benevolence of her country as well as her
day. Here I refer to how the workings of power
western academic training. Having interrogated are hidden from view, yet present in their effects.
her subject position, she must reconcile the ten­ 7. Co-performance or co-performing is the
sions within her own ambivalent reflections term Dwight Conquergood employs to replace
regarding her own positionality and go back to the idea of “participant-observation” to describe
the field, ever mindful, again, of purpose.15 the deeper and more complex ways ethnographers
interact and engage the more deeply felt and
sensed dimensions in which they “live” in and
~~~ with the cultures they study.
8. Definitional ceremony is based on the
Ethnographic performance can do the labor of work of anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff and the
making local work a global issue. It hopes to notion that the sharing of a story is an act of defin­
re-imagine Otherness. It hopes to disturb and ing history and identity—it is a needed perfor­
invoke. It hopes to always and already make mance of self that is not necessarily meant to be
shared beyond the moment of the interview.
Others known, real, and memorable, not only
9. Two of the performers, Christine Naa
in what they say, but in what they do.16 Norley Lokko and S. O. H Afriyie-Vidza, were
students who were enrolled in several classes
I taught at the university; two others, Florence
NOTES
Akosua Abea and Ekua Ekumah, were friends that
1. The title, “Is it a Human Being or a Girl?” were experienced performers—Florence was a
came from and interview during my fieldwork. dancer and Ekua an actor and director; the fifth
My respondent informed me that when a baby is performer, Jacqueline “Jackie” Afodemo Dowetin,
born, instead of asking is it a girl or boy, in certain was introduced to me by Ekua. Jackie was also an
areas of Ghana some may ask, “Is it a human experienced performer and was working with
being or a girl?” Trokosi women on a theatre project in the Klikor
2. Instead of the primary use of the term region of Ghana. The cast was committed to the
“third world” (a term coined in 1952, after World performance under the duress of final exams, the
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Staging Fieldwork 417

usual end of the year frenzy, and a limited and rulers of this region came forth with a statement
rather rushed rehearsal time period. The cast denouncing the “dehumanizing” aspects of the
varied in their knowledge and perspectives on tradition and stated the practice “should be trans­
the debate and the Trokosi/Troxovi practice. The formed.” The following is an excerpt from the
one male performer, S.O.H, was Ewe. He was larger statement of resolution:
adamantly opposed to the Trokosi/Troxovi prac­
tice because of experiences with family relations
We also wish to state that, we the
who were victimized by the system. Ekua—whose
Traditional Rulers and people of the Tongu
parents were Ghanaian, but who lived in London,
invited the Commission of Human Rights
England where Ekua was raised—was sensitive
and Administrative Justice, and gave the
to human rights issues but also felt it important
mandate to the Non-governmental organi­
to honor traditional religious practices and not
zations such as International Needs Ghana
demonize Trokosi without reference to its history
to help us with the transformation process.
and context. For Florence, who was Ashanti, the
. . . We also wish to call on the Government
practice was basically unknown, yet she was curi­
to enforce the law that they passed against
ous about and attentive to what was constantly
ritual servitude in Ghana. (Resolution of
being revealed about the practice throughout our
Tongu Rulers, 2000)
performance process. Christine, who was Ga, was
active in a Christian based performance group on
campus. She had heard of Trokosi but was not The transformation of the Trokosi practice has
familiar with the details of the debate and indi­ been generally successful due to the work of several
cated that she was against cultural practices where NGOs, particularly International Needs Ghana
women were subjugated. Jackie, who was Ewe, under the direction of Walter Pimpong and
came in during the third day of rehearsal. Based Wisdom Mensah. However, when I was in Ghana in
on her work with Trokosi women in the Klikor December 2004 on a visit with some of my friends
region, Jackie knew as much, if not more, than in the human rights community, they stated, even
I did about the Trokosi system. She was a great with the success of reforming the practice, they
source of information and inspiration during believed there were still a few shrines in operation
rehearsals. that have been driven underground.
10. Performance syntax is used to refer to 16. The public response to the performance
the juxtapositions, linkages, and formations that was a mixture of gratitude, appreciation, and sur­
performatively make meaning. prise. Each show received a standing ovation and
11. The monologues are all written in poetic audiences commented on how much they learned
form (sometimes referred to as poetic transcrip­ about the Trokosi/Troxovi practice and how
tion) to capture the rhythm of the voice and inspired they were by the work of rights activists.
to emphasize particular words and phrases that Stakeholders on both sides of the debate had a
the prose form in its blocked text can not range of responses. Some felt angry that the perfor­
acknowledge. mance did not more forcefully support their posi­
12. The Recorder is the term used to describe tion on the debate, others felt that it did support
the act of “textuality” that the ethnographer must them, and there were others that especially appreci­
both embrace and resist in the art and craft of ated the economic dimension. One of the more
fieldwork. interesting responses, as well as the most common
13. This was taken from Bruce Robbins in his among audiences, was regarding the form. The idea
book Feeling Global: Internationalism in Distress. that interview data, field notes, and critical com­
14. These lines, “The recent transformation mentary could be performed on stage was surpris­
of the world economy has not been matched by ing to many. The performance was presented in
changes in our political institutions” are a direct June 2000, and at that time not very many people
reflection of the work of Bruce Robbins and were staging qualitative research data at home or
Zygmunt Bauman. abroad. The activists I worked with felt that the
15. On June 23, 2000, I attended a meeting form of staging fieldwork data was successful in
called by the traditional rulers of the Tongu representing their work and the pertinent issues sur­
Region with two friends who led the campaign to rounding Trokosi/Troxovi. We decided we would
transform the practice, Wisdom Mensah and plan to use the performance as a means to raise
Walter Pimpong. At the gathering, the traditional funds in the United States.
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418 PERFORMANCE AND ETHNOGRAPHY

REFERENCES Hall, S. (1992). What is this “black” in black pop­

ular culture? In G. Dent (Ed.), Black popular
Bacon, A. W. (1979). The art of interpretation. culture (pp. 21–33). Seattle, WA: Bay Press.
New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Jackson, A. (1992). Introduction. In A. Boal, Games
Blau, J., & Moncada, A. (2005). Human rights: for actors and non-actors (pp. xxii–xxvii).
Beyond the liberal vision. New York: Rowman New York: Routledge.
& Littlefield. Jackson, S. (1993). Ethnography and the audition:
Conquergood, D. (1982). Communication as Performance as ideological critique. Text and
performance: Dramaturgical dimensions of Performance Quarterly, 13, 21–43.
everyday life. In J. I. Sisco (Ed.), The Jensin Pineau, E . (1994). Teaching is performance: Recon­
lectures: Contemporary communication ceptualizing a problematic metaphor. American
studies (pp. 24–43). Tampa: University of Educational Research Journal, 31(1), 3–25.
South Florida Press. Perry, M. (1998). The idea of human rights: Four
Conquergood, D. (1997). Street literacy. In inquiries. Oxford, England: Oxford University
J. Flood, S. B. Heath, & D. Lapp (Eds.), Press.
Handbook of research on teaching literacy Robbins, B. (1999). Feeling global: Internationalism
through the communication and visual arts in distress. New York: NYU Press.
(pp. 334–375). New York: Macmillan. Schechner, R. (1998). What is performance studies
Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the Other: How anthro­ anyway? In P. Phelan & J. Lane (Eds.), The ends
pology makes its object. New York: Columbia of performance (pp. 357–362). New York:
University Press. NYU Press.
Madison-24.qxd 10/14/2005 5:59 PM Page 419

PART VI
Performance and Politics
Themes and Arguments1

JUDITH HAMERA AND DWIGHT CONQUERGOOD

P olitics and performance are intimately

linked historically, conceptually, and
pragmatically. This link is foundational; as
reconfigure, resignify. “Re” acknowledges
the preexisting discursive field, the repeti­
tion—and the desire to repeat—within the
performative present, while “embody,”
Victor Turner (1982) explains, ritual elements “configure,” “inscribe,” “signify,” assert the
of performance generate communitas, a sense possibility of materializing something that
of solidarity that has conservative or revolu­ exceeds our knowledge, that alters the shape
tionary consequences for the life of the polis. of sites and imagines other as yet unsus­
Communitas may be “spontaneous” and pected modes of being.
Of course, what alters the shape of sites
magical; “ideological,” that is, theoretical,
and imagines into existence other modes
enmeshed in language and culture which may of being is anathema to those who would
or may not be utopian; or “normative,” which police social borders and identities. (p. 2)
could be “ongoing, relatively repetitive,”
“transformative,” or both (p. 49). In “Ion,”
Plato (1998) presents his concern about the May Joseph (1999) observes that “[t]he idea of
solo performer’s potential to create communi­ citizenship” is itself “a performing sphere that
tas in his audience. He charges the rhapsode transforms the abstraction ‘the people’ into
Ion with spreading a contagious irrationality individuated political subjects and participat­
to his listeners, and the rhetorical overkill of ing citizens” (p. 15). Jon McKenzie (2003)
his attack betrays a deeper anxiety about the adds: “From annual performance reviews to
social force of performance. high-performance missile systems—and yes,
Richard Schechner (1985) defines perfor­ even to ritual and theatre—performance now
mance as “restored behavior” (p. 33). Elin gathers together a vast array of [sociopolitical]
Diamond reminds us of the political implica­ phenomena” (p. 118).
tions of this: McKenzie’s statement signals an important
point: relations between performance and
terminology of “re” in discussions of politics partake of the same multifaceted
performance, as in reembody, reinscribe, approaches to performance itself within the

419
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420 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

field of performance studies. As Diana Taylor While these questions are fully engaged in
(2003) states in The Archive and the Repertoire: the “Performance and History” section of this
volume, the political dimensions of Pollock’s
“Performance,” on the one level, constitutes questions are also important here. Performance
the object/process of analysis in perfor­ studies scholars have been instrumental in
mance studies, that is, the many practices
and events—dance, theatre, ritual, political
restoring excluded or marginalized histories
rallies, funerals—that involve theatrical, to larger disciplinary conversations and, in so
rehearsed, or conventional/event appropri­ doing, they call for increased disciplinary
ate behaviors. self-reflexivity. In “Rethinking Elocution: The
On another level, performance also con­ Trope of the Talking Book and other Figures
stitutes the methodological lens that enables
of Speech” (2000), Dwight Conquergood
scholars to analyze events as performance.
Civic obedience, resistance, citizenship, rewrites the history of elocution over against
gender, ethnicity, and sexual identity, for its excluded others: African American and
example, are rehearsed and performed daily working-class speakers whose bodies and
in the public sphere. (p. 3) voices became signifiers of the “coarse
and uncouth features” to be “refined” (p. 327).
Both approaches to performance—as subject Lisa Merrill’s (1999) critical examination of
of, and method of, analysis—emerge in four the life and work of actress Charlotte Cushman
overarching and interrelated themes taken up speaks back to the “invisibility” of women’s
by scholarship about performance and politics, same-sex erotic relationships in history gener­
including the essays in this section. They are ally, and in the history of performance in
particular. Tracy Davis (1991) addresses
• Performance in/as the production of history the sociopolitical and economic dimensions of
• Performance in/as the deployment of institu­
tional power
acting as gendered labor. Shannon Jackson’s
• Performance in/as the production of identity (2000) Lines of Activity reads Hull House
and “reformance” (p. 8) as the embodied conse­
• Performance in/as technologies of resistance quences of Progressive Era social policy.

It bears repeating that these themes are not

PERFORMANCE
mutually exclusive, and that they overlap and
IN/AS THE DEPLOYMENT
reinforce one another, as in the five essays to
OF INSTITUTIONAL POWER
follow.
The performative dimensions of institutional
power emerge in historical and contemporary
PERFORMANCE IN/AS THE
analyses by performance studies scholars.
PRODUCTION OF HISTORY
Dwight Conquergood (2002) has been partic­
Della Pollock (1998) gets to the heart of inter­ ularly eloquent in identifying and challenging
sections between performance, politics, and institutional, including academic, biases that
history when she observes, favor the written and the textual. He argues,

Boundaries that have for so long kept Only middle-class academics could blithely
the “facts” in and the “fiction” out of assume that all the world is a text because
history are now crossed over and traced reading and writing are central to their
through with such supra-disciplinary ques­ everyday lives and occupational security.
tions as: What does it mean to represent the For many people throughout the world,
past? How have politics shaped traditions however, particularly subaltern groups,
of representation? (p. 3) texts are often inaccessible, or threatening,
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Performance and Politics 421

charged with the regulatory power of the network for testing and monitoring democ­
state. . . . racy’s performance. More directly than per­
The hegemony of textualism needs to be formance studies, performance management,
exposed and undermined. Transcription is or techno-performance, government perfor­
not a transparent or politically innocent mance channels sovereignty machines and
model for conceptualizing or engaging the juridical orders. Right now, this network
world. (p. 147) contains national governments, trans- and
supranational entities, nation states, NGOs,
Likewise, Peggy Phelan poses an epistemo­ academic researchers, and most impor­
tantly, dissatisfied democrats: that is, disaf­
logical challenge to institutional regimes of vis­ fected people. To what use this network will
ibility and reproduction. In Unmarked (1993), be put, and by whom or what: that is the
she challenges undertheorized testaments to question. (p. 126; see also McKenzie, 2001)
the “power” of visibility as it is conventionally
understood. The intimate workings of institutional
power are also examined by performance
Currently, . . . there is a dismaying similarity studies scholars. Kristin Langellier and Eric
in the beliefs generated about the political
Peterson (2004) argue that families are per­
efficacy of visible representation. The danger­
ous complicity between progressives dedi­ formed into being, created and perpetuated by
cated to visibility politics and conservatives norms and genres of family stories. They argue:
patroling the borders of museums, movie
houses, and mainstream broadcasting is Storytelling participates in family as institu­
based on their mutual belief that representa­ tion and as agency. As an institutional prac­
tions can be treated as “real truths” and tice, performing family stories is part of a
guarded or championed accordingly. Both frame-up which takes up, circulates, and
sides believe that greater visibility of the renews models of acceptable identity in
hitherto under-represented leads to enhanced society according to local norms: good
political power. . . . Insufficient understand­ mothers and fathers, good children, good
ing of the relationship between visibility, families. . . . Simultaneously, performing
power, identity, and liberation has led both family stories engages a possibility for agency
groups to mistake the relation between the to build personal and communal identities
real and the representational. (p. 2) that resist major narratives of the family.
Resistance may take forms of struggle,
Moreover, performance offers unique refusal, repudiation, or contestation. (p. 113)
and important alternatives to institutional
understandings of visibility, the real, and Langellier and Peterson’s discussion of perfor­
representation. mance as a tool that both perpetuates institu­
Performance studies scholars use these con­ tional formations and offers agency within or
ceptual descriptions of, and challenges to, insti­ against them leads to the third theme in schol­
tutional power to engage the macro and micro arship dealing with performance and politics.
practices of power at the level of state and
extra-state actors. For example, Jon McKenzie PERFORMANCE IN/AS THE
(2003) examines intersections of performance PRODUCTION OF IDENTITY
and politics in the technocratic micro practices
Here, it is useful to reexamine the link between
of, in, and beyond the state as he explores pos­
performance and performativity. Elin Diamond
sibilities for reinventing democracy. He writes,
(1996) characterizes performance as “a doing
One thing we know for sure: with govern­ and a thing done” (p. 1). “Performativity” is a
ment performance, we are witnessing the particular linguistic method of making and
emergence of a global yet fragmented doing. The term finds its roots in J. L. Austin’s
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422 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

(1975) How to Do Things with Words. A American lesbian performance artist Alina
“performative” is a type of utterance that does Troyano, aka Carmelita Tropicana. Troyano’s
something; its effect coincides with its use. work exposes “the ambivalent, complicated,
Judith Butler (1993) extended the possibilities mixed up, and jumbled nature of the hybrid
of performativity beyond the simply linguistic. self” (Muñoz, 1999, p. 138) and, in so doing,
For Butler, performativity is a way to explore refuses the stability of simple performative
the enunciation and apparent stability of iden­ repetitions of majoritarian identity categories.
tity categories, particularly sexuality and gen­ E. Patrick Johnson also uses performativity to
der. Briefly put, a performative is both an critique presumptions of simple, stable, dis­
agent of, and a product of, the social and polit­ crete categories of identity. In his book
ical surround in which it circulates. Its effects Appropriating Blackness (2003), he identifies
are reinforced through repetition. Gender and performativity at work in Marlon Riggs’s film
sexuality were the identity categories initially Black Is . . . Black Ain’t. Johnson writes,
theorized as performatives; they were engaged
as “made” and not “natural” or inevitable, Riggs’s film implicitly employs performativ­
and therefore as available for intervention and ity to suggest that we dismantle hierarchies
that privilege particular black positionalities
un- or remaking. Butler and other critical at the expense of others; that we recognize
scholars have also extended the notion of the that darker hue does not give us any more
performative to include race, class, and other cultural capital or claim to blackness than
dimensions of identity. do a dashiki, braids, or a southern accent.
Performance studies scholars have applied Masculinity is no more a signifier of black­
ness than femininity; heterosexuality is no
the idea of the performative in a variety of com­
blacker than gayness; and poverty makes
pelling analyses. Two examples are illustrative one no more authentically black than a
of the political dimensions of identity construc­ house in the suburbs. (p. 40)
tion and intervention. In Disidentifications
(1999), José Esteban Muñoz gets to the heart of Though he explores the critical potential
complex constructions of identity by minoritar­ of both performance and performativity,
ian subjects. Johnson is quick to point out that

Minoritarian subjects need to interface with although useful in deconstructing essential­

different subcultural fields to activate their ist notions of selfhood, performance must
own senses of self. This is not to say that also provide a space for meaningful resis­
majoritarian subjects have no recourse to tance of oppressive systems. (p. 5)
disidentification or that their own forma­
tion as subjects is not structured through
multiple and conflicting sites of identifica­ While these two examples expose the play
tion . . . Yet, the story of identity formation with, and critique of, identity formations as
predicated on “hybrid transformations” potentially liberatory, political intersections of
that this text is interested in telling concerns performance and identity are not always so.
subjects whose identities are formed in
Judith Hamera (2002) examines a family of
response to the cultural logics of heternor­
mativity, white supremacy, and misogyny— Cambodian refugees whose attempts to repro­
cultural logics that I will suggest work to duce “pure” Khmer classical dance seem to
undergird state power. (p. 5) hold the promise of shoring up stable, produc­
tive identities in the face of trauma and dislo­
Muñoz explores a variety of disidentifica­ cation. Instead, their efforts performatively
tory performances that “make and do” hybrid reproduce their own deep social isolation and
identities. Among them are pieces by Cuban personal loss.
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Performance and Politics 423

PERFORMANCE IN/AS Neale Hurston (1935/1990) called “feath­

TECHNOLOGIES OF RESISTANCE erbed resistance”:
In Durov’s Pig (1985), Joel Schechter offers a The theory behind our tactics: “The white
small but telling example of performance as a man is always trying to know into some­
technology of resistance. In 1907 in Germany, body else’s business. All right, I’ll set some­
the eponymous Durov, a Russian satirist and thing outside the door of my mind for him
clown, to play with and handle. He can read my
writing but he sho’ can’t read my mind. I’ll
put this play toy in his hand, and he will
placed a German officer’s cap, or “helm” as
seize it and go away. Then I’ll say my say
he called it, in the circus ring, and his
and sing my song.” (p. 3)
trained pig ran to retrieve it. Using ventrilo­
quism, Durov made the pig appear to be
saying “Ich will helm,” meaning “I want the Performance in/as a technology of resistance
helmet.” But the phrase could also be trans­ emerges in now-canonical texts of theatre
lated “I am Wilhelm,” thereby equating studies, like the writings and stagings of Bertolt
Germany’s Emperor, Wilhelm II, with a
Brecht (see Willetts, 1964). It appears in prac­
trained pig. (p. 2)
tices of everyday life, both public and private,
and in challenges to conventional modes of
The audience thought this was hilarious. The
scholarly representation. A complete survey of
police and the Kaiser did not. Durov was
performance in/as technologies of resistance
arrested, charged with treason, and expelled
is as impossible as one of all the relationships
from the country. Schechter explains,
between performance and politics, so I will
“The stage is one of my arms of govern­ focus on only three examples here.
ment,” the Kaiser had told actors at the In her discussion of the daily practices of
Royal Theatre in Berlin. Durov’s democrati­ the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina,
zation of power reduced the Emperor’s Diana Taylor (2003) develops the formulation
authority over his arms of government, and “the DNA of performance.” From 1977 on,
his army, by sharing it with a pig. One small
the Madres protested the disappearance, the
circus act could hardly overthrow a govern­
ment, and yet it represented a freedom from literal erasure, of their children by Argentina’s
state control which the Kaiser could not right wing military government during their
countenance. (p. 3) Dirty War. When a democratic government
returned to power in 1983, they protested
Key elements of performance in/as a technol­ the lack of official resolve to prosecute those
ogy of resistance emerge from this small responsible for the disappearances. The
example. First, such performances are, in women used photos of their missing children
some sense, improvisatory and tactical. They as core components of their protests. They
“boldly juxtapose diverse elements in order produced proof of their children’s lives against
to suddenly produce a flash shedding a dif­ their official erasure. Taylor states, “This rep­
ferent light on the language of a place and resentational practice of linking the scientific
to strike the hearer” (de Certeau, 1974/1984, and performatic claim is what I call the DNA
pp. 37–38). Second, they often redeploy of performance” (p. 171). Here, performatic
techniques of the conventional theatre to proof supplies the visibility and the social force
their own ends: mimicry, mise en scene, that scientific proof alone cannot.
humor, props. Third, speaking back to power Augusto Boal also developed techniques
through performance may be confrontational to speak back, to perform back, to oppressive
and overt, or subtle and covert, what Zora regimes. His Theatre of the Oppressed (see
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424 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Boal, 1979) and Forum Theatre are living, intersections of community-based and activist
evolving approaches to performance for social performance. It begins with an overview of
change. Boal writes: important historical markers in both genres,
explores the idea of cultural democracy, and
Our mandate’s project is to bring into the details the social aesthetic principles that ani­
centre of political action—the centre of mate these modes of performance.
decisions—by making theatre as politics
rather than merely making political theatre.
E. Patrick Johnson is also concerned with
In the latter case, the theatre makes com­ issues of community in “Black Performance
ments on politics; in the former, the theatre Studies: Genealogies, Politics, Futures.” Here
is, in itself, one of the ways in which politi­ he examines the subjugated knowledges intrin­
cal activity can be conducted. (1998, p. 20) sic to black expressive culture, knowledges
further subjugated by that culture’s invisibility
Boal’s methods include confronting external within the field of performance studies itself.
oppression—“cops-on-the-streets,” and the He goes on to demonstrate that, despite
internalized workings of hegemony—“cops­ misogyny and homophobia, black women’s,
in-the-head” (see Schutzman, 1994). gays’ and lesbians’ creative work has resisted
Finally, performance can resist sedimented marginalization and maintained blackness as
conventions of scholarly representation by an open signifier.
“braiding together disparate and stratified In his award-winning essay, “Lethal
ways of knowing” (Conquergood, 2002, Theatre: Performance, Punishment, and
p. 152). For Dwight Conquergood, perfor­ the Death Penalty,” reprinted here, Dwight
mance studies as radical research Conquergood reads the signifiers in this site
of state-sanctioned killing as a fraught dra­
should revitalize the connections between
artistic accomplishment, analysis, and artic­ maturgy whose contradictions are never fully
ulations with communities; between practi­ resolved. In so doing, he charts Americans’
cal knowledge (knowing how), propositional changing attitudes to the “magical realism” of
knowledge (knowing that), and political capital punishment, and sets current practices
savvy (knowing who, when, and where). in the context of responses to domestic and
This epistemological connection between
creativity, critique, and civic engagement
foreign terrorism.
is mutually replenishing, and pedagogically Sandra Richards uses the form of a perfor­
powerful. (p. 153) mance meditation to engage the complexities
and contradictions in/of memory and trauma.
Conquergood looks for “text-performance In “Who is this Ancestor? Performing
entanglements” that capture what Ngugi wa Memory in Ghana’s Slave Castles,” she enacts
Thiong’o calls “orature,” the recognition and and interrogates her own attraction to, and
representation of the fact that “channels of revulsion of, eighteenth century Anglican
communication constantly overlap, penetrate, priest Philip Quaque, whose religious practice
and mutually produce one another” (p. 154) facilitated European penetration of the coast
to radically change what appears on the stage of Ghana.
and on the page. Finally, Jill Dolan concludes this section
The five essays that make up this section with a discussion of theatre and perfor­
address relationships between performance mance studies as laboratories for reimagin­
and politics across these four themes. Jan ing social relations. In “The Polemics
Cohen-Cruz’s essay, “‘The Problem Democ­ and Potential of Theatre Studies and
racy is Supposed to Solve’: The Politics of Performance,” she offers an institutional
Community-based Performance,” explores the history of these disciplines in the form of
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Performance and Politics 425

a personal genealogy, and reinvigorates Jackson, S. (2000). Lines of activity: Performance,

Turner’s notion of communitas with her the­ historiography, Hull-House domesticity. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
orizing of the utopian performative.
Johnson, E. P. (2003). Appropriating blackness:
Conquergood (2002) insistently reminds Performance and the politics of authenticity.
us of the potential performance studies offers Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
for politically engaged, productive, radical Joseph, M. (1999). Nomadic identities: The perfor­
research that spans arbitrary divides between mance of citizenship. Minneapolis: University
theory and artistic practice, and between of Minnesota Press.
Langellier, K. M., & Peterson, E. E. (2004).
academic and everyday knowledges. These
Storytelling in daily life: Performing narrative.
five essays demonstrate this potential and Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
point the way to new and generative connec­ McKenzie, J. (2001). Perform or else: From disci­
tions between performance and politics. pline to performance. London: Routledge.
McKenzie, J. (2003). Democracy’s performance.
The Drama Review, 47(2), 117–128.
NOTE Merrill, L. (1999). When Romeo was a woman:
Charlotte Cushman and her circle of female
1. Judith Hamera and Dwight Conquergood
spectators. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
were coeditors of this section of the Handbook.
Press.
Unfortunately, Dwight did not live to complete
Muñoz, J. E. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers
this work. His spirit, and his work, inform and
of color and the performance of politics.
inspire this section and its introduction.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Phelan, P. (1993). Unmarked: The politics of
REFERENCES performance. New York: Routledge.
Plato (1998). Ion. In D. H. Richter (Ed.), The criti­
Austin, J. L. (1975). How to do things with words. cal tradition: Classical texts and contemporary
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. trends (pp. 29–37). Boston: Bedford.
Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed. Pollock, D. (1998). Introduction: Making history
New York: TCG. go. In D. Pollock (Ed.), Exceptional spaces:
Boal, A. (1998). Legislative theatre. (A. Jackson, Essays in performance & history (pp. 1–45).
Trans.). London: Routledge. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that matter: On the dis­ Press.
cursive limits of sex. New York: Routledge. Riggs, M. (Director). (1995). Black is . . . black
Conquergood, D. (2000). Rethinking elocution: ain’t [Film]. United States: Independent
The trope of the talking book and other figures Television Service. (Available from California
of speech. Text and Performance Quarterly, Newsreel, P.O. Box 2284, South Burlington,
20(4), 325–341. VT 05407)
Conquergood, D. (2002). Performance studies: Schechner, R. (1985). Between theatre and anthro­
Interventions and radical research. The Drama pology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Review, 46(2), 145–156. Press.
de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday Schechter, J. (1985). Durov’s pig: Clowns, politics
life (Vol. 1). (S. Rendall, Trans.). Berkeley: and theatre. New York: TCG.
University of California Press. (Original work Schutzman, M. (1994). Brechtian shamanism:
published 1974) The political therapy of Augusto Boal. In
Davis, T. (1991). Actresses as working women. M. Schutzman & J. Cohen-Cruz (Eds.), Playing
London: Routledge. Boal: Theatre, therapy, activism. London:
Diamond, E. (1996). Introduction. In E. Diamond Routledge.
(Ed.) Performance and cultural politics (pp. Taylor, D. (2003). The archive and the repertoire:
1–12). New York: Routledge, 1996. Performing cultural memory in the Americas.
Hamera, J. (2002). An answerability of memory: Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
“Saving” Khmer classical dance. The Drama Turner, V. (1982). From ritual to theatre.
Review, 46(4), 65–85. New York: PAJ.
Hurston, Z. N. (1990). Mules and men. New York: Willetts, J. (Ed. & Trans.). (1964). Brecht on the­
Harper. (Original work published 1935) atre. London: Methuen/Hill and Wang.
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24
The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve
The Politics of Community-Based Performance

JAN COHEN-CRUZ

Getting communities involved in imagining their future is the problem that democ­
racy is supposed to solve.
—Law theorists Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres (2002, p. 219)

T he subject of this essay is the politics

of community-based performance,
expressed both directly by way of efforts
partnerships include and exceed the creation
of art. That is, community-based performance
is hyphenated not just grammatically but
to impact the status quo—i.e., activist also as a practice. Community-based art is
performance—and indirectly by the very inclu­ situated between entertainment and efficacy,
sive and participatory nature of its form, art for pleasure and art that concretely does
whatever the content of particular projects. something, be it in the realm of education,
Let me begin by clarifying my terms. therapy, counter-historymaking, community-
Community-based performance is charac­ organizing, or social change.
terized by deep interaction between artists and Activist art is aesthetic production as part
constituents grounded in a shared aspect of of a struggle for social change, such as seek­
identity or circumstances. Professional artists, ing more rights for people who are being
informed in some way by community partici­ exploited, or resistance to changes that are
pants, explore collectively meaningful themes deemed detrimental, e.g., fighting school bud­
and then develop and stage a piece that is by, get cuts. Community-based activist art is as
for, and about a larger group of which those much about the process of involving local
participants are a part. The goals of these people in articulating their points-of-view as in

427
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428 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

a finished art object itself. Whereas activist possibility of the casino, likely to attract large,
and community-based emphasize process and noisy crowds. Having lived in the community
participation, political art refers to an aesthetic nearly 30 years, Dell’Arte members were sen­
object that an artist or ensemble creates as sitive to the complexity of issues represented
a response to a controversial public issue or by the casino, especially given the obscene
action or to challenge the status quo. Think treatment of Native Americans throughout
of superb individual artists and great anti-war U.S. history and limited economic opportuni­
oeuvres like Picasso’s Guernica or Brecht’s ties in the present. Nevertheless, the majority
Mother Courage, viewable in art institutions of the community feared the effects of the
(museums, theatres) and extolled for their uni­ casino for everyone. Fields wrote Wild Card
versality and artistic virtuosity as much as for to continue the dialogue, in the spirit of
their message. Political artists and ensembles “What now?”
may also value processes and collective, non- A flaw in the production, despite Fields’s
hierarchical practices but the public face of efforts, was the absence of Native Americans
their work is the art object. performing in Wild Card. Indeed, soon after
Not all community-based performance is the first production, Fields remounted the pro­
activist. It is as likely to celebrate cultural tra­ ject as Wild Card 1.5 with 50 percent new
ditions or provide a space for a community to material, including a Native American in a
reflect as to participate in local struggles. But central role in the cast. Wild Card ends on this
whether activist or not, community-based note:
performance is committed to collective, not
strictly individual, representation. The central­ What makes a home? Is it comfort, time, a
ity of open participation is particularly impor­ building, a landscape, a state of mind or all
of the above? I think that home is character
tant in these scary times, characterized by
formed over years of use. . . . What worries
national measures such as the Patriot Act that me the most . . . [is that] where you arrive
control participation. And whatever the typi­ looks like just where you left. It’s a same­
cal content of their work, community-based ness—as if everything is approved by the
artists live in the same environment as their same universal building code. And I think it
constituents, and are thus likely to be person­ kills as surely as not. Blue Lake has always
has its streak of difference; sometimes nasty,
ally affected by the same nuclear power plants, sometimes celebratory, sometimes conflict­
epidemics, and economic ups and downs. ual, but so necessary . . . I don’t like the
Thus can they build on an experiential con­ spread of lights in the hills either. . . . But
nection should activism become a goal of a whatever the landscape be inscribed with—
particular project. be it gold, timber, gambling or the next
“new thing,” we know that the river may
An example of an activist community-
very well sweep it all away tomorrow. Until
based production is Wild Card (2002), writ­ it does it is in our keeping; but only if we
ten and directed by Michael Fields, managing make it so. There is such a thing as the
artistic director of the Dell’Arte Players. “commons”—but to make it we all have to
Dell’Arte is a physical theatre that established be there. (Fields, 2002)
itself in the small town of Blue Lake,
California, in 1974. When local Native The play can not unmake the casino but
Americans decided to build a casino in town, rather encourages local political involvement
ensemble members raised money for dialogue so that by the time an issue comes up, a more
specialists to convene town meetings. People engaged community is ready to respond. A
on all sides of the issue envisioned the future member of Dell’Arte, in fact, is running for
of their small hamlet in the face of the city council as a result of the casino.
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 429

SELECTED HISTORICAL race relations in the Old South and blacks as

ANTECEDENTS OF U.S. ACTIVIST comic buffoons” (p. 132).
COMMUNITY-BASED PERFORMANCE New immigrants were similarly given short
shrift. Some pageants intended to introduce
Community-based performance is a field with newcomers to American history through the
a genealogy rather than a cause-and-effect opportunity to enact it in a visual form not
history. Although activist performance has dependent on fluency in English. But typically,
frequently been associated with progressive tableaux of immigrant masses in native costume
causes, the power of heightened imagery and performed native songs and dances in the first
text, and broad participation, have been used act, and reappeared in “American” garb by
to further agendas on all points of the politi­ the end, singing the national anthem. Though
cal spectrum. The pageant is a case in point. rhetorically about “civic uplift,” pageants, in
Structured around a series of tableaux or historian Linda Nochlin’ s view, were grounded
moving pictures, early twentieth century as much in an unspoken fear as a “wish to
pageants in the United States typically repre­ do good for the vast, unprecedented waves
sented moments in the economic or social of immigrants arriving on our shores” (1985,
history of a town, using verse and prose p. 92). This was perhaps the first artistic expres­
embellished by choruses, songs, dances, and sion in the United States of the notorious eras­
marches at a beautiful site, and cast with local ing effect of “melting pot” philosophy.
citizens. According to historian David Glass- On the other end of the spectrum, the
berg, “civic officials sought to define local Paterson Strike Pageant of 1913 represented
community identity, cohesion, and sense of immigrant workers contributing much more
common purpose through elaborate civic his­ than picturesque and disposable costumes and
torical celebrations and commemorations” food traditions. Created in the aftermath of
(1990, p. 282). Pageantry was radical for its a strike for decent working conditions that
time, an attempt to democratize performance resulted in numerous workers’ deaths, this
by opening it to greater participation, broader pageant represented the battle between labor
audiences, and a more public role in civic life. and capitalism at the same time as it helped
But at the same time, the pageant was an participants to ritually deal with grief over
instrument to reenforce the status quo. While their slain comrades. Fifteen-hundred Paterson
the American Pageant Association encouraged workers represented images of their original
inclusion of diverse local groups, they also mass actions in juxtaposition with passionate
generally reinforced the distinctions between speeches redelivered by the original speakers
and social roles of each. People generally from the strike. Nochlin theorizes, “In partici­
played roles similar to their actual occupations pating in the pageant, they became conscious
or statuses. People of the same background of their experience as a meaningful force in
rehearsed their parts of the pageant separately history and of themselves as self-determining
from other groups, with a pageant master members of a class that shaped history”
coordinating the whole. Pageants typically (1985, p. 91). This pageant is an example of
presented idealized versions of local social a highly democratic community-based perfor­
relations, free of class, ethnic, gender, and race mance providing people with a platform, a
conflict (Glassberg, 1990, p. 126). Blacks and context for reflection, and a process for mean­
Asians were rarely portrayed at all, and when ingful participation in public life.
they were, representations mirrored racist Activist performance has often been rooted
portrayals from the popular theatre of the in collective identification. In the 1930s, the
day that “displayed an idealized view of United States experienced its only grass-roots
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430 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

amateur movement of workers creating theatre Amiri Baraka (formerly LeRoi Jones), in the
for workers, inspired by popular, participa­ 1964 creation of the Black Arts Repertory
tory art events before and after the Russian Theatre School, spawning black arts groups all
Revolution of 19171 and catalyzed by the across the United States.
economic and political polarization of the Similarly, El Teatro Campesino, created in
Great Depression. The concept of class culture the 1960s as an organizing tool to consolidate
“presupposed that the conflicting economic farmworkers politically, gave rise to a multi­
and political interests between workers and tude of Chicano theatre groups. Like the nine­
their employers necessitated a different cul­ teenth century Mexican carpa or tent show,
tural expression by the conflicting classes” El Teatro was an example of popular perfor­
(Friedman, 1985, p. 112). Mass recitation, mance that favors the underdog to create
a popular aesthetic form, usually “pitted a a vehicle of expression by the powerless.
chorus of workers against a capitalist or a rep­ Chicano union organizer Cesar Chavez was
resentative of the capitalist class, such as a aware of the power of humor, as manifested in
foreman or policeman” (p. 116). Plays were the carpa, to critique and mobilize. Not just
frequently in verse with choreography, arche­ company director Luis Valdez—despite the
typal characters, a presentational acting style, “great man” theory of artistic excellence—but
and a minimal, mobile set. This activist per­ all the Chicano actors in El Teatro knew those
formance was one part agit-prop, riling up the traditions, and thus contributed greatly to la
audience and directing them towards a partic­ causa of union organizing (Broyles-Gonzales,
ular, propagandistic (i.e., one sided) agenda, 1994).
another part communal ritual for the already There’s a saying that goes, “It’s not the size
converted, and a third piece education, such of the ship that makes the waves, it’s the
as representing activist strategies onstage that motion of the ocean” (used by O’Neal, 1968,
workers later tried in their lives. p. 70). In other words, political art relies on an
The groundwork for the contemporary agitated context for efficacy. Radicalness can
community-based performance field was laid not be willed—different historical moments
in the 1950s, when despite U.S. prosperity, offer different possibilities. In the mid-1970s,
there was growing recognition that the with a heightened consciousness to think glob­
American dream was not equally accessible to ally but act locally, activist art practitioners
all Americans. The lid blew off in the tumul­ looked to local contexts in which their work
tuous 1960s, when broad questioning of the could play a role. For mass attention had
status quo once again found expression in the shifted away from the national stage, and erst­
arts. Much activist performance was orga­ while national movements—against the war,
nized around identity politics—under- or mis­ for civil rights—had diminished. I date the
represented groups bonded by ethnicity, class, beginning of the contemporary community
sexual preference, or race. In 1968, Larry Neal arts movement to just this time.
published a virtual manifesto of one such pro­
ject, the Black Arts Movement. Neal declared THEORIZING THE POLITICAL
the existence of two Americas, one black, one IN COMMUNITY-BASED
white. He identified the black artist’s work as PERFORMANCE
addressing the spiritual and cultural needs
Cultural Democracy
of black people and creating a black aesthetic.
He stated that the focus of the work would be Law theorists Lani Guinier and Gerald
“to confront the contradictions arising out of Torres provide a starting point for theorizing
Black people’s experience in the racist West” the political in community-based performance
(p. 29). He acknowledged the leadership of by shifting the focus of democracy from the
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 431

individual to the collective. They assert that project’s funding as well the space in which
democracy is less about the “right of individ­ they performed, a former iron foundry. Critic
uals to choose individual candidates” than Sara Brady avows the production was thus
“about the value of groups that form around compromised, unable to critique the powerful
common concerns and participate in an ongo­ institution providing support (2000).
ing democratic conversation” (2002, p. 170). Brady was inaccurate in subtitling her
They explain that whereas in representational essay “Non-Radicality in Community-Based
democracy, people vote every few years for a Theater.” While Brady was right to raise the
professional politician to “stand in” for them, possibility of compromise as a result of col­
in participatory democracy people are directly laboration with Bethlehem Steel, that com­
involved in discussions, at least, concerning pany had already closed the majority of local
policies that affect them.2 plants; no stance vis-à-vis the corporation
Guinier and Torres connect political and would bring the jobs back. Steelbound was
aesthetic notions of representation. They give radical in its degree of grass-roots participa­
the example of Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre tion, if not David-like and in this case futile
as a rich terrain for participatory democracy, in its taking on of the Beth Steel Goliath. The
as spectators intervene in scenarios to act out participants in Steelbound were focused on
their own ideas for solving them. Guinier and celebrating their material accomplishments
Torres’ understanding of participatory democ­ (one refrain in the show is workers declar­
racy is similar to policy consultants Don ing, “We built America”); giving local
Adams and Arlene Goldbard’s notion of cul­ people an opportunity to publicly express a
tural democracy, which they define as “a phi­ range of feelings about working at “The
losophy or policy emphasizing pluralism, Steel,” from comparing it to hell to extolling
participation, and equity within and between the sheer power of the steelmaking process;
cultures” (2001, p. 108). Community-based and creating a public ritual of closure, a
performance typically manifests values con­ funeral for a way of life in a town where
ducive to cultural democracy, involving whole nearly everyone had family or friends
communities around common concerns and employed by the company and people liter­
defying the tendency to professionalize civic ally planned shopping around the changes of
engagement. In a world of lobbyists and elec­ shifts to avoid the inevitable traffic. These
toral politics, where we rely on representa­ are worthwhile goals and not acquiescence
tional, not participatory, democracy, such an to the power of the corporation. Steelbound
art project is particularly useful. did not undertake an activist agenda vis-à-vis
I do not mean to suggest that a participa­ workers’ rights. It is counterproductive to
tory democratic mode of performance is critique a production for something it was
uncomplicated. For example, many commu­ not trying to do.
nity-based productions rely on collaborations Brady’s limited conception of “radical” is
with local institutions. Take Steelbound, insti­ not unlike that of some activists with precon­
gated by local ensemble Touchstone Theater ceptions of what partnering with a theatre
in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in collaboration “should” entail. Whereas some activists tend
with director Bill Rauch and playwright to privilege message and outcome, commu­
Alison Carey of Cornerstone Theater and nity-based artists equally value the exchange
some 63 local people, many of them former and communion between artists and those
steel workers. The play was a response to the who participate as actors and audience.
closing of Bethlehem Steel, which threw the Longtime community-based art journalist
town into economic and emotional turmoil. Linda Burnham writes, “Activist art includes
Yet that corporation supplied some of the in its goals the process of getting people to
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432 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

think and feel, to discover, empathize, or get beautiful art because of the socially meaning­
angry. It’s a partner to activism but their val­ ful role it plays. Aesthetics do not matter less
orization of process is different” (personal in a ritual context but they serve a collective
communication, June 15, 2003). purpose rather than primarily reflecting on the
At issue is how one measures political activ­ individual maker.
ity. Community-based performance offers its Communal context also refers to the audi­
constituents the opportunity for participatory ence’s experience in the actual time, place, and
rather than representative cultural democracy. circumstances of the performance. Composer
This is rarer than it may seem. Democracy as and activist Bernice Johnson Reagon describes
a political system rarely provides ways for how, during a march, the sound of protestors’
people to come together and imagine their singing preceded them as they walked, “so
collective future. Very few communities that by the time they reached their destination
hold town meetings that provide the basis for their voices had already occupied the space in
decision-making. Cultural processes that can a way the police could not reclaim. It wasn’t
funnel community points of view to represen­ just the message of the music that was impor­
tative decision-makers are crucial for a partic­ tant, but its ability to give physical presence
ipatory democracy. and visceral force, to the movement” (quoted
in Peeps, 2000, p. 271). The significance of
the performance space is itself a political
Principles
issue, because the “where” determines “who”
By looking at four principles on which the audience will be. Community-based per­
community-based performance relies— formance is frequently performed at churches
communal context, reciprocity, hyphenation, and schools, in parks and neighborhood
and active culture—we can further identify the community centers, and in particular theatres;
nature of its politics. Community-based perfor­ indeed, at any venue where the people that
mance emerges from a communal context; the performance is addressing gather.
artists’ craft and vision are at the service of a Reciprocity describes the desired relation­
specific group desire. It may be to further the ship between community-based artists and
goals of the civil rights movement, as with community participants. Community members
the Free Southern Theater. Its goal may be to receive such satisfactions as imaging and imag­
affirm an under- or misrepresented culture, as ining, that is, translating ideas into forms and
with Roadside Theater in Appalachia. Artists dreaming about what life could be; deep reflec­
committed to collective meaning-making use tion, a natural outgrowth of play-building; crit­
their aesthetic tools in concert with a group of ical distance on their lives; and public visibility,
people with lived experience of the subject and strategically important for the activist wing of
with whom they work to shape a collective community-based performance but meaningful
vision. to nearly everyone. That is, the fact that such
Theatre and dance are, of course, already art gathers a public to its performances can
collaborative forms. The difference is that the serve a political agenda in broadcasting a point
hierarchical structure of the profession gives of view. But no matter what the subject matter,
the bulk of the power to the producer, play­ a frequent refrain from people who have
wright, choreographer, and director, whereas participated in community-based performances
community-based performance asserts a is how appreciative they were to have a
model of power shared among the various moment in the spotlight. Treated with respect
artists and community partners. As in ritual, by people interested in their viewpoints, partic­
community-based artists are inspired to make ipants learn how to talk about their future in a
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 433

collective setting, a skill that rarely comes African proverb suggests, is very different from
without practice. the hunter’s version (J. W. J. Zollar, personal
Artists are stretched by learning what interview, September, 2003). In contrast to top-
people know and feel through the authority down experts who assume what will be of inter­
of their experience. Cornerstone Theater’s est to people, this process draws on the skills
Bill Rauch describes a sense of being groomed, of trained artist/ facilitators to tease out what
as a young director at Harvard, to eventually a range of people want to express and help
become artistic director of a professional them to do so.
regional theatre (personal communication, Reciprocity is in distinct contrast to the
2003). Yet he was disappointed that most all too familiar idea of “community service,”
regional theatres were not, in fact, expressive bringing to mind a soup kitchen with the well-
of their particular place. He sensed there were fed on one side, ladling out soup to the hungry
stories out in the world that never got heard. who receive it on the other side. This one-
Indeed, the structures of professional theatre directional model is not in the spirit of
rely on agents and script submissions, audi­ community-based performance, being neither
tions and particular training methods not dialogic nor reciprocal. Dialogue refers to
accessible to everyone. As an artist, Rauch “two or more parties with differing viewpoints
believed he would grow by learning about working toward common understanding in
what he didn’t know, from people all across an open-ended, face-to-face discussion”
the United States who had different experi­ (Bacon, Yuen, & Korza, 1999, p. 12). Artists
ences than he did. He imagined a theatre that must be as sensitive to their differences from
was as eclectic as the country itself, and set out community participants as to the common
to make such a troupe, with a handful of like- ground they share. All involved must gen­
minded colleagues. Approaching people as uinely appreciate what the others bring to the
partners in the creative process, the company collaboration, or why do it? Radical literary
Rauch et al. formed in 1986, Cornerstone, theorist Mikhail Bakhtin refers to dialogism as
supplies the technique and people in a vast the quintessential mode of knowing. Dialo­
range of circumstances provide the content. gism, to Bakhtin, means that everything must
Reciprocity in community-based perfor­ be understood as part of a greater whole. There
mance is rooted in an assets-based model of is a constant interaction between meanings, all
community-building which “insists on begin­ of which have the potential of conditioning
ning with a clear commitment to discovering a other meanings (1981, pp. 426–427). Bakhtin
community’s capacities and assets” (Kretzman saw the goal of dialogue not as a specific solu­
and McKnight, 1993, p. 1). In contrast to tion but rather co-understanding.
focusing on a community’s deficiencies and Reciprocity is reflected in joint ownership
problems, community-based artists as well as of work created by the community whence it
organizers need to also build on a community’s came and the artist/facilitator. That is, the con­
strengths. This philosophy is manifested in the tribution of both must be recognized or the
way the dancer/facilitators of the ensemble result is either cooption of community mater­
Urban Bush Women enter communities and co­ ial or underrepresentation of the artist. Just as
create stories. They don’t go in and say, “This community-based art fails to fulfill its poten­
is your story.” Rather, inspired by Howard tial when artists impose their own aesthetics
Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States and ideology, so is the work weakened by
(2003), they look at undertold stories. They call underinvolvement of the artist. Community-
the story-gathering component of their work based performance artist Suzanne Lacy keeps
“When the lions tell history,” which, as the a tight rein on the pageants that she creates
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434 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

with hundreds of people. I see that as a (1987). The former looks at teachers as
methodological choice, not an imposition. experts whose job is to deposit their informa­
Within Lacy’s process, people have great tion into the heads of passive students who
opportunity to explore their issues, bond with are mere receptacles. Dialogic education
others, and become more public. Artists can involves students asking questions and teachers
equally be seemingly noncommittal, which and students together seeking answers, in a
may result in work that contradicts their own partnership. The quest to solve real problems
political stand. The piece may represent every­ energizes the process of education. Community-
one involved but the artist/facilitator, and risk based performance follows this model in fore-
falling into a one-directional, artist-helping– grounding community participants in a
the-people model. dialogic relationship with artist/facilitators,
Hyphenation is another principle of this not merely audience/receivers, but co-creators
field. Artists frequently experience art in rela­ in one way or another.
tion to something in addition to aesthetics. The The principle of active culture expresses
desired experience may be the intersection of, the insight that people frequently get more out
or dialogue between, art and religion, or ther­ of making art than seeing the fruits of other
apy, or education. Art may also be a site for the people’s labors. The experience of making art
articulation and expression of a political point causes people to plumb their hearts and minds,
of view or vision. Community-based perfor­ experiences and conceptions. Having tried to
mance is even more intrinsically hyphenated. make art oneself, one can better appreciate
Poet Muriel Rukeyser expresses the difference other art. A core axiom of community-based
between art that is about something and art performance is that everyone has artistic
that does something when she writes, “Because potential. Finding the aesthetic strengths of
you have imagined love, you have not loved; each first-time actor is one of the major chal­
merely because you have imagined brother­ lenges for community-based artists. Bill Rauch
hood, you have not made brotherhood” (1974, is a master at casting people in parts that are
pp. 23–24). For community-based artists, sym­ enhanced by the actor’s real experience. Seeing
bolic expression is not enough; they want their the chief of the Walker River Paiute Tribe play
art to have some concrete social implication, the king in The House on Walker River,
and they want a life in art that interacts with adapted from Aeschylus’s Oresteia, added a
other realms (therapy, community organizing, layer of real power in performance that more
etc.). This field challenges the philosophy of than compensated for the actor’s lack of the­
art-for-art’s-sake, whereby an art work is com­ atrical training. In other words, just as the field
plete unto itself, without reference or rela­ draws on multiple disciplines, so can it draw
tionship beyond its own boundaries. The on people’s multiple capacities and apply them
concreteness that Rukeyser evokes positions in performance.
community-based performance to serve effica­ Unlike pageants, in which participants
cious goals even as it continues art’s traditional also portray characters similar to themselves,
engagement of the viewer’s senses. Cornerstone community plays advocate diver­
As a hyphenated field, community-based sity as one of their four key principles. (The
performance has been shaped by theories others are listening, respect, and flexibility.)
from disciplines in addition to theatre. For Germane to Cornerstone’s process, diverse
example, Paulo Freire’s ideas about liberatory people interact in workshops, rehearsals,
pedagogy have been highly influential. Freire and performances. In a report on the com­
contrasts “the banking method” of education pany’s methodology, researcher Ferdinand
with dialogic, or problem-solving education Lewis writes,
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 435

Experience has shown that no community processes leading up to and following after it.
is so monolithic that it does not contain a Examination of these processes provides a way
great deal of diversity. . . . A collaboration’s
to unpack such work beyond the transaction
successful outcome will literally depend
upon its including participants who repre­ between actors and spectators in the closed
sent not only a wide range of economic and space and limited time of the show itself. The
social backgrounds, ages and ethnicities, but high value placed on preliminary and postper­
also the diversity of the larger community of formance phases—the play, in and of itself, is
which the local community is a part. . . . As not the (only) thing—corresponds to the struc­
a framework for creativity, the concept
ture of rites of passage, that category of ritual
of diversity can free the imagination from
monolithic ideas, and encourage unexpected about change and transformation. Rites of pas­
collaborations. . . . Whenever possible, the sage provide a process for not just the person
production team should represent a diver­ going through the change but for their com­
sity of experience with Cornerstone collabo­ munity to recognize it and adapt accordingly as
rations, including participants who may be
well. Given the proven success of rites of pas­
doing their first such project alongside those
who have previously collaborated with the sage to dramatize and facilitate change for
company. (2003, p. 6) whole communities, it’s instructive for activist
community-based art makers to investigate
For Cornerstone then, active culture, inclu­ how rites of passage accomplish this task.
sion, and diversity are both aesthetic and polit­ According to anthropologist Arnold van
ical pillars of the work. Gennep, rites of passage have three-part struc­
tures: separation, liminality, and reintegration
(1960). In the first stage, the persons going
METHODOLOGIES
through the change are taken from their ordi­
Whereas the four principles explain why com­ nary life to be specially prepared for the
munity-based performance can involve people change. The middle phase is a period of
in imagining their collective future, this section “betwixt and between,” no longer the old cat­
describes how it achieves this goal. The field’s egory but not yet the new. The third stage,
politics are a cultural manifestation of democ­ often marked by a performance, is the moment
racy that depends on particular ways of work­ of reincorporating the persons back into the
ing: (1) It is an elongated process, not only a community in the new status. An example of
product, so there are multiple opportunities, a rite of passage is marriage. The separation
over time, to participate. (2) Its aesthetic phase corresponds to the period of growing
forms, especially storytelling (on which I elab­ commitment during which the couple stops
orate in what follows), invite a broad cross dating other people. Once engaged, the couple
section of participants. (3) It assumes an is betwixt and between—no longer single but
expanded notion of art. Specifically, commu­ not quite married. The wedding ceremony is
nity-based artists work at the overlap of art the performance that marks the couple’s new
and other disciplines, both by stretching what status in the community as married, not only
they do as artists and through collaborations for them but for their parents and friends, with
with nonartists, such as educators and activists, the change in behavior they are expected to
towards a common goal. exhibit as well.
Influenced by anthropologist Victor Turner,
performance theorist Richard Schechner iden­
Elongated Process
tified seven phases of performance in a “pattern
Like performance generally, community- analogous to initiation rites” and harken­
based art is not just the show but all the ing back to van Gennep (Shechner, 1985,
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436 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

pp. 20–21). Schechner’s first four phases— Dell’Arte’s school, which teaches popular
training, workshop, rehearsal, and warm-up— theatre techniques such as commedia, an
correspond to van Gennep’s first ritual stage, inherently interactive mode: “Students come
separation. They are the processes the actors to understand the performer’s responsibility to
go through before contact with the audience, the audience” (2002b). The school’s focus is
during which they prepare for the perfor­ on creating one’s own work, a critical skill
mance. The middle stage of a rite of passage, for community-based performers. Dell’Arte
liminality, corresponds to Schechner’s fifth teaches a sense of the artist’s ownership of
phase, performance, during which the trans­ their work; Steve Bisher, associate school
formation is symbolically represented but has director, says that before he did workshops
not yet been effectuated in everyday life. Van with Michael Fields, he “didn’t know that as
Gennep’s notion of reintegration, the point at an actor you could have your own thoughts”
which the people who have gone through the (quoted in McKenna, 2002a).
rite of passage rejoin their society with new The next phase, workshop, is the period
roles and responsibilities, corresponds to of building the performance and invariably
Schechner’s final two stages, cool-down and incorporates communal input. Research is one
aftermath. means of generating material, typically through
Noticing what phases are emphasized is extensive interviewing of local people con­
instructive concerning a hyphenated project’s nected to the project’s theme. Participating
goals; for example, the performance itself is not artists need to develop a sense of the collabo­
the be-all and end-all and may not even be at rating community and uncover both oral and
the center. In what follows I explain how these written source materials, leading to developing
phases facilitate community-based perfor­ the script. Each Cornerstone community show
mance principles—communal context, reci­ involves an average of 20 meetings with local
procity, hyphenation, and active culture—on focus groups and leaders. The company begins
which its participatory democratic nature rests. by finding one local person “making the leap
I contend that it is precisely in its participatory of faith and becoming an advocate for the pro­
process rather than in its subject matter that ject,” helping find appropriate people for an
the politics of this field are most manifest. The advisory board (Bill Rauch, quoted in Lewis,
experience of community ownership and deci­ 2002). Cornerstone tells the board how they
sion-making is at the heart of the work, no build a project and the board advises the com­
matter what the theme of a production. pany how to do so there. In the development of
As concerns training, given this field’s inter­ the art work, integration of local stories is one
disciplinary nature, learning multiple skills in way that different points of view are put into
addition to the artistic is necessary. This conversation with each other. Dell’Arte audi­
expectation prepares artists to facilitate partic­ ence member Kit Zettler emphasizes the cross-
ipatory processes of imagining a community’s pollination this accomplishes: “You are not
future. Dudley Cocke, for example, empha­ necessarily going to get a logger who comes to
sizes the need for grass-roots artists to learn see this play and walks away saying I’m never
community organizing (personal communi­ doing that again. But a logger comes to the
cation, June, 2002). Community-based play because their friend got interviewed or
writer Alice Lovelace believes artists working was talked to” (quoted in McKenna 2002a).
for social change need training in conflict res­ He thus ends up hearing other points of view,
olution (Lovelace, 2002). Particular perfor­ so essential in a democracy. In other projects,
mance skills are also invaluable. Touchstone the community has a united point of view and
artistic director Mark McKenna reflects on creates the play as a form of advocacy.
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 437

A variation on the workshop phase is what hearing on CIA involvement in crack cocaine
Suzanne Lacy calls embedding, for example, sales in California that indicts the War on
focusing on people and institutions outside of Drugs. LAPD is composed largely of homeless
art contexts that the creators want to reach people. There’s an irony in hearing the words
(personal communication, 2003). At an early of educated, skilled politicians spoken by
stage in the process, Lacy trains participants to actors who at some point were casualties of
contextualize the work in community organi­ the War on Drugs. Having an LAPD actor
zations and the media. For example, while cre­ portray a politician creates a built-in critique.
ating Code 33, which focused on improving Teatro Pregones, a Puerto Rican ensemble
police relations with Oakland teenagers, Lacy based in the Bronx, used Boal’s Forum Theatre
sent teenage participants out to talk with with their production of The Embrace to
reporters and politicians about community engage audience dialogue on the spot. Forum
policing. Laying the ground work for Code invites spectators to replace a protagonist
33’s public components paralleled work on its struggling with a social issue, in this case as a
internal aesthetic development. result of having AIDS. Spectators enact differ­
Warm-up is the process immediately pre­ ent possible ways of handling those struggles
ceding a show. In plays meant to maximize as part of the performance.
audience participation, spectators are often The cool-down phase immediately follows
given a way to prepare, too, perhaps through performance and may take the form of dis­
actual warm-up exercises. The community cussion. Though often very effective, post-
potluck dinner is another popular format. show discussions also have their drawbacks.
Cocke recounts that “often the Roadside Sometimes spectators aren’t ready to talk
actors move directly from the social mixing about a play so soon; sometimes artists bring
to the stage and begin the performance” (per­ in discussion leaders but audiences really only
sonal communication, June, 2002). want to hear from artists. Pregones usually
Next, the performance itself offers various saves postshow discussion for new shows that
dynamic opportunities for actor-spectator they ask audiences to evaluate. Reflecting the
exchange and illustrates the hyphenation of field’s emphasis on reciprocity, postshow pan­
the field. Carpetbag Theatre, a Knoxville els may be as valuable for expert participants
ensemble that brings underrepresented voices as for spectators and artists. At Agents and
to public attention, based Red Summer on his­ Assets, experts on the CIA reported being
torical documentation of local activists from educated by their outspoken and eloquent
the civil-rights era. Director Linda Parris- LAPD copanelists from skid row. In
Bailey saw it as a way to tell residents that Steelbound, cool-down took the form of
their belief nothing could change was histori­ postshow gatherings over dessert and drinks
cally incorrect: “Maybe if we just remind you where spectators enjoyed unmediated con­
of what has been here before, you can see versation with each other. The artists of
some possibility for the future. We talk about Alternate ROOTS often use the Critical
people who take control” (quoted in Watkins, Response Process3 developed by choreogra­
2002). Parris-Bailey also sees a fundamentally pher Liz Lerman with her company, the
celebratory component in the company’s his­ Dance Exchange, after showing a work-in­
torical pieces. It is satisfying for actors and progress. Lerman developed the process to
spectators to return stories to the communi­ put the artist herself in charge of the feedback
ties from whence they came. The text of Los session. Sometimes artists invite stories from
Angeles Poverty Department (LAPD)’s Agents the audience about the play’s theme which in
and Assets is a transcript of a congressional Cocke’s experience have become a powerful
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438 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

subtext for the actors’ next performance original compositions shaped by the core
(personal communication, June, 2002). participating artist(s)’ particular creative
Aftermath/ long term activities not immedi­ process(es). Space constraints only allow me to
ately following the artwork take the initiative elaborate on one, the method using collec­
further. Aftermath is the stage following the tively grounded popular forms.
run of the performance during which local par­ Roadside Theater members build on forms
ticipants and spectators, possibly facilitated by familiar to their intended community, includ­
the artists, might act on what they have imag­ ing the native ballad tradition and other story-
ined together. One of community-based art’s based forms. From the Appalachian region
mantras is sustainability: artists must leave themselves, ensemble members grew up sur­
something behind. After the project has ended, rounded by these traditions. Dell’Arte and
are there local people with the skills to facilitate Pregones are grounded in traditional forms
ongoing work? Is there a support network, any as well, respectively a great range of European
kind of ongoing program for people whose and Latino popular theatre. Popular theatre
appetites have been whetted? Have people with has historically relied on techniques accessible
the power to make the changes an activist com­ to people no matter what their education, such
munity-based production expresses been as the physical, archetypal Italian commedia
engaged in such a way as to implement desired dell’arte and the Mexican carpa, or tent show.
policies? During the years that Cornerstone did The popular is often linked with democratiza­
residencies in towns across the United States, tion of theatre, extending beyond class bound­
they donated money for each community to aries by virtue of content, form, and venue.
start a theatre. LAPD partners with SRO The French tradition of the popular was artic­
Housing, which has renovated 30 former slum ulated by Romain Rolland in his book, Le
hotels into single-room occupancy hotels. They theater du peuple (1903), described by the­
share the overall mission of helping people get atre historian Marvin Carlson as “a theater
off the street. LAPD adds a creative dimension accessible to the workers without being con­
to SRO which in turn lends an infrastructure descending, and educative without being
that nurtures LAPD. Sometimes seeing a com­ pompous or exclusive. [Rolland] proposed for
munity-based performance influences an indi­ it three basic concerns: to provide relaxation
vidual’s later decision to become actively for its patrons after a day of labor, to give
involved in political/civic life. them energy for the day to come, and to stim­
ulate their minds” (Carlson, 1993, p. 317).
The popular also bespeaks a sense of broad
Aesthetic Forms Inviting
cultural ownership. Pregones member Jorge
Broad Participation
Merced describes a performance at a high
Whereas the aesthetics of community-based school that began really badly but when the
performance vary, some forms have proven Latino music and poetry started, the whole
especially conducive to activist goals. Such art event turned around (Lopez, 2002). Associate
is often a balance of “conventions and inven­ director Alvan Colon Lespier identifies as
tions” (John Cawelti, quoted in Berger, 1992, major influences the Latin American Popular
p. vii); that is, it combines elements familiar to Theatre and New Theatre trends whose
particular communities with new and surpris­ origins can be traced to the late twenties when
ing aspects. The three most frequently used Latin American theatre artists begin experi­
structures into which community material is menting with Stanislavski, Meyerhold,
integrated are collectively grounded popular Piscator, and later Brecht (Lespier, personal
forms, often-adapted literary texts, and communication, November, 2003). These
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 439

sources share popular theatre’s emphasis on creation, flourishing, and then struggle to
theatre as a communal event, participating in survive. Sabrina Peck, a founding member
the celebratory, political, and effective life of of Cornerstone Theater, coconceptualized,
the populace: “little or no fourth wall, travel directed, and choreographed the project with
to people rather than expecting them to come 43 community gardeners and NYU Tisch
to you” (R. Rolon, personal communication, School of the Arts students. Peggy Pettitt facil­
November, 2003). Not infrequently, Pregones’ itated community storytelling and Michael
performances are part of larger events like Keck was musical director. We began cg2 by
street parties and festivals. On the other hand, holding storycircles with people with commu­
the ensemble does not exhibit blind devotion nity gardening experience. The format was
to tradition. Says Rolon, “There are some tra­ very simple: we’d pose a question like, “What
ditions we don’t value. But we rarely take nourishes you most in the garden?” and
up an issue without going back 100 years. people would respond with a story, one by
Because we realize it was probably done one, as everyone else listened. There would be
already” (personal communication, November, no general conversation until all the people in
2003). Even when they think they are invent­ the circle had had a chance to tell their stories.
ing something, they find a common thread in The play we built together under Peck’s direc­
earlier Latino work. So they have made it a tion was largely based on these stories.
habit to know those sources. Cg2’s basis in story created a level playing
field apparent to everyone from the first sto­
rycircle. People were going to be respected
Storytelling here not for their educational or economic
All struggles against oppression level but for their relationship to gardening:
in the modern world begin by
Rosa: I shared something I knew with the
redefining what had previously Brooklyn Botanic Garden here—they said it
been considered private, non- couldn’t be done but it can. You take any
public and non-political issues as plant that’s dead or you figure can’t grow.
matters of public concern, as issues You take a grain of corn, put a hole in it,
of justice, and sites of power. and put it in the ground where the ailing
plant is planted. When the corn sprouts, the
—Seyla Benhabib (1992, p. 100) plant catches on and it grows. I have a rose
bush that was looking like it was dead. Miss
Oliver said to me, “You can’t grow that.
While productions take a range of aes­ Leave it be.” I put it in the ground with the
thetic forms, the most pervasive method of corn and the other day she said, “Your rose
community-based performance building is bush look good.” (Cohen-Cruz, 2000)
story gathering. In what follows, I tease out
the significance of this approach vis-à-vis “the Because stories come out of everyone’s
problem democracy is supposed to solve.” The experience, not only those designated excep­
central dynamic characterizing the political use tional, the events they recount feel like actions
of story is redefining the personal, as Benhabib any of us could emulate. Here’s Toby Sanchez:
writes, “as matters of public concern, as issues
of justice, as sites of power” (1992, p. 100). Our garden started out as a dump just like
all the others. There were suitcases in there
I begin with common green/common
and you didn’t know if there were dead
ground (cg2), a 21-month play building bodies or what. Our neighborhood associa­
and performance project I initiated about tion was always complaining, oh the lot it’s
New York City community gardens—their so terrible, it’s ruining property values, but
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440 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

I have to say they mainly whined. So I went groups. The CR group was a grass-roots strat­
downtown and found out that Banco de egy in the women’s movement of that time
Ponce owned the land and I wrote them a
whereby groups of 6–12 women met in each
letter saying, “You’re causing slums and
blight. Why don’t you give the lot to the other’s living spaces and told personal stories
association and we’ll create a garden? I that bespoke structural inequalities in gender
promise we’ll take good care of it.” Well, relationships. Lacy had studied with commu­
they threw that in the waste can. Then I nity organizer Saul Alinsky before entering the
called some friends who told me the correct Feminist Studio Workshop directed by Judy
language to use with banks and the right
Chicago. In the hands of Lacy and other femi­
agencies to send copies to. I wrote the letter
again on behalf of our neighborhood associ­ nist artists in the 1970s, the processes of CR
ation and said, “Federal money has just groups became interviews with women about
been used to renovate two buildings next rape, about aging, about invisibility, that were
to this lot, and you are creating slums and woven into performance pieces.
blight” and I put c.c. to the right agency.
Lacy has been equally influenced by aes­
That bank manager called up the very next
day and said, “I’ll do whatever you want.” thetic and conceptual tools she learned from
So the association agreed—the bank pays to Allan Kaprow, best known for the creation
clean up the lot and put up a fence and the of happenings. She explains: “Although the
neighbors will garden. (Cohen-Cruz, 2000) visual matters, the shape of the concept is
more important—emphasizing daily life,
In the same vein, stories promote solidarity. everyday actions such as brushing one’s teeth
As cultural consultant Caron Atlas avows, “I as art, and the ideas of contingency, intention­
especially like stories of resistance that help ality, and framing” (personal communication,
people speak out and feel less isolated.”4 2003). So it is not surprising that Lacy finds
Story-based theatre is more generally acces­ limits to the value of story. In the tradition of
sible to audiences, too. According to South the avant-garde, Lacy’s interest in contingency
African theatre critic Zakes Mda, shapes her desire for unscripted and unpre­
dictable expressions of personal experience,
Why should “art” as in “art theatre” be rather than fixed narrative. While participants
used to distinguish between theatre that is
of Lacy’s projects have extensive conversations
composed in the codes of national elites,
and uses techniques that are appreciated among themselves, these conversations, and
only by them and are beyond the compre­ ultimately performance components, are as
hension of the rest of the society, from the­ likely to be philosophical and idea-driven as
atre that has a broad appeal within the they are to be personal and narrative. Lacy dis­
society and is rooted in the community?
trusts singular narrative, but is drawn toward
Popularity does not make a work inartistic.
It merely means the artist has utilised codes multiple, simultaneous narratives improvisa­
that are shared by the whole of the commu­ tionally exercised by nontrained actors around
nity. (1993, p. 49) a series of predetermined questions. Lacy spec­
ulates that part of her aversion to fixed story is
African American storyteller Lorraine that prioritizing individual narrative inevitably
Coleman relies on stories because, “Minority distorts the bigger picture:
communities only trust what comes from the
heart.”4 Everyone operates within a personal narra­
tive history and present that centralizes them
Suzanne Lacy is a community-based perfor­
within a very vast world. One of the prob­
mance artist who integrated personal story lems with race relations today [Lacy has
into her work in the early 1970s, largely influ­ worked intensively in cross-racial contexts] is
enced by feminist consciousness-raising (CR) how white people centralize the narrative.
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 441

Like, “I hurt so much because you are (1976/1994) opposed written versions of an
oppressed.” (personal communication, 2003) Appalachian figure known as “Red Fox” with
oral accounts. Officially a villain, Red Fox
John O’Neal, cofounder in 1963 of the Free appears as a hero in local stories. Roadside
Southern Theater, has also used personal story took the oral stories up a notch by corrobo­
for political engagement. Rather than tell rating them with material evidence such as old
people what to do, the Free Southern Theater newspaper articles and court records.
strived to create performances that stimulated Stories are a valuable tool for building par­
postshow discussion, thus serving their goal of ticipation because of their contagious nature.
supporting the development of southern black Donna Porterfield of Roadside describes a
communities. The exchange of stories proved play, South of the Mountain, written by com­
to be a better way of having dialogue than pany member Ron Short,
argument because, explains O’Neal,
that was his family’s personal story, in
Adversarial debates reward people who are which real family members were portrayed
trained in their techniques. Those tend to be using their real names. The story, however,
people who have the largest vocabularies was the same story experienced by many in
and largest egos and most willingness to the mountains, so it became archetypal. The
claim ground and hold it. Which merely play was immensely popular in the moun­
affirms the problem you’re starting with tains, and in working class communities
in the first place. So instead of standing on nationally. Audiences always wanted to stay
stage and answering questions, I moved off after the show to tell their stories to the
the stage and sat in the audience and said, actors. (Porterfield, personal communica­
“Why don’t you tell me a story that the tion, June 17, 2003)
experience of the theatre evoked in you?”
(personal communication, 2002) Indeed, stories evoke what people know they
have in common and affirm the group. In the
Story circles frequently lead to other activi­ three plays in John O’Neal’s Junebug series,
ties; O’Neal, now artistic director of Junebug O’Neal portrays a storyteller of that name.
Productions, is using story in his current pro­ SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
ject, The Color Line, to document civil rights Committee, a civil rights organization) invented
history. He sees this as a step in the rebuilding Junebug as a “title,” i.e., not one character but
of a movement for social justice. One artist, representative of the wisdom of the common
one educator, and one activist in each of sev­ person. The stories themselves came from many
eral towns are bringing their communities’ African Americans during the civil rights move­
attention to the local legacy of civil rights. The ment. The stories serve multiple community
artist is responsible for gathering personal goals, central among them a counter-history
stories on the subject. Stories must be used from the point of view of those without power
in some way thereafter, with the help of the who did not get to write the official history.
educator and the activist. They also celebrate African American wit,
Storytelling offers what Dudley Cocke calls language, and spirit.
a “counter-history” to that written by those According to literary theorist Paul Cobley,
with the power to articulate official histories narrative helps maintain and recall identity;
(personal communication, June, 2002). Local the memories embodied therein have served in
stories, explains Cocke, often provide a view­ the “formation and maintenance of the self-
point that is otherwise suppressed. Cocke image of a people” (2000, p. 38). This may
and Don Baker’s production with Roadside prove liberating when a group is under pres­
Theater of Red Fox/Second Hangin’ sure to assimilate or simply deserves more
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442 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

respect. Roadside Theater was founded in story-based approach that engages audiences
order to strengthen its Appalachian region. in discussions about what they want to or
According to Cocke, could do. Boal and his middle-class actors
from Sao Paolo were performing for peasants
Roadside’s home community had no experi­ in the northeast of Brazil. Holding their prop
ence creating or attending plays created from rifles over their heads, they called for all peas­
its local life. . . . Roadside has had an open ants to mobilize against the landowners and
field to invent itself, always ready to try some­
thing different based on what it originally
take control of the means of production. The
identified as its core theatrical resources: sto­ leader of the peasants rushed up to Boal after
rytelling, oral history, bluegrass and mountain the show and said, “Yes! You are right! We
music, and lively church services. (personal have a stash of rifles back at our hideout. Let’s
communication, June, 2002) all go have lunch and then fight the landown­
ers and take the land!” Boal was ashamed. He
Narratives representing a people may also and his troupes were actors, not fighters. He
prove oppressive, depending on how “we” is realized then the fallacy of telling a group of
defined. Take the case of Swamp Gravy, an people a solution to a problem that he did not
annual theatre project conceived in Colquitt, share and whose ramifications he would not
Georgia (pop. 2,000) by a local woman who experience. This led Boal to the creation of
had met director Richard Owen Gere in a Forum Theatre (2001, pp. 194–195).
creativity workshop in the north. Wanting to In Forum Theatre, several people who share
bring a story-based playmaking experience to a particular social oppression each tell a story
her small town, she invited Gere to Colquitt. that localizes how that oppression plays out in
For a half dozen years, in partnership with their lives. The stories all end badly; otherwise,
playwright Jo Carson, Gere made an annual they would not need to find solutions for the
play on local issues with local people. The pro­ problem. Using the stories as building blocks,
ject was unprecedented in bringing together the group makes a scene in which they all feel
people from both the black and white com­ represented and perform it for an audience
munities. But more recently, with a different called “spect-actors” who also identify with
director and writer, the show became so that problem. Because the one story stands for
demanding of people’s time that almost only the many, after performing the scene, the liai­
white, more affluent people had time to par­ son between actors and audience known as
ticipate. Consequently, who was represented “the joker” can discuss the problem with those
in the annual, story-based was “Colquitt assembled and ask, “Can anyone imagine
community” production? something the protagonist might do to amelio­
Storytelling as a traditional form of educa­ rate the situation?” If anyone has an idea—
tion passes on values, practices, experience, and I’ve never seen a Forum Theatre where no
and knowledge that affirm the collective iden­ one did—the scene is replayed, stopping at
tity of the group. Popular education also whatever points spect-actors want
affirms collective identity but is based on to become the protagonist and try it out.
rethinking received wisdom in a dialectic with Storytelling as critical pedagogy rather than a
lived experience. Brazilian theatre maker receptacle of unquestionable knowledge thus
Augusto Boal’s direct translation of Freire’s provides a way for people who identify with
“pedagogy of the oppressed” into Theatre of one another to imagine different behavioral
the Oppressed (TO) evidences this dynamic. choices leading to different outcomes.
Boal moved from agit-prop, a form of theatre As stories are told, paradoxically, they
that tells audiences what they should do, to a are no longer just one person’s tale. That’s
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The Problem Democracy Is Supposed to Solve 443

the basis of storytelling in community-based laws that needed to be passed. And indeed,
performance—each person’s story is but the thirteen laws were passed on that basis (see
raw material from which the performance, Boal, 1998). Lacy, too, has allied herself with
which must be meaningful to and representa­ institutions capable of making changes. A
tive of the whole group, is created. decade of work in Oakland, California, was
Boal, O’Neal, cg2, and Lacy all fulfill what closely coordinated with the police and eventu­
Benhabib (1992) calls contextualizing the per­ ally led to better police training especially in
sonal as a “struggle for justice” but they do so regard to male teens of color, who voiced bit­
in different ways. Boal proposes a structured ter stories of their treatment at the hands of
approach to illuminating the political realities Oakland’s finest. O’Neal originally allied Free
embedded in personal stories. For in Theatre Southern Theater with SNCC, and now
of the Oppressed, the subject of the stories regularly partners artists with activists and
is always oppressions encountered, struggled educators. All three of these artists situate
with, but not overcome. Whether in work­ story-based performance in relationship to
shops or Forum performances, spect-actors institutions able to lessen the inequities that the
first warm up so as to be ready to participate. stories make public, propelling me to my last
Although the structure of O’Neal’s storycircles point, the overlap of art and other disciplines.
is looser than that of TO, at their best (from
O’Neal’s perspective) they are part of a move­
An Expanded Notion of Art
ment for social justice whence their efficacious
potential emanates. So did participants in cg2 Washington, DC, Yom Kippur, October
see themselves as part of a movement, to save 2003. I am with choreographer Liz Lerman
community gardens, and thus the play was and some 400 congregants at Temple Micah,
experienced at once as an aesthetic and an dancing our atonement on this, the most
advocacy experience. And whereas Boal’s solemn day of the Jewish calendar. Ten days
Forum Theatre begins with people identifying ago, on the Jewish New Year, Rabbi Danny
an oppression and then bringing specifics of Zemel invited worshippers to write down their
their lives to illustrate it, Lacy and conscious- sins of the past year so they could be used as
ness-raising groups begin with personal stories part of today’s danced prayer. Lerman has
to lead to political revelations. For example as chosen the following sins that were inscribed
long as rape was considered a private matter, most frequently: For the sin I sinned by losing
it was beyond the ken of political regulation. my temper, by being impatient, for my smart
The very act of speaking about it publicly mouth, my pride, and for not listening. Five
helped move it into the domain of issues that congregants join her on the bima (stage) and
could be politically regulated. each reads a sin. Lerman has choreographed a
But neither personal stories manifesting movement for each which she teaches all 400
political implications nor any other methodol­ of us now. The gestures are of the hands, face,
ogy necessarily leads to justice. Sometimes the arms, and fingers; we can do them standing in
heightened political consciousness of the times place. We all do each gesture as the five con­
propels a performance into political efficacy; gregants each read the corresponding line.
ACT UP’s work in the late 1980s and 1990s Then we join in speaking and embodying all
is a case in point (see Solomon, 1998). Or a five lines and gestures. Next we do the gestures
political link is necessary. Boal made such a as we sing a song with different words but the
connection when he became a city councilor of same spirit of praying for forgiveness for our
Rio de Janeiro and treated the revelations of sins. Then instrumental music is added. Each
Forum Theatre as a dossier pointing the way to time, the totality of the words and gestures
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444 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

take me to a deeper place. All of me is asking thinking about who is needed to guide a
for forgiveness. performance project with not only aesthetic
Through her work in the Washington goals. As community-based performance fully
Jewish community, Lerman is investigating translates its principles into practice, it will
bringing people of wealth and status into this create ever broader participatory spaces for
field. If we really want to hear everyone’s story people to imagine their collective future. By
we must include the rich and powerful; they providing an accessible process and leadership
could benefit from this kind of work even as for thinking our situation through collectively
do people on the other end of the economic and publicly expressing it, community-based
spectrum. Indeed, all of us need to hear from performance could be a viable response to
people in different circumstances than our what Guinier and Torres call “the problem
own. Lerman has taken the opportunity to get democracy is supposed to solve.”
people to participate by chance—because her
Yom Kippur dance is for the whole congrega­
NOTES
tion and not just a subset interested in creative
Jewish experiments, she hopes the power of art 1. In the newly formed Soviet Union, festivals
to open our hearts and minds will be experi­ were a means to educate a large population
and forge identification with the new state.
enced by the entire congregation. In the same Intertwining experimentation, politics, and popu­
spirit, Lerman worked with both military per­ lar entertainment enabled audiences to grasp ide­
sonnel and those against their use of nuclear ology by rendering ideas visually and capturing
weapons in the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the audience’s attention.
Shipyard Project, believing that people of dif­ 2. Cultural democracy has a particular reso­
nance given my focus here on the United States.
ferent positions and opinions must be brought
There are often correlations between cultural and
to the same table if we all are to move forward political systems. The Nazi Nuremberg rallies of
together. the 1930s, for example, immortalized in Leni
Community-based performance is thus Riefenstahl’s film Triumph of the Will (1935/
inherently educational, teaching participants 1993), is a terrifying example of totalitarianism in
how to express themselves and listen to others art reflecting totalitarianism in politics.
3. Liz Lerman’s Critical Response ProcessSM
in a collective setting. For the main problem and the Critical Response ProcessSM are service
with Guinier and Torres’ theory of participa­ marks of the Dance Exchange, Inc. (Liz Lerman
tory democracy is that most of us lack Dance Exchange). Use of and reference to Liz
processes for envisioning our future together. Lerman’s Critical Response ProcessSM and the
It is idealistic to imagine the political estab­ Critical Response ProcessSM requires prior permis­
sion of the Dance Exchange. For editorial pur­
lishment taking art so seriously, yet there is
poses the service mark has been purposely omitted
precedent (such as the aforementioned experi­ from the text of this publication.
ments of Augusto Boal as a city councilman). 4. From author’s notes from Critical
Moreover, the educational potential of art is Perspectives Writers Gathering held in November
impeded by the breach between art makers and 2002 in San Francisco, organized by Animating
thinkers, an area that community-based practi­ Democracy Initiative.
tioners must also take up to fulfill art’s political
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Fields, M. (2002). Wild card [Unpublished dramatic O’Neal, J. (1968). Motion in the ocean. The Drama
text]. Review, 12(4), 70–77.
Freire, P. (1987). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Peeps, C. (2000). Conclusion: Getting in history’s
Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum. way. In M. Cieri & C. Peeps (Eds.), Activists
(Original work published 1968) speak out (pp. 269–272). New York:
Friedman, D. (1985). Workers theatre of the 1930s. Palgrave.
In B. McConachie & D. Friedman (Eds.), Riefenstahl, L. (1993). Triumph des willens
Theatre for working-class audiences: 1830–1980 [Triumph of the will] [Motion picture]. United
(pp. 111–120). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. States: Connoisseur/Meridian Films. (Work
Gennep, A. V. (1960). The rites of passage. first produced 1935)
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rukeyser, M. (1974). The life of poetry. New York:
Glassberg, D. (1990). American historical pageantry. Morrow.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Schechner, R. (1985). Between theater & anthropol­
Guinier, L. & Torres, G. (2002). The miner’s canary. ogy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Press.
Kretzman, J. & McKnight, J. (1993). Building Solomon, A. (1998). AIDS crusaders ACT UP a
communities from the inside out. Chicago: storm. In J. Cohen-Cruz (Ed.), Radical street
ACTA Publications. performance. New York: Routledge.
Lewis, F. (2002). Case study: Cornerstone Theater Watkins, N. (2002). Carpetbag Theater. In
Company. In R. Leonard, A. Kilkelly, R. Leonard, A. Kilkelly, L. Burnham, &
L. Burnham, & S. Durland (Eds.), Performing S. Durland (Eds.), Performing communities.
communities. http://www.communityarts.net/ www.communityarts.net.
readingroom/archive/perfcomm/cornerstone/ Zinn, H. (2003). A people’s history of the United
index.php States, 1492–present. New York: HarperCollins.
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25
Black Performance Studies
Genealogies, Politics, Futures

E. PATRICK JOHNSON

P erformance maps a space in which to

theorize the radicalization of what we
might call “black performance studies.”
how we are constituted and who we are”
(Hall, 1992, p. 30).
Blackness, however, is not only a pawn of
Undoubtedly, each of these terms signifies dif­ and consequence of performance, but it is also
ferently and within the specifics of its historic­ an effacement of it. The implication of this
ity. Wedded together in dialogic and dialectic construction of blackness in relation to perfor­
tension, however, these terms are at the inter­ mance is not that performance is, as suggested
stices of black life, politics, and cultural by its naysayers, “antiintellectual.” Rather,
production. “Black” and “performance”: it suggests that performance may not fully
These two tropes complement one another in account for the ontology of race.
a dialectic that becomes an ontology of racial­ Racial performativity informs the process
ized cultural production. “Blackness,” for by which we invest bodies with social meaning
instance, is a simulacrum until it is practiced— (Manning, 2001, p. 4). Yet, I must reemphasize
i.e., performed. The epistemological moment that, following Rinaldo Walcott (1997), “to
of race manifests itself in and through perfor­ read blackness as merely ‘playful’ is to fall into
mance in that performance facilitates self- and a willful denial of what it means to live ‘black’”
cultural reflexivity—a knowing made manifest (p. iv). Indeed, blackness offers a way to rethink
by a “doing.” Far from undergirding an essen­ performance theory by forcing it to ground
tialist purview of blackness, performance, as a itself in praxis, especially within the context of
mode of representation, emphasizes that, “it is a white supremacist, patriarchal, capitalist,
only through the way in which we represent homophobic society. While useful in decon­
and imagine ourselves that we come to know structing essentialist notions of selfhood,

446
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Black Performance Studies 447

performance must also provide a space for acknowledged as such or not. I am thinking
meaningful resistance of oppressive systems. here of Toni Morrison’s intervention in the
Taken together, then, these two terms are both construction of the literary canon. Morrison
degenerative in that to a degree, they represent deploys the term “Africanism” to suggest the
a double bluff—their face value always promis­ process through which black folk are interpel­
ing more than they can provide. They are also lated in the white imaginary and how that
generative forces, pressed into service to create interpellation gets represented in literature.
and demarcate cultural meaning. Therefore, “As a trope,” Morrison writes,
black performance has the potential of simulta­
neously forestalling and enabling social change. little restraint has been attached to its uses.
The interanimation of blackness and per­ As a disabling virus within literary dis­
course, Africanism has become, in the
formance necessitates the codification of this Eurocentric tradition that American educa­
relationship through intellectual inquiry—thus tion favors, both a way of talking about and
“black performance studies.” While black per­ a way of policing matters of class, sexual
formance has been a sustaining and galvaniz­ license, and repression, formations and
ing force of black culture and a contributor to exercises of power, and meditations on
ethics and accountability.
world culture at large, it has not always been
recognized as a site of theorization in the acad­
emy. Similarly marginalized as the black She continues,
bodies with which it is associated, black per­
formance, while always already embedded through the simple expedient of demonizing
and reifying the range of color on a palette,
within institutionally sanctioned and privi­
American Africanism makes it possible
leged forms of performance, has often been to say and not say, to inscribe and erase, to
neglected as a intellectual site of inquiry. escape and engage, to act out and act on, to
Accordingly, this essay seeks to (1) rehearse historicize and render timeless. It provides a
the history of black performance studies as way of contemplating chaos and civiliza­
endemic to the field of interpretation and tion, desire and fear, and a mechanism for
testing the problems and blessings of free­
performance studies; (2) discuss the ways in dom. (1992, p. 7)
which blacks have used performance as episte­
mology and resistance; and (3) engage the var­
Morrison’s definition and deployment of
ious political struggles over what constitutes
“Africanism” rings true for the ways in which
black performance within black culture by
black performance has remained for years on
offering examples of the ways in which the
the periphery of interpretation and now per­
signifier black within black performance stud­
formance studies. That is, although always
ies has been expanded by the political inter­
already a viable contributor to the field, disci­
ventions of black women’s and gay and
plinary practices of exclusion—e.g., the exclu­
lesbian’s artistic work.
sion of black-authored texts in interpretation
or the marginalization of black performance
scholars in performance studies and the will­
THE ERASURE OF
ing omission of the ways that black oratory
BLACK PERFORMANCE
contributed to the elocutionary moment, an
There has always been a black performative historical epoch many performance scholars
presence within the field of interpretation and locate as the founding moment of the field—
performance studies, whether it has been have reified the field as a colorless enterprise.
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448 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

Some might argue that this critique of the Conquergood’s historical intervention
field is anachronistic—indeed, that within this notwithstanding, the refusal to acknowledge
historical context, racism was in vogue and the coexistence of subaltern voices within the
should not be read back into the present as field’s history coincides with the disavowal
exemplary or typical of the field. Touché. But of black literature in interpretation’s closely
that does not explain the current excision of allied field of English. Indeed, performance
the role black performance has played in the studies’ subjugation of black cultural produc­
development of interpretation and black per­ tion reeks of the same arrogant racism in
formance in histories being written about the the literary tradition that, according to
field.1 Nor does it explain the current minis­ Morrison,
cule number of black scholars located within
holds that traditional, canonical American
interpretation and performance studies pro­
literature is free of, uniformed, and unshaped
grams and departments around the country. by the four-hundred-year-old presence of,
Or perhaps it does. The same racist practices first, Africans and then African-Americans
of exclusion, omission, or derision in the past in the United States. It assumes that this
only provided a fertile ground for the perpetu­ presence—which shaped the body politic,
ation of those same practices today. Despite the Constitution, and the entire history of
the culture—has no significant place or con­
the lacuna in the recounting of the field’s sequence in the origin and development of
history and the marginalization of black schol­ that culture’s literature. (1990, p. 5)
arship on performance theory, however, black
performance is imbricated in the codified And yet, as in the “Africanist” presence in
markers of “whiteness.” the literary tradition, so too has there been
Dwight Conquergood’s essay, “Rethinking a “black” presence in interpretation and
Elocution: The Trope of the Talking Book and performance studies. Quietly, yet radically
Other Figures of Speech” (2000), revises this transforming departments, black artist-schol­
whitened history of the field by demonstrat­ ars such as Njoki McElroy at Northwestern
ing how racial “others,” whose designation as University and Wallace Ray Peppers at the
inarticulate and degenerate was reified by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
very practice and discourse of elocution, rede­ insisted on foregrounding the literature, folk­
ployed bourgeois elocutionary practices by lore, and performance traditions of black writ­
performing their own “black counterpublic ers and scholars by cracking open the white
readings” (p. 333). Similar to Morrison’s cri­ canon that was reified as “Literature” over
tique of American literature and criticism, and above all “others.” These black cultural
Conquergood’s essay argues that while the workers not only demanded inclusion, but
elocutionary movement highlighted the “per­ they also developed courses that were dedi­
formativity of whiteness naturalized,” there cated to the study and analysis of black litera­
was another counter performance of race in ture, paving the way for scholars of color who
dialectic tension with this movement that would come after them—myself included.
“brings into sharp focus the complex perfor­ McElroy, Wallace and others were enacting
mative cultural politics of this speech tradi­ what Conquergood calls an “emancipatory
tion” (p. 325): the black oral tradition. pedagogy and performative cultural politics”
Drawing on what A. Hampaté Bâ calls “the (2000, p. 336)—emancipatory in the sense
great school of life” (p. 168), enslaved and that they no longer felt bound by the strictures
newly emancipated blacks signified on the elo­ of a curriculum that ignored or tokenized the
cutionary movement by redeploying its tenets literature, art, music, and artistic expression
toward their own liberation and humanity. of their culture; and political in the sense that
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Black Performance Studies 449

their intervention occurred during a time when culture, therefore, is not always ameliorated
the material consequences of their insubordi­ by those who lack the cultural capital to read
nation could have threatened their employ­ it or who are altogether disinterested in these
ment and even their lives. forms. It is the research of the self-reflexive,
Because of the interventions of these fore- self-conscious, and humble who may poten­
mothers and forefathers, younger black perfor­ tially read more than the writing of black
mance scholars continue to press the field and people and provide a space, according to
the academy in general to recognize the mater­ D. Soyini Madison, for subjugated knowledge
ial, intellectual, and aesthetic matrix that to “enter to articulate—to translate and to
is black performance.2 But just as they appro­ unveil—extant philosophical systems to those
priated “performance” in other disciplines, and who (without this knowledge) are unable to
similar to the ways in which some of those dis­ find, much less hear them” (1998, p. 321).
ciplines’ current deployment of performance Beyond providing an explanation as to
ignores a whole body of work in interpretation why black expressive culture is not always dis­
and performance studies that preceded its own cernible to the researcher, Madison, in her
fetishization and exoticization of performance, theorization of subjugated knowledge, also
interpretation and performance scholars are implicitly suggests black performance as epis­
also guilty of ignoring a whole body of black temology. That is, as other scholars have
performance theory that preceded the current argued about performance in general, black
proliferation of black performance theory by performance provides a space for black culture
younger scholars. Nonetheless, at this critical to reveal itself to itself—to come to know
juncture, there is no question that any geneal­ itself, in the process of doing. Below, I cite a
ogy of interpretation and performance studies few examples of how black folks use perfor­
within or outside the National Communication mance as epistemology.
Association must consider the role of black
performance and theory in the shaping and
BLACK PERFORMANCE
codification of interpretation and performance
AS EPISTEMOLOGY
studies as a site of intellectual inquiry.
One might ask how such a rich and vital Scholars of various African cultures have long
site of knowledge could have been excluded since argued the primacy of ritual performance
or gone unnoticed within a field that narrates as a site of knowing (Drewal, 1991; Fabian,
its own history as one fraught with political 1990; Turner, 1969, 1982, 1983, 1986).
debates with the academy about its own status Consequently, ritual survived as a key compo­
as a legitimate discipline (see Lee, 1999; nent of diasporic black performance and
Thompson, 1983). Institutionalized racism is expressive traditions. If, as Victor Turner has
one culprit, but another one is the inability of argued, cultural performances set in motion
academic institutions and individuals to read “a set of meta-languages whereby a group or
and value the discreet and nuanced perfor­ community not merely expresses itself, but
mances and theorizing of African Americans. more actively, tries to understand itself in
Outside the purview of what many scholars order to change itself” (1983, p. 383), then,
would hardly recognize as a legitimate object arguably, ritual is the cornerstone of the per-
of inquiry, black expressive culture has, until formative process through which African
recently, been illegible and unintelligible to Americans come to understand, reinforce, and
the undiscerning eyes and ears, and perhaps reflexively critique who they are in the world.
minds, of some scholars. The subjugated One site of such ritual performance is the
knowledge embedded within black expressive black church. Indeed, the processual nature of
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450 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

the black church service—the simultaneous galvanizes the spirit toward a highly intuitive
improvisational, yet internalized structure— sense of creation” (1989, p. xxv).
is undergirded by rhythm and repetition, Moreover, the expression of faith in gospel
which sustains focus on a renewal of faith music is animated, culminating in stylized
and commitment to serving God. From as well as personalized movement of the body.
the more formalized roles and procedures of In her autobiography, Mahalia Jackson relives
the preacher, choir, ushers, deacons and her early exposure to the performative nature
deaconesses, trustees, minister of music, and of gospel music:
“nurses,”3 to the improvisational call-and­
response dynamic and shouts, the central galva­ Those people had no choir and no organ.
They used the drum, the cymbal, the tam­
nizing force is ritual performance accomplished bourine, and the steel triangle. Everybody
through repetition and rhythm. As African poet sang and they clapped and stomped their
and cultural critic Léopold Senghor argues: feet and sang with their whole bodies. They
had a beat, a powerful beat, a rhythm we
Rhythm is the architecture of being, the inner held on to from slavery days, and their
dynamic that gives it form, the pure expres­ music was so strong and expressive it used
sion of the life force. Rhythm is the vibra­ to bring the tears to my eyes. (1960, p. 72)
tory shock, the force which, through our
sense, grips us at the root of our being. It is The rhythm, beat, and movement of gospel
expressed through corporeal and sensual
means; through lines, surfaces, colours, and
music culminate in joyful expression. Whether
volumes in architecture, sculpture or painting; it be through a verbalization of “Amen,”
through accents in poetry and music, through “Hallelujah,” “Thank you Jesus,” or “Yes,
movements in the dance. But, doing this, Lord,” or through nonverbals such as waving
rhythm turns all these concrete things towards the hand, stomping the feet, shouting, or cry­
the light of the spirit. In the degree to which
ing, gospel faith is always expressed physically
rhythm is sensuously embodied, it illuminates
the spirit. (quoted in Jahn, 1961, p. 164) through embodied performance.
The same is true in the structure and deliv­
The “vibratory shock” of rhythm and repe­ ery of the black folk sermon, which also sus­
tition, of which Senghor speaks, appears in tains focus on a topic or issue vis-à-vis rhythm
the “vamp” or the repetitive chorus of gospel and repetition. When describing the effect of
music, which sustains the focus on and gener­ the folk preacher’s performance style, literary
ates the spirit. The conjuring of the spirit and cultural critic Hortense Spillers notes,
through the force of rhythm and repetition
The thrust of the sermon is passional,
reinforces the participants’ belief that it exists
repeating essentially the rhythms of plot,
which, in the gestalt of performance, becomes complication, climax, resolution. The ser­
the epistemological moment. The use of repeti­ mon is an oral poetry—not simply an
tion to focus attention on a central idea within exegetical, theological presentation, but a
black American musical traditions encour­ complete expression of a gamut of emotions
ages emotional engagement on the part of the whose central form is the narrative and
whose end is cathartic release. In that regard
audience as well as intensifies the emotional the sermon is an instrument of a collective
engagement of the performer. This active par­ catharsis, binding once again the isolated
ticipation occurs through a call-and-response members of community. (1974, p. 4)
dynamic whereby the rhythm created by the
repetitive force effects active participation on The notion that the folk sermon is oral
the part of the audience and, according to Paul poetry, that it evokes catharsis and that it
Carter Harrison, “emotionally and cognitively binds members of a community are reflected in
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Black Performance Studies 451

the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s speech delivered which heightens emotions and serves as an
at the 1988 National Democratic Convention. “opportunity to revitalize a shared cosmogony
Throughout this speech Jackson draws upon through social and sacred rituals” (Harrison,
the folk preacher tradition through his use of 1989, p. xxvi).
repetition, rhythm, and metaphor to bring Gerald L. Davis also argues that the use of
the factions of the Democratic Party together. repetition and rhythm in the black folk sermon
Transforming his grandmother’s quilt into a affects organization and general language use.
metaphor for the Democratic Party, Jackson He writes,
sermonizes,
In sermon performance, the African-
Now, Democrats, we must build such a American preacher is principally concerned
quilt. Farmers, you seek fair prices and you with the organization and the language of
are right, but you cannot stand alone. Your his sermon. The notion of meter in the sense
patch is not big enough. Workers, you fight of a rhythmic, mnemonic environment for
for fair wages. You are right, but your patch the logical, pragmatic development of ideas,
labor is not big enough. Women, you seek is not subordinate to the language focus.
comparable worth and pay equity. You are Rather, it is concurrent with it. The genera­
right. But your patch is not big enough. tion of structures for language usage and the
Women, mothers, who seek Head Start, and structuring of rhythmic environments for
day care and pre-natal care, on the front the preacher’s message are complementary,
side of life, rather than jail care and welfare concurrent processes in the performance of
on the back side of life, you’re right, but African-American sermons. (1985, p. 51)
your patch is not big enough. Students, you
seek scholarships. You’re right, but your To support his argument, Davis provides an
patch is not big enough. excerpt from a sermon by Bishop Cleveland
. . . But don’t despair; be as wise as my entitled, “He Wants Your Life: The Search for
grandmamma. Pull the patches and the
pieces together, bound by a common thread.
the Religion of Christ”:
When we form a great quilt of unity, and
common ground, we’ll have the power to God is studying your tongue
bring health care and housing and jobs and
God is studying your aspirations
education and hope to our nation. (quoted
in Tannen, 1989, pp. 188–189) God ain’t studying your manipulations

God ain’t studying your demonstrations

The repetition of the phrase “you’re right,
but your patch is not big enough” and its vari­ God ain’t studying your words and your wisdom
ation creates a rhythmic force that draws in God don’t want your delay
the listener by creating suspense about who he
God wants your life
will refer to next. By including representatives
from the Democratic Party’s entire con­ (Davis, 1985, pp. 51–52)
stituency, Jackson works toward “binding”
those “isolated members of the community.”
The collective catharsis comes at the end of In this passage from Cleveland’s sermon,
this excerpt when Jackson summarizes all of we immediately recognize a generative for­
the things the different factions cannot achieve mula (“God is studying”) and how that for­
alone—health care, housing, jobs, etc.— mula structures and organizes ideas, and how
appealing to their sense of “common ground.” it serves as a mnemonic device. But we also see
Thus rhythm established through repetition in that the rhythm and meter is not sacrificed for
Jackson’s speech becomes a generative force, structure. The two are concurrent.
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452 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

These examples of black performance Performance practice was one of the places
suggest that black expressive culture is not where the boundaries created by the empha­
sis on proving that the black race was not
merely artifice nor without consideration of
civilized could be disrupted. Radical ideas
aesthetic criteria. Rather, there is an admixture could be expressed in this arena. Indeed, the
of both as black performative practices, espe­ roots of black performative arts emerge from
cially those which privilege ritual, sustain the an early nineteenth century emphasis on
epistemological frame in which black people oration and the recitation of poetry. In a
and culture reflect, reshape, and revitalize. number of narratives relating slave experi­
ence, African-Americans cite learning to read
and recite as crucial to their development of
BLACK PERFORMANCE a liberatory consciousness. (1995, p. 212)
AS A SITE OF RESISTANCE
Following this logic, we might concede that
In her essay, “Performance Practice As a Site of black performance is at the interstices of black
Opposition,” cultural critic and feminist scholar political life and art, providing the lynchpin
bell hooks suggests that there are two modes of that sustains and galvanizes arts and acts of
black performance—one ritualistic as a part resistance.
of culture building and one manipulative out of Hooks offers her own personal narrative
necessity for survival in a oppressive world about the importance the “live arts” played in
(1995, p. 210). Hooks suggests that these two her child rearing. Like hooks, I, too, recall
modes are not mutually exclusive but bound how members of my small black community
together in dialogic tension given the way the in rural, western North Carolina staged
skills endemic to black expressive culture are black plays and encouraged us children to
both required and deployed for ritual play and memorize and recite the poetry of Paul
for resistive action. For my purposes here, I Lawrence Dunbar, Countee Cullen, and
focus on the latter to buttress my argument that Langston Hughes as a way to instill race pride
black performance has always been and will and to counter the lack of exposure to black
always be a part of any liberationist struggle. writers and artists in the public schools. This
From the minute nonverbal expressions of grass-roots organizing speaks to the employ­
the slave to the pensive sway of the weary ment of the only available resources to the
domestic to the collective marches on community—orality. Without the political
Washington and throughout the South, black clout to demand a change in the curriculum,
performance has been the galvanizing element these community leaders drew upon their
of black folks’ resistance to oppression. Indeed, indigenous expressive forms to transgress the
in the early years of the antebellum South, white, bourgeois culturally sanctioned proto­
black performance was a crucial component of cols of reading, by making us memorize—and
the formation of a black public sphere, which thereby corporeally experience—the literature
Mark Anthony Neal argues was “invaluable privileged by black culture.
to the transmission of communal values, tradi­ Some of the best examples of this use of per­
tions of resistance, and aesthetic sensibilities” formance are found in the African American
(1999, pp. 1–2). According to bell hooks, oral tradition and literature—tenets of the
field of interpretation and performance stud­
Performance was important because it cre­ ies. Within the black oral tradition animal
ated a cultural context where black people
trickster tales in which the weaker animals—
could transgress the boundaries of accepted
speech, both in relationship to the domi­ rabbit and monkey—outwits the stronger
nant white culture, and to the decorum animals—fox and lion—serve as tropes for
of African-American cultural mores. . . . the master and slave. Given the physical and
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Black Performance Studies 453

psychological constraints of slave culture, the subversive performances, but more times
slaves’ modes of resistance manifested in the than not, the will to be treated as a human
form of tales of these anthropomorphic ani­ outweighed the potential threat.
mals whose relationship parallels that of the After emancipation, these tales evolved into
slave and master. Creating and performing the “John and Old Master” cycle of tales. No
these tales provided temporary psychological longer under the threat of the master’s lash,
relief from slave existence, but some forms the emancipated black person could speak
of verbal double entendre afforded material freely of the cruelty of former slaveholders and
results in the way of freedom. The coding took pride in performing tales in which John,
of geographic locations such as “heaven,” the slave, outsmarts his master. Similar to the
“the river,” and “home” in spirituals sung on function of the animal trickster tales, the func­
plantations, for example, served as directions tion of this cycle of tales was both to indict
for where to meet to plan a revolt or to escape whites for their inhuman treatment of slaves
to the North. This is not to say that slaves only and to demonstrate the slaves’ intellectual and
relied on indirect discursive means of resis­ physical acumen at resisting such treatment.
tance. They also employed embodied perfor­ As Daryl Dance argues, “By belittling and
mances of resistance as well. According to ridiculing whites and by picturing them as
Lawrence Levine, foolish victims, Blacks mitigate some of the
frustrations of their daily lives and enhance
The tactics slaves resorted to in order to their sense of dignity and pride” (1989,
resist the compulsions of their situation p. 180). Dance’s statement suggests that it is
would have been familiar enough to the
not only the content of these tales but also the
creatures of their animal tales. The records
left by nineteenth-century observers of slav­ performance of them by the storyteller that
ery and by the masters themselves indicate provides a sense of agency to resist struggle.
that a significant number of slaves lied, In Hurston’s Mules and Men, for example,
cheated, stole, feigned illness, loafed, pre­ Black Baby, one of the taletellers of Eatonville,
tended to misunderstand the orders they Florida, exemplifies both the power of the
were given, put rocks in the bottom of their
cotton baskets in order to meet quota, broke
content of the slave-master folktale and the
their tools, burned their masters’ property, teller in the following story:
mutilated themselves in order to escape
work, took indifferent care of the crops they De first colored man that was ever brought
were cultivating, and mistreated the live­ to dis country was named John. He didn’t
stock placed in their care to the extent that know nothin’ mo’ than you told him and
masters often felt it necessary to use the less he never forgot nothin’ you told him either.
efficient mules rather than horses since the So he was sold to a white man.
former could better withstand the brutal Things he didn’t know he would ask
treatment of the slaves. (1977, p. 122) about. They went to a house and John never
seen a house so he asked what it was. Ole
Massa tole him it was his kingdom. So dey
These performances of resistance were goes on into the house and dere was the fire­
sometimes met with punishment of the lash, place. He asked what was that. Ole Massa
dismemberment, starvation, and even death— told him it was flame ‘vaperator. The cat
many of which are chronicled in animal trick­ was settin’ dere. He asked what it was. Ole
ster tales in which Brer Rabbit is caught by Massa told him it was his round head.
So dey went upstairs. When he got on
Brer Fox, or the monkey in the “Signifying
the stair steps he asked what dey was. Ole
Monkey” tales slips from his tree and is Massa told him it was his Jacob ladder. So
trounced by the lion. Surely, the threat of when they got up stairs he had a roller foot
such retaliation limited the number of such bed. John asked what was dat. Ole Massa
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454 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

told him it was his flowery-bed-of-ease. So “hidden transcript” of insubordination and

dey came down and went out to de lot. He knowledge. This subversive performance is
had a barn. John asked what was dat. Ole
motivated by the slave’s frustration with the
Massa told him dat was his mound. So he
had a Jack in the stable, too. John asked, master in a time of crisis (the cat and barn are
“What in de world is dat?” Ole Massa said: on fire); instead of maintaining the ruse of
“Dat’s July, the God Damn.” ignorance, he deploys shock to get the master
So the next day Ole Massa was up stairs to react.
sleep and John was smokin.’ It flamed the The slave’s use of language here is also an
‘vaperator and de cat was settin’ dere it got
example of “signifying,” which refers to the
set afire. The cat goes to de barn where Ole
Massa had lots of hay and fodder in de use of indirection to comment negatively on
barn. So de cat set it on fire. John watched something or someone. In this folktale, the
the Jack kicking up hay and fodder. He slave’s use of “proper” speech after feigning
would see de hay and fodder go up and ignorance signifies on the master’s own
come down but he thought de Jack was
inability to discern that the slave has knowl­
eating the hay and fodder.
So he goes upstairs and called Ole Massa edge of the possessions the master calls by
and told him to get up off’n his flowery-bed­ other highfalutin names, and this makes
of-ease and come down on his Jacob ladder. the master look foolish. In The Signifying
He said: “I done flamed the ‘vaperator and Monkey, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1987)
it caught de round head and set him on fire. argues that the black person’s ultimate sign
He’s gone to de mound and set it on fire,
of difference is her “blackness of tongue”
and July the God Damn is eatin’ up every­
thing he kin git his mouf on.” (p. 2). While Gates makes this claim to but­
Massa turned over in de bed and ast, tress his argument about the signification of
“Whut dat you say, John?” black literature on the western literary canon,
John tole ‘im agin. Massa was still sleepy the same can be argued about signification as
so he ast John again whut he say. John was
a site of resistance within black performance.
gittin’ tired so he say, “Aw, you better git
out of dat bed and come on down stairs. Ah As in the case of the folktale above, signifying
done set dat ole cat afire and he run out to functions as both a source of ritual insult and
de barn and set it afire and dat ole Jackass survivalist strategy or both depending on the
is eatin’ up everything he git his mouf on.” context. When deployed in the dozens, a
(Hurston, 1990a, pp. 79–80) verbal art game of ritual insult, verbal dex­
terity for “play” may just as easily slip into
It is clear that the teller of this tale has to a critical technology of self-assertion and
demonstrate a level of verbal dexterity to make resistance.
the punch line effective. Not only must he In Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were
keep the series of events clear in the mind of Watching God, Janie, the protagonist, engages
the listener, but he must also underscore, her husband in a dozens contest which results
undoubtedly through vocal inflection, the in her enacting her own agency as a woman
irony of the slave’s knowledge of standard and as an apt verbal dueler when she exposes
English. Moreover, the content of the story her husband’s sexual impotence. Trying to put
reveals that the slave discerned all along the her in her place, Jody, her husband, stands in
master’s concealment, or the “appearance the middle of their store in front of a crowd of
that approximates what, ideally, [he wants customers and onlookers (dozens contests, to
the slave] to see” (Scott, 1990, p. 50). Thus, be effective, must always have an audience)
the slave sheds his performance of deference and says to Janie, “Whut’s de matter wid
and ignorance and provides a glimpse into you, nohow? You ain’t no young girl to be
what James C. Scott (1990) might call his gettin’ all insulted ‘bout yo’ looks. You ain’t
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Black Performance Studies 455

no young courtin’ gal. You’se uh old woman, “delicate” family matters. On the other hand,
nearly forty.” Janie replies, neighbors’ knowledge of such intimate details
could also work to one’s advantage when it
Naw, Ah ain’t no young gal no mo’ but den came to deploying subversive tactics against
Ah ain’t no old woman neither. Ah reckon “the man.” Most of our neighbors as well as
Ah looks mah age too. But Ah’m uh woman my family had parents (usually single mothers)
every inch of me, and Ah know it. Dat’s uh
who worked jobs that did not provide health
whole lot more’n you kin say. You big-
bellies round here and put a lot of brag, or life insurance. These women were domes­
but ‘tain’t nothin’ to it but yo’ big voice. tics, factory workers, or cooks in low wage
Humph! Talkin’ ‘bout me lookin’ old! earning positions. Therefore, they acquired
When you pull down yo’ britches, you look insurance from insurance salesmen who came
lak de change uh life. (1990b, p. 75) door to door selling health and life insurance
policies at exorbitant premiums and that actu­
Drawing on the signifying tradition Janie ally paid very little if one were to be hospital­
levels the playing field by countering her ized or die. The insurance agents would also
husband’s ageist and sexist depiction of her as go door to door to collect these premiums
unattractive housewife. Her retort is deft not weekly or monthly. As was to be expected,
only because it is delivered with confidence, many families did not have the money to pay
but also because its content cuts the quick of these fees yet they were in dire need of insur­
her husband’s manhood, subverting his patri­ ance in case of emergencies. The performances
archal gaze and control over her body. we devised to avoid payment or distract the
Black folks employ performative modes of salesmen were ingenious. When we children
resistance such as signifying beyond interper­ saw them coming, we would run into the
sonal relationships to transgress institutional­ house and warn our mothers, who would do
ized forms of oppression. This is particularly one of three things: immediately pull the
true for those who do not benefit from “trickle shades, close the door and pretend not to be
down” economics, urban gentrification, wel­ home; hide in a closet or bathroom after
fare reform, state surveillance, and other rehearsing with us the lie to tell the insurance
regressive policies that maintain the nation- man; or invite the insurance man in and dis­
state. A political economy in which govern­ tract him with idle chit chat followed by an
mental taxation laws benefit the top one invitation to supper (which he sometimes
percent of the population necessitates discreet, accepted). While these tactics provided only a
but strategic and effective performative modes temporary reprieve from the payment due or
of resistance or what Scott (1990) refers to as overdue, they were performances deployed to
“discourse that takes place ‘offstage,’ beyond stave off institutionalized forms of race and
direct observation by powerholders” (p. 4). class oppression.
I refer again to my own upbringing as an Terry McMillan’s elderly black woman
example of a community of black folk who narrator in the short story “Ma’ Dear,” offers
devised all kinds of guileful ruses and hidden another example of subversive performances
scripts because their survival depended on it. exemplary of those in which many black
Because I was raised in public housing the working-class and poor people engage to resist
proximity of our neighbors was such that devolving further into poverty. Just as my
everyone knew the intricate details of families’ community evaded the calls of insurance sales­
personal lives. This situation was inconvenient men for premium payments, the narrator of
to the extent that one never felt any semblance McMillan’s story pretends that she lives alone
of privacy about what would be considered and receives no other income beyond her
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456 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

social security payments, which are too low income, single occupancy, and below poverty
for her to make ends meet. She devises this existence. She astutely discerns that the case
performance for her social worker, an agent of worker is an agent of the state and is visiting
the state employed to maintain the status quo. her home to impose its hegemony while, at
The narrator tells the reader: the same time, the state buttresses the case
worker’s middle class lifestyle that affords her
That old case worker think she gonna get the “credit cards galore,” “summer homes,” and
truth out of me. She don’t scare me. It ain’t trips to Florida in the winter. Attuned to the
none of her business that I got money coming
in here besides my social security check. How
state’s desire to “know her business” as its offi­
they ‘spect a human being to live off $369 a cial hidden transcript, she develops her own
month in this day and age is what I wanna “convincing performance,” which requires
know. Every time I walk out of my front “both the suppression or control of feelings
door it cost me at least two dollars. I bet that would spoil the performance and the sim­
she making thousands and got credit cards
ulation of emotions that are necessary to the
galore. Probably got a summer house on the
Island and goes to Florida every January. If performance” (Scott, 1990, pp. 28–29). In her
she found out how much I was getting from encounter with the case worker then, the
my roomers, the government would make me narrator performs deference and ingratiating
pay back a dollar for every two I made. I best behavior, disguises evidence of social mobility,
to get my tail on upstairs and clear everything thus allowing her to “say [her] say and sing
off their bureaus. I can hide all the nurses’
stuff in the attic; they won’t be back till next
[her] song.”
month. Juanita been living out of trunks since Other subversive performances existed in
she got here, so if the woman ask what’s in my community that demonstrated its agency
’em, I’ll tell her, old sheets and pillowcases against hegemonic capitalism. There were
and memories. (McMillan, 1990, p. 465) women who took “orders” for clothing that
they would then shoplift from popular depart­
This elderly woman’s resistance to the ment stores. Indeed, their skill at stealing
state’s surveillance succeeds because she clothes developed into such an art that they
alters the visual economy of her home such became known for their ability to lift clothes
that “evidence” of upward mobility (i.e., from mannequins in store windows. Their
her boarders’ things) is hidden in plain sight craft subsidized the low wages they earned
of the case worker. She also employs the oral from factory and domestic work and provided
tradition as political resistance in her willful access to commodities they would not other­
commitment to withholding the “truth” about wise be able to afford. The price of the goods
her income. Rather than divulge the truth, she stolen was negotiated with buyers on an indi­
theorizes her situation to her advantage in the vidual basis, but was usually no more than
way that Zora Neale Hurston describes: half of the ticketed price. Many of my siblings’
and my Easter suits and Christmas presents
The white man is always trying to know were the result of these women’s craft, allow­
into somebody’s business. All right, I’ll set
ing my mother, a single parent, to provide for
something outside the door of my mind for
him to play with and handle. I’ll put this her family.
play toy in his hand, and he will seize it and When my grandmother worked as a domes­
go away. Then I’ll say my say and sing my tic she also employed subversive performances
song. (1990a, p. 3) to resist exploitation. Like so many domestics,
in the presence of her employer, she adhered
The “play toy” that McMillan’s narrator to the “public transcript” of subservience
puts in the case worker’s hand is the lie of one and deference by never raising her voice
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Black Performance Studies 457

when dissatisfied with her conditions. She the center of identity politics as performers
contends that if she did not like something, she struggle over the most effective or “proper”
“nevah did say nothin’,” for “saying some­ performances to deploy against racism. Hooks
thing” might have cost her her job or caused suggests that
unnecessary tension in the home. Instead, she
was silent. She firmly held her mask in place for performance to continue to be subver­
until she had the opportunity to score a vic­ sive, to engage cultural practice in ways that
are disruptive and transformative, African-
tory—however fleeting. But when asked to American artists must claim a space for
participate in one of her white charges’ mar­ ongoing critical vigilance, where we can dia­
riage ceremony as “mammy,” by sitting next logue about the impact of the live act and
to the biological white mother, she refused by where performance can be interrogated to
inventing a story about a sick brother whom see what works as meaningful intervention.
(1995, p. 220)
she had to take care of. This story not only got
her out of participating in the wedding, but it
The dialogue that hooks insists must occur
also provided her an opportunity to quit her
often becomes the site where the boundaries of
job as she did not return to work for the
black performance begin to emerge, depending
family (Johnson, 2003, pp. 151–59). As James
on the political and social climate. Therefore
Scott reminds us: “The hidden transcript is not
the next section engages the policing of black
just behind-the-scenes griping and grumbling;
performance.
it is enacted in a host of down-to-earth, low
profile stratagems designed to minimize appro­
priation” (1990, p. 188). My grandmother’s THE BOUNDARIES OF
“stratagem” was her silence, which mini­ BLACK PERFORMANCE
mized her appropriation of being put on pub­
Historically, the boundaries of black perfor­
lic display as the domestic mammy and
mance have been circumscribed by both the
removed her from the oppressive space of her
art produced by black folks and by the critics
employer.
of that art. As early as 1926, W. E. B. DuBois,
Black performance as a mode of resistance
in a speech to the NAACP in Chicago entitled
functions to suture the gap between the
“Criteria of Negro Art,” argued that all art is
oppressor and the oppressed, the vocal and
voiceless, the dominator and the dominated— and must be propagandistic. He writes,
indeed, to make the “bottom rail become the
All art is propaganda and ever must be,
top riser” (Dance, 1978, p. 8). Many of these despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in
performances are necessary for survival in a utter shamelessness and say that whatever
white supremacist patriarchal society, while art I have for writing has been used always
others are deployed for sheer play. Whatever for propaganda for gaining the right of
black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a
their motivations, these resistive performances
damn for any art that is not used for propa­
do not evolve in an ahistorical vacuum. They ganda. But I do care when propaganda is
take shape according to the historical and confined to one side while the other is
sociopolitical context in which they exist. stripped and silent. (DuBois, 1926, p. 22)
They are also not deployed unilaterally or
toward the same aim as they are bound by DuBois is speaking to the rhetoric of
geopolitical and social circumstances. Because performance, the power of performance
no performance exists outside the politics of to persuade, move and cajole an audience
representation, ideology is embedded within to action or to maintain the status quo. In
them and thus thrusts black performance into the racial terms of the early twentieth century,
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458 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

this meant the limiting of particular kinds writes: “Given this potential interlock in
of representations of blackness. DuBois performance of competing energies, one has a
continues, text that again generically rejects the binarism
of folk versus propaganda/race play and . . .
It is not the positive propaganda of people hints at the possibility of some confounding
who believe white blood divine, infallible and
third category” (1995, p. 79). An enigma her­
holy to which I object. It is the denial of a sim­
ilar right of propaganda to those who believe self in the context of the “black nigerati” as
black blood human, lovable and inspired with she referred to other artists of her era, Zora
new ideals for the world.” (p. 22) Neale Hurston the woman and her work
defied a parochial view of blackness and black
While arguing for a broader range of black performance. But the material reality of being
artistic expression, one that would allow for a black queer rebel in life as in art was such
black artists to depict black people as more that she and her work would spiral out of exis­
than the image of themselves lodged in the tence only to be resurrected during the begin­
white imaginary, DuBois’ deployment of black­ ning of what would become a black feminist
ness here still signifies the black, heterosexual movement.
male, for black women and especially black Curiously enough, the backdrop for
homosexual artists were not born with the the black feminist intervention in third wave
“veil” or gift of “second sight” of which DuBois feminist movement would be the Black Arts
writes in his 1903 Souls of Black Folk. I am movement of the 1960s. What a paradox. The
actually not invested, as was DuBois, in an poetic and theatrical expressions of Amiri
equal right to propagandistic art for black Baraka [LeRoi Jones], Haki Madhubuti [Don
women, lesbians, transgendered individuals, L. Lee], Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, and
and gays, but rather the expansion of black­ others again reflected the imbrication of aes­
ness itself such that the artistic and cultural thetics and politics, black performance with
work of these dissident subjectivities might black people. These artists and performers saw
always already be included in what one might their art as weapons against oppression as well
call black performance studies. as the vanguard of black creative expression
Zora Neale Hurston was already interven­ of that era. Kimberly Benston argues that for
ing in DuBois’ construction of the criteria for these black artists of the ’60s “writing, prop­
Negro art because of her gender, her art, and erly reconceived and directed as utterance and
her politics. Indeed, Hurston’s first play, Color as act, was advanced as a signal instrument of
Struck, written in the same year as DuBois’s cultural liberation” (2000, p. 2). Moreover,
address to the NAACP, dislodges essentialist he suggests that performance was key to this
notions of blackness by deconstructing the liberationist struggle:
binaries of middle-class vs. folk, black vs.
white, male vs. female, etc., especially through For this revolutionary alignment of voice and
what Sandra Richards calls the “absent poten­ purpose to be achieved, the ‘new breed’ . . . of
tial” of performance. According to Richards black artists would need to fashion a dynamic
new poetics: expression would become pre­
(1995), this particular Hurston play, at first eminently theatrical . . . performance would
glance, falls within the category of the “race” become transitive and transformative . . . and,
or “propaganda” play which DuBois and finally, the artist would herself become an
others promote. In performance, however, the exemplary performance. (p. 2)
play moves beyond such limitations because of
the contingencies of value placed on the bod­ Beyond employing performance as a site
ies on stage by the viewing audience. Richards of resistance and toward “revolutionary”
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Black Performance Studies 459

aims, these artists’ work circumscribed black­ example, to perpetuate a tradition that
ness in specific terms that disavowed black occludes segments of its constituency? What
women (even black women were guilty of this are the ethics of the tradition? Of our criticism?
disavowal), gays, lesbians, and transgendered Of our performances?
people, and the black middle class. In his 1968 treatise on the Black Arts
In the poem “Black Art,” for example, Movement, Larry Neal argues that the “Black
Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones says that he desires Arts Movement is an ethical Movement.
Ethical, that is, from the viewpoint of the
Black poems to smear on griddlemamma oppressed. And much of the oppression con­
mulatto bitches fronting the Third World and Black America
whose brains are red jelly stuck is directly traceable to the Euro-American
between ‘lizabeth taylor’s toes. Stinking cultural sensibility” (1994, p. 186). I would
Whores! We want poems that kill. suggest, however, that Neal’s definition of
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot ethics is based on the false assumption that
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys the “oppressed” is a static category. Does it
and take their weapons leaving them dead include, for instance, the “mulatto bitches”
with tongues pulled out and sent to and “whores” of Baraka’s poetry? The “fag­
Ireland. gots” in contemporary stand-up routines and
(1971, p. 223) theatre productions (what I call “church-on­
stage” shows)?4 Similar to the performances of
resistance prior to this period, black arts poetry
In this poem, “blackness” is an exemplary remained steeped in the quagmire of essential­
simulacrum until activated by the literary per­ ized blackness, privileging race as the single
formance that is the poem or by the various most important identity marker. Moreover,
performances of the poem by Baraka and these performances moved beyond race privi­
others. Black poetry is action put into motion leging to actually denigrating members of the
via performance. Once activated through per­ black community who were also female, les­
formance, however, “blackness” is defined in bian, gay, transgendered, or middle-class.
relation to what it is not—namely “mulatto Suturing the gap across the river of essen­
bitches,” and “whores” as well as other irri­ tialism were the gendered and sexualized
tants outside the purview of Baraka’s defini­ “others” of the black community. Namely,
tion. While the intention in the performance of black women and black LGBT artists’ work
this poem is to, as Manthia Diawara (1995) expanded and continue to expand the bound­
suggests, “redefine the tools of Americanness,” aries of blackness by infusing it with their crit­
as well as to install black creative expression ical voices. For example, Ntozake Shange’s
with politicized agency against racism, it comes now canonized For Colored Girls represented,
at the expense of the Other within—the sub­ according to Benston, “a vigorous rethinking
jectivity of those who would also like to claim of authenticity, authorship, and production
a part of the category “black” that Baraka so that alters the landscape of Black Arts theatri­
strongly advocates and valorizes. I agree with cal practice” (p. 83). Indeed, Shange’s play set
Diawara on the one hand that “a performance the stage ablaze because it pushed not only the
must be based on a tradition that the audience form and content of traditional theatre prac­
can verify, and rate the performer against” tice, but it also stretched the black body politic
(p. 209), but on the other, I have questions by moving from margin to center the voice
about the very tradition in which the perfor­ of the black woman. The impact has been
mance is housed. What does it mean, for an unprecedented number of riffs and spoofs
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460 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

of Shange’s titular performance, all of which, performers’ insistence that they are indeed a
however, have been deployed to continue part of the black community and that, in some
Shange’s radical intervention: Keith Antar regards, their love of black community is per­
Mason’s for colored boys who have consid­ haps stronger than that of their heterosexual
ered homicide when the streets were too much counterparts—indeed, “twice as fierce.”
and Marvin K. White’s for colored boyz who Pomo Afro Homo, as well as other perfor­
have considered the s-curl when the hot comb mance artists and playwrights such as
was too much, to name two. Shange’s work Rhodessa Jones, Shay Youngblood, George C.
also paved the way for other black artists to Wolfe, Suzan Lori Parks, and Craig Hicks,
challenge and extend the boundaries of black have continued to expand the concept of
performance to reflect a messier more complex “black” in black performance studies by
identity marker, namely, the now defunct bringing to the fore questions of gender and
black gay performance troupe Pomo Afro sexuality. In this way, these artists have radi­
Homos (Freeman, Branner, and Gupton, 1996) calized the roots of the black performance
who in Fierce Love: Stories From Black Gay tradition by deploying a new ethics of the
Life, handled such topics as homophobia in tradition—a critical praxis engaged not in
black communities, internalized homophobia occlusion, exclusion, and delusion, but rather
among black gay men, and racism in white gay in liberation.
communities. The actors of Pomo Afro Homo Some might suggest that one way to emerge
deftly critique heteronormative constructions from this quagmire is to move away from any
of blackness such as those that circulate within form of identity politics, for they ultimately
Black Nationalist discourse by declaring their lead to what Judith Butler (1990) has referred
presence as black men who are constantly to as the “embarrassed, etc.” (p. 143). Yet, the
under surveillance and threat, but who disavowal of any kind of identity politic in the
nonetheless persevere because of the strength realm of black performance does not provide
garnered from their ancestors. In the opening for the cultural distinctiveness that this aes­
scene of the play, the actors perform the poem thetic produces and contributes to society.
“We Are,” which ends with the stanza: It also imbues black cultural production with
an unrelenting relativism with which I am
We are uncomfortable—one that black conservative
an endangered species critic of the Harlem Renaissance George
But our stories must be told Schuyler used to justify the nonexistence of
our lives “Negro Art.” In 1926 Schuyler wrote, “Negro
forever real art ‘made in America’ is as nonexistent as the
must be cherished widely advertised profundity of Cal Coolidge,
and our love the ‘seven years of progress’ of Mayor Hylan,
forever rising or the reported sophistication of New
must be Yorkers” (Schuyler, 1926/1994, p. 51). Rather
has got to be than attend to Schyuler’s extreme polemics, I
no doubt about it am more apt to believe, as Harry Elam, that
as strong as our ancestors’ while blackness is a fragile fiction, its experi­
and twice as fierce. ential effects materialize in and through per­
(1996, p. 259) formance. Elam writes,

This poem frames the performance as it From the arrival of the first African slaves
is reprised at the play’s end, punctuating the on American soil, the discourse on race, the
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Black Performance Studies 461

definitions and meanings of blackness, have do. But as with all representational discourses,
been intricately linked to issues of theater black performance is not beyond the reaches of
and performance. Definitions of race, like
ideology and the power struggles that such bat­
the processes of theater, fundamentally
depend on the relationship between the tles ensue. We must conceive of black perfor­
unseen and the seen, between the visibly mance as Hortense Spillers suggests conceiving
marked and unmarked, between the ‘real’ of black community—“as a layering of nego­
and the illusionary. (2001, p. 4) tiable differences” (2003, p. 461). Indeed, if
this tradition we call black performance studies
Other attendant subject positions around continues to be generative as opposed to grav­
which race may pivot, such as gender and sex­ itating toward implosion, we must continue to
uality, then, may also come to the fore and be ask, rather then attempt to answer, the ques­
negotiated in relation, rather than subordina­ tion, “What is this “black” in black perfor­
tion, to race in the process of performance. mance studies? How do we go about creating
The recognition of this complicated process an ethics of such an endeavor without policing
must not only evolve in the artistic work pro­ boundaries, silencing opposing or dissenting
duced, but in the criticism of this work as well. or dissident voices, while, at the same time,
We, who currently do black performance holding true to a politics of social change and
studies under the auspices of theatre and per­ transformation that moves us forward in the
formance studies, stand primed to transform liberation of black peoples?
the way black performance studies gets theo­
rized. The work of those I have cited as well as
that of Bryant K. Alexander, Jennifer Brody, NOTES
Thomas DeFranz, Joni Jones, Jason King, 1. Marvin Carlson’s book, Performance:
David Román, José Muñoz, and many others A Critical Introduction (1996), for example, pro­
has already begun to intervene and transform vides scant coverage of the contributions of black
the field from within and without. Their work performance scholars or black performance in
general.
has been a bulwark against the hegemony of a
2. Since 1996, there has been an annual
well-meaning yet ill-informed white liberalism meeting of young black performance theory schol­
or, what Charles Nero (2001) calls “white ars. Since their first meeting at New York
tribalism,” as well as the parochial and con­ University, this group of black performance theo­
servative discourse of those from within black rists has met annually to workshop performances,
critique each other’s written work, and generate
intellectual circles.
new theoretical paradigms. The group has gener­
Black performance, like the bodies of those ated one book (see DeFrantz, 2002) and they are
associated with it, has, in the words of the at work on another.
national Negro anthem, “Lift Every Voice And 3. In many black churches, a group of
Sing,” “come over a way that with tears has women who are not medically trained profession­
been watered.” Forever on the periphery of als, but who nonetheless attend to parishioners
who become filled with the holy spirit and faint,
the white bourgeois elite intellectual traditions
hold the title of nurse and dress in nursing
codified as “the academy,” it has, nonetheless, uniforms.
functioned as a specter of “colored contra­ 4. These particular shows are also referred to
dictions” to the discourse of whiteness—a as the “chitlin’ circuit.” They are usually low bud­
palimpsestic documentation of an “Africanist” get gospel musicals that travel from city to city.
They appeal to mass audiences perhaps because
presence. The rhetorical, political, and aes­
of their formulaic plots, which usually consist of
thetic dimensions of black performance served a long-suffering black matriarch who has a
its constituency well as a mode of resistance in wayward child who she prays will “find God”
those particularly challenging times—and still and come home. They also have stereotypical gay
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462 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

characters, usually hairdressers, who function as African American performance and theater
comic relief in the play, but who have no real sub­ history: A critical reader (pp. 3–16). Oxford,
stance. For two different takes on these plays, see England: Oxford University Press.
Gates (1997) and Burdine (1999). Fabian, J. (1990). Power and performance: Ethno­
graphic explorations through proverbial wis­
dom and theatre in Shaba, Zaire. Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press.
REFERENCES
Freeman, B., Branner, D., & Gupton, E. (1996).
Bâ, A. H. (1981). The living tradition. In J. Ki- Fierce love: Stories from black gay life. In
Zerbo (Ed.), Methodology and African prehis­ H. Elam & R. Alexander (Eds.), Colored con­
tory (pp. 166–205). Berkeley: University of tradictions: An anthology of contemporary
California Press. African-American plays (pp. 255–285).
Baraka, A. (1971). Black art. In D. Randall (Ed.), New York: Plume.
The black poets (pp. 223–224). New York: Gates, H. L. (1987). The signifying monkey: A
Random House. theory of Afro-American literary criticism.
Benston, K. (2000). Performing blackness: Enact­ Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
ments of African-American modernism. Gates, H. L. (1997, February 3). The chitlin circuit.
New York: Routledge. New Yorker, pp. 44–55.
Burdine, W. B. (1999). The gospel musical and its Hall, S. (1992). What is this “black” in black pop­
place in the black American theatre. In A. Bean ular culture? In G. Dent (Ed.), Black popular
(Ed.), A sourcebook of African-American culture (pp. 21–33). Seattle: Bay Press.
performance: Plays, people, movements Harrison, P. C. (1989). Black theatre in the
(pp. 190–203). New York: Routledge. African continuum: Word/song as method. In
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the P. Harrison (Ed.), Totem voices: Plays from the
subversion of identity. New York: Routledge. black world repertory (pp. xi–lxiii). New York:
Carlson, M. (1996). Performance: A critical intro­ Grove Press.
duction. New York: Routledge. hooks, b. (1995). Performance practice as a site
Conquergood, D. (2000). Rethinking elocution: of opposition. In C. Ugwu (Ed.), Let’s get it
The trope of the talking book and other figures on: The politics of black performance
of speech. Text and Performance Quarterly, (pp. 210–221). Seattle: Bay Press.
20(4), 325–341. Hurston, Z. N. (1990a). Mules and men.
Dance, D. (1978). Shuckin’ and jivin’: Folklore New York: Harper & Row.
from contemporary black Americans. Hurston, Z. N. (1990b). Their eyes were watching
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. god. New York: Harper & Row.
Davis, G. L. (1985). I got the word in me and I can Jackson, M. (1961). Moving up. New York:
sing it, you know: A study of the performed Hawthorne Books.
African-American sermon. Philadelphia: Jahn, J. (1961). Muntu: African culture and the
University of Pennsylvania Press. western world. New York: World Weidenfield.
DeFrantz, T. F. (Ed.). (2002). Dancing many drums: Johnson, E. P. (2003). Appropriating blackness:
Excavations in African American dance. Performance and the politics of authenticity.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Diawara, M. (1995). Cultural studies/Black studies. Lee, J. (1999). Disciplining theater and drama in the
In M. Henderson (Ed.), Borders, boundaries, English department: Some reflections on ‘per­
and frames: Cultural criticism and cultural formance’ and institutional history. Text and
studies (pp. 202–211). New York: Routledge. Performance Quarterly, 19(2), 145–158.
Drewal, M. T. (1991). Yoruba ritual: Performers, Levine, L. W. (1977). Black culture and black
play, agency. Bloomington: Indiana University consciousness: Afro-American folk thought
Press. from slavery to freedom. New York: Oxford
DuBois, W. E. B. (1994). Criteria of Negro art. In University Press.
A. Mitchell (Ed.), Within the circle: An anthol­ Madison, D. S. (1998). That was my occupation:
ogy of African American literary criticism from Oral narrative, performance, and black femi­
the Harlem Renaissance to the present (pp. nist thought. In D. Pollock (Ed.), Exceptional
60–69). Durham, NC: Duke University Press. spaces: Essays in performance & history (pp.
Elam, H. J. (2001). The device of race: An intro­ 319–342). Chapel Hill: University of North
duction. In H. J. Elam & D. Krasner (Eds.), Carolina Press.
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Manning, S. (2001). Modern dance, negro dance, from the Harlem Renaissance to the present
and Katherine Dunham. Textual Practice, (pp. 51–54). Durham, NC: Duke University
15(3), 487–506. Press. (Original work published 1926)
McMillan, T. (1990). Ma’dear. In T. McMillan Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of
(Ed.), Breaking ice: An anthology of contempo­ resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven,
rary African-American fiction (pp. 457–465). CT: Yale University Press.
New York: Penguin. Spillers, H. (1974). Fabrics of history: Essays
Morrison, T. (1990). Playing in the dark. on the black sermon. Unpublished doctoral
New York: Random House. dissertation, Brandeis University, Waltham,
Neal, L. (1994). The black arts movement. In Massachusetts.
A. Mitchell (Ed.), Within the circle: An anthol­ Spillers, H. (2003). Black, white, and in color:
ogy of African American literary criticism from Essays on American literature and culture.
the Harlem Renaissance to the present Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
(pp. 184–193). Durham, NC: Duke University Tannen, D. (1989). Talking voices: Repetition,
Press. dialogue, and imagery in conversational dis­
Neal, M. A. (1999). What the music said: Black course. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
popular music and black popular culture. University Press.
New York: Routledge. Thompson, D. (Ed.). (1983). The performance of
Neal, M. A. (2002). Soul babies. New York: literature in historical perspectives. Lanham,
Routledge. MD: University Press of America.
Nero, C. I. (2001). Black gay men and white Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and
gay men: A less than perfect union. In C. L. anti-structure. Chicago: Aldine.
Dews & C. L. Law (Eds.), Out in the south Turner, V. (1982). From ritual to theatre: The
(pp. 115–126). Philadelphia: Temple University human seriousness of play. New York: Per­
Press. forming Arts Journal Publications.
Reed, J. & Wake, C. (Trans. & Eds.). (1976). Sen­ Turner, V. (1983). A review of “ethnopoetics.”
ghor: Prose and poetry. London: Heinemann. In J. Rothenberg & D. Rothenberg (Eds.),
Richards, S. (1995). Writing the absent poten­ Symposium of the whole: A range of discourse
tial: Drama, performance, and the canon toward an ethnopoetics (pp. 338–342). Berke­
of African-American. In A. Parker & E. ley: University of California Press.
Sedgwick (Eds.), Performativity and per­ Turner, V. (1986). The anthropology of perfor­
formance (pp. 64–88). New York: Routledge. mance. New York: Performing Arts Journal
Schuyler, G. S. (1994). The Negro-art hokum. In Publication.
A. Mitchell (Ed.), Within the circle: An anthol­ Walcott, R. (1997). Black like who? Toronto, ON:
ogy of African American literary criticism Insomniac.
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26
Lethal Theatre
Performance, Punishment, and the Death Penalty

DWIGHT CONQUERGOOD

I’m not going to struggle physically against any restraints. I’m not going to shout,
use profanity or make idle threats. Understand though that I’m not only upset, but
I’m saddened by what is happening here tonight. . . . If someone tried to dispose of
everyone here for participating in this killing, I’d scream a resounding, “No.” I’d
tell them to give them all the gift that they would not give me, and that’s to give
them all a second chance. . . . There are a lot of men like me on death row—good
men—who fell to the same misguided emotions, but may not have recovered as I
have. Give those men a chance to do what’s right. Give them a chance to undo their
wrongs. A lot of them want to fix the mess they started, but don’t know how. . . .
No one wins tonight. No one gets closure.
—Napoleon Beazley1

There will be no lasting peace either in the heart of individuals or in social customs
until death is outlawed.
—Albert Camus2

Conquergood, Dwight. “Lethal Theatre: Performance, Punishment, and the Death Penalty.” Theatre
Journal 54:3 (2002), 339–367. © The Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of The
Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Like it or not, you are putting on a show.

—John Whitley3

Show, spectacle, theatre, these representational media are central to the rituals of
state killing.
—Austin Sarat4

I n 1975 Michel Foucault published

Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the
Prison, a landmark book that opened with
traveled twice in eight days to Terre Haute,
Indiana, to march and stand in vigil outside
the prison death chamber to protest the serial
two astonishing chapters, “The Body of the executions of Timothy McVeigh and Juan
Condemned” and “The Spectacle of the Raul Garza, the first federal prisoners put to
Scaffold,” harrowing accounts in gruesome death since 1963. I found Foucault’s opening
detail of the performance of capital punish­ chapters on executions more resonant and
ment in the premodern era.5 These chapters familiar than later chapters titled “The Gentle
served as points of departure for charting the Way of Punishment.” Emotionally drained
historical shift from the dramatic infliction of from attending the June 11 and June 19 execu­
corporal and capital punishment to moder­ tions, I kept writing “not in June, 2001” in the
nity’s more subtle and insidious infiltrations margins of passages about how modern judi­
of power through mechanisms of discipline cial punishment had advanced well beyond the
linked with knowledge. Punishment trans­ deployment of raw, physical force. I drew an
formed, Foucault argued, from a theatre of incredulous exclamation point across from this
violence and repression to a medical model passage in the conclusion: “There is nothing in
of rehabilitation metonymically connected to it now that recalls the former excess of sover­
other normalizing mechanisms and internal­ eign power when it revenged its authority” on
ized techniques of coercion, compliance, and the body of the condemned.7
surveillance. According to Foucault, the per­ To be fair, Foucault wrote Discipline and
formance of power in modern society has Punish in 1975, at a time when the medical
changed radically from spectacular capital model of rehabilitation was in the ascendancy
punishments—that point at which the violence in penological thought and practice. The death
of the state is most nakedly displayed—to penalty was rarely deployed, and France, along
undercover capillary penetrations, insinua­ with the rest of Europe, was on the verge
tions, secretions, and circulations of power of abolishing capital punishment for good.
that are difficult to flesh out. He closed the Although it is amazing to think of it now, the
book with the confident claim that “we are United States was in step with and even ahead
now far away from the country of tortures,” of the international community on the issue of
the spectacle of the scaffold, because contem­ the death penalty. In 1975, there were no exe­
porary legal punishment “appears to be free of cutions in the US, not even in Texas. In 1972
all excess and all violence.”6 the Supreme Court in Furman vs. Georgia had
I reread Discipline and Punish in the declared capital punishment—“as then prac­
summer of 2001, during the same time that I ticed,” which proved to be a fatal loophole
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466 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

phrase—“cruel and unusual punishment” and popularity of capital punishment, it is

therefore unconstitutional. Many assumed that important to remember that the history of the
the death penalty had been abolished for good, death penalty in the United States has been one
instead of temporarily suspended. After World of challenge and contention.11 Almost from
War II and the shock of Holocaust atrocities, the beginning, capital punishment has been a
executions had declined steadily. In 1965, the fraught and contested performance practice.
same year that Britain abolished the death The performance genealogy of executions peri­
penalty, there were seven executions, com­ odically requires fresh blood to keep this
pared to the peak decade of the depression- macabre tradition alive. Contemporary defend­
ravaged 1930s when there were 167 executions ers of capital punishment shore up its shaky
a year on average. Then in the next year, 1966, premises, not by logic or rational argument,
there were two, and the following year, 1967, but by invoking scapegoats, poster boys for the
only one. No executions were performed in the death penalty: Timothy McVeigh, John Wayne
five years leading up to the Supreme Court’s Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Richard Speck—and
formal ruling against the death penalty in now Osama bin Laden and his henchmen.
1972, and in particular the Federal government With each exemplary monster executed, capital
had not executed anyone since 1963. From punishment is legitimated and revitalized. Thus
the vantage point of May, 2002 (the time of it is no surprise that George W. Bush, who has
the final draft of this article), when we have presided over 156 executions during his rela­
already put 31 people to death in the first five tively short time in public life, issued executive
months of this year, it is astounding to think orders very soon after September 11, 2001, to
that from 1968 through 1976 there was not a create military tribunals designed to expedite
single execution in America.8 executions with an efficiency and speed that
How have we come so far from the social would exceed that of Texas.12 Theatre and
sensibility that Foucault indexed in Discipline performance studies have an ethical as well as
and Punish? Since 1975 there has been a major intellectual obligation to examine this resur­
shift of societal attitudes toward punishment. gent theatre of death that anchors conservative
Current support for the death penalty hovers politics in the United States. The very word
between 70 and 75 percent, having peaked at “execute” means to accomplish, to carry out,
80 percent in 1994, the year of the conservative and to perform, to do. “Execution” also means
Republican takeover of congress. As of April 1, “a mode or style of performance.”13 The death
2002, there are 3,701 men and women— penalty cannot be understood simply as a mat­
including 83 juvenile offenders—awaiting exe­ ter of public policy debate or an aspect of crim­
cution on Death Row compared to 334 in inology, apart from what it is pre-eminently:
1972 when the Supreme Court struck down performance.
the death penalty.9 So deep is the revanchist
enthusiasm for spectacles of the scaffold that
PERFORMANCE RITUALS
when Senator Dianne Feinstein, the former
OF STATE KILLING
mayor of San Francisco, ran for governor of
California in 1990 she displayed images of the Executions are awesome rituals of human sac­
San Quentin gas chamber in her television rifice through which the state dramatizes its
campaign commercials. She came from behind absolute power and monopoly on violence.
to win the Democratic primary by nineteen We know from the anthropological record that
percent after campaigning on the slogan, “the a key to the efficacy of rituals is their capacity
only Democrat who supports the death to embrace paradox, to gloss contradictions,
penalty.”10 Especially with the resurgent to mediate profound oppositions, tensions,
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Lethal Theatre 467

ambivalences, anxieties. The ritual frame is dynamic performance genealogy that has
elastic enough to encompass conflict and undergone profound shifts in feeling, form, and
chaos, yet sufficiently sturdy to channel volatile dramaturgy. The seismic shift has been from
forces and disruptive tensions into an aesthetic the public, open-air, communal, hortatory
shape, a repeatable pattern. Rituals draw their rituals of redemption in colonial and revolu­
drama, dynamism, and intensity from the crises tionary era America to the privatized, elite,
they redress. A host of important anthropolo­ class-stratified rituals of retribution and exclu­
gists, notably Victor Turner, Mary Douglas, sion that were created in the early nineteenth
Clifford Geertz, Roy Rappaport, and others, century to accommodate an emergent middle-
have noted that ritual performance proliferates class ethos of restraint, propriety, gentility and
along social faultlines, pressure points, cracks new standards of bourgeois taste and refine­
in the system, the jagged edge of belief.14 ment. Beginning in the 1830s, execution rituals
Rituals carry their weight and earn their cul­ moved from the public square where they drew
tural keep by restoring, replenishing, repairing, diverse audiences numbering in the thousands
and re-making belief, transforming vague to inside prison walls where, withdrawn from
ideas, mixed feelings, and shaky commitments public view, they became private performances
into dramatic clarity and alignment. As embod­ for a small, homosocial, invitation-only audi­
ied performances, rituals incarnate and make ence of elites. Historian Louis Masur summa­
visible abstract principles and inchoate con- rizes the wider social significance of this change
cepts—such as “Justice.” What is Justice? in the mise-en-scène of execution rituals:
Justice is an abstraction, a spirit that com­
mands tremendous faith, power, and huge The creation of private executions [during
investments both economic and emotional. the 1830s] . . . was an act charged with mul­
Like religion and other powerful abstractions, tiple meanings: it marked the triumph of a
Justice—to paraphrase Victor Turner—lives certain code of conduct and set of social atti­
tudes among the middle and upper classes; it
only in performance, “only in so far as its ritu­ symbolized a broader trend toward privatiza­
als are ‘going concerns’”; Justice can be seen tion and class segmentation; it turned the
only when it is acted out.15 All the interlocking execution of criminals into an elite event cen­
rituals of criminal punishment—arrest, deten­ tered around class and gender exclusion.19
tion, interrogation, trial, conviction, incarcera­
tion, execution—are performed so that citizens The withdrawal and relocation of executions
can see “justice done”: “All of justice is a stage; from the public green to censored enclosures
it is the appearance—the ritual—that is the signaled a major shift in structures of feeling
meaningful thing.”16 about criminals and capital punishment.
Moreover, rituals are neither static nor To understand better this profoundly mean­
discrete. They draw their meaning, structure, ingful change in dramaturgy, let us examine
style, and affective resonance from the tradi­ the execution rituals characteristic of early
tions they reenact. But they never simply repeat America. Public hangings in seventeenth- and
a given form, but, like all “restored behavior,” eighteenth-century New England were mass
they reverberate within the traditions they spectacles that drew the largest audiences ever
simultaneously reinvent and re-deploy for his­ assembled for any occasion. Especially in
torically situated needs and purposes.17 The rit­ Puritan New England, with no maypoles,
ual replaying of traditional form always plays carnivals, staged theatre, or even Christmas
with, and plays off and against, the perfor­ celebrations, a public hanging was an avidly
mance genealogy that it recites.18 Rituals of attended “Tragical Spectacle.”20 For the 1686
execution in the United States are part of a execution of John Morgan, crowds began
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468 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

gathering in Boston a week before the more hours. The prisoner typically was carried
hanging. According to John Dunston, a book­ slowly through the crowd elevated on a cart,
seller from London visiting Boston at the time, sometimes with a rope around his or her neck,
some “have come 50 miles to see it.”21 On and with the coffin conspicuously alongside.
the morning of March 11, more than 5,000 At the gallows, there were more speeches and
people jammed into Boston’s Second Old audible prayers, and often hymns were sung
North Church to see the condemned prisoner communally to pitch the emotions of the audi­
prominently seated in front of the pulpit to ence. Then the sheriff read the death warrant
hear Cotton Mather preach his execution ser­ aloud. All of the dramaturgy at the foot of the
mon, a key part of the dramaturgy of hanging gallows was designed to anticipate, draw out,
day rituals. When the floor and walls of the and heighten the spellbinding moment when
church gallery began to crack and buckle the prisoner climbed the ladder and, precari­
under the tremendous weight and pressure of ously perched, delivered a speech to the rapt
the crowd, Mather interrupted his sermon to audience thronged below. This long-awaited
move the audience to Samuel Willard’s Third speech from the prisoner—who, more often
Old South Church, which had a larger gallery.22 than not, was a young servant or slave, a per­
And the outdoor staging of the gallows accom­ son of little or no education and low social
modated multitudes who could not squeeze into standing—could eclipse the rhetorical grandeur
the church or were inclined to skip the sermon. of the elite, Harvard-trained minister-orators.
One scholar estimated that executions in colo­ The “last Dying Words”27 of the condemned
nial New England attracted as many as 12,000 gathered compelling presencing powers pre­
spectators.23 In terms of sheer audience size, cisely because they were uttered from a space
executions were the most popular performance of death and disappearance that impressed on
genre in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century the audience the urgency of their vanishing:
America: “Well into the nineteenth century, “I am upon the brink of Eternity.”28 Then the
execution crowds still outnumbered crowds hood was lowered and the noose tightened
gathered for any other purpose.”24 around the neck. To clinch the climactic force
Puritan executions were elaborately staged of the condemned’s dying speech, the hang­
and exquisitely paced ritual dramas seething man kicked the ladder out from under the pris­
with suspense, tension, ambivalence, crisis, oner’s feet, and, as one historian put it, “then
reversals, revelations, and breath-taking spec­ came a riot of motion.”29
tacle. The hanging day ritual included the pub­ The suspense that excited and transfixed
lic procession from the jail to the church, execution audiences was not about the tempo­
where the prisoner was displayed as a “sor­ ral plot or unfolding physical action—the
rowful spectacle” and embodied “example,” a hanging day scenario was well known and
focal point and prop for the minister’s fiery predictably choreographed. All the suspense
execution sermon.25 The celebrated ministers hovered over the fate of the prisoner’s immor­
appointed to preside at these high profile tal soul. What riveted audience attention was
events rose to their greatest oratorical heights, whether or not the condemned had truly
knowing that they were addressing the largest repented, and, even if so, would her or his
audiences of their careers, and given the mag­ faith hold fast under the tremendous distress
nitude of an execution, the sermons were often and horror of “the present circumstances for
published and sold, thus circulating in print to Terrification”?30 Executions, like every other
an ever widening audience.26 temporal aspect of life in Puritan New
After the sermon, there was the doleful England, were inserted within a cosmic spiri­
parade to the gallows, which often took one or tual drama of sin and salvation. The real
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Lethal Theatre 469

suspense was not about anything so mundane circulating reports of her “marvelous change”
as whether the condemned would get a last- from the pastors and pious townspeople who
minute reprieve, but would the condemned had visited and ministered to her during her
confess convincingly, manifest true repen­ eight months in prison awaiting execution.37 As
tance, and be able to deliver an affecting dying one of the ministers attested: “a poor Wretch,
speech that would serve as warning to sinners entering into Prison a Bloody Malefactor, her
and inspiration to the sanctified? If that hap­ Conscience laden with Sins of a Scarlet
pened—no easy feat, by any measure—then Die . . . she came forth, Sprinkled, Cleansed,
the worst malefactor could hope for eternal Comforted, a Candidate of Heaven.”38
life. Puritan audiences scrutinized the body For all its “antitheatrical prejudice,”
and speech of the condemned for “Signals of Puritan life was saturated with a performance
Divine Grace,” and when they recognized true consciousness that delighted in transforma­
penitence then they could interpretively tions, metamorphoses, reversals, astonishing
reframe the hideous torture of a hanging into wonders, and the language of theatrical repre­
a catalyst for salvation: “This Serves only to sentation: “tragical spectacle,” “tragick
draw the Curtain, that thou mayst behold scene,” “tragick end,” “theater of mercy.”39
a Tragick Scene, strangely changed into Everyday people and events could become
a Theater of Mercy.”31 spectacles, displays, signs, examples, monu­
To appreciate better the complex theatrical­ ments. Esther was depicted as “a Pillar of
ity of executions in early America, let us look Salt Transformed into a Monument of Free
more closely at one particular case. On July 31, Grace.”40 But Puritan ways of seeing increased
1701, Esther Rodgers, a twenty-one-year-old the dramatic tension because any “monument
indentured servant convicted of infanticide, was of grace” was unstable and fallible, always in
hanged outside the town of Ipswich before a danger of falling, of debasing itself, of shape-
crowd estimated between four and five thou­ shifting into “a Monument of shame and
sand.32 She had confessed to fornication, Ignominy.”41 The drama of the fall and the
“Carnal Pollution with the Negro” with whom relentless conflict with evil suffused the worka­
she worked in the same household, and to day world where everyday action, gesture, and
killing the “bastard” newborn “begotten in speech suddenly could shimmer with spiritual
Whoredom.”33 After arraignment and impris­ significance to the discerning eye. The execu­
onment for this heinous crime, she confessed to tion sermon provided a figural proscenium
another, earlier murder: when she was seven­ arch, the theological frame, through which a
teen she had fallen into “that foul Sin of Puritan audience viewed a public hanging.
Uncleanness, suffering my self to be defiled by a Puritan ministers endeavored, at great discur­
Negro Lad” and she had killed that mixed-race sive length, to turn the earthly scene of capital
baby as well. In between the two pregnancies, punishment into a stunning morality play, a
she had lived in a tavern, “giving my self up to vivid acting out of the allegory of divine wrath
other wicked Company and ways of Evil.”34 A and judgment, and, if the ritual succeeded, “an
vast multitude of spectators assembled at the Instance of Converting Grace and Mercy.”42
gallows, the largest audience “as was scarcely They uplifted the physical action of the state
ever heard of or seen upon any occasion in any “Business of Death” onto a sacred plane of
part of New England.”35 They had come “to performative metaphors, images, and sym­
behold the Tragical End” of this young but bols.43 Thus when describing the vast multi­
“very great Criminal.”36 In addition to the tude of thousands gathered to watch Esther
notoriety and sexual-racial sensationalism of Rodgers hang, one minister commented,
her crimes, part of the draw could have been the “Which could not but put all serious and
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470 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

thoughtful Spirits in mind of the Great and But what preparation hast thy Soul made to
General Assembly that will appear at the appear at Gods Tribunal before this Day be
ended? . . . Hast thou desired and laboured
Great Day to receive their final Sentence.”44
for Holiness to Sanctify thee, as well as
Puritan theology underpinned robust Righteousness to justify thee? What means
“interpretive communities” of active specta­ hast thou used to get thy Soul purged as well
tors for whom, in a very deep sense, all the as sin pardoned . . . ? Hast thou waited and
world was a stage, a place for seeing.45 They prayed with David, Psal[m] 51. Wash me
inculcated “watchfulness”—of themselves and throughly from my sins, purge me with
Hyssop . . . or hast thou thought a few
their neighbors—as part of the habitus of daily
Tears sufficient for this?49
life.46 According to their Calvinist outlook,
everyone was innately depraved, and conver­
And as she walked the long “dolorous
sion, never final, was an arduous and incessant
way” to the gallows, the accompanying minis­
struggle. For several weeks prior to her execu­
ters pressed her with frightening questions,
tion, Esther Rodgers consistently enacted the
“mixing with words of Consolation, some­
role of an exemplary sinner, showing all
thing of Terrour”:
the signs of repentance and conversion.
Nonetheless, she emerged from prison on the O Esther, How can your heart abide! Don’t
morning of her execution as a “Candidate of you here behold terrible displayes of Justice:
Heaven,” her salvation by no means yet you are surrounded with Armed men. . . .
assured.47 She still had to face the greatest and The terrible place and Engines of Destruc­
tion, are but a little before us, where you
most severe test and trial of her new found
must in a few Minutes Expire; and there lyes
faith. The sabbath before her hanging she had your Coffin that must receive your perishing
dictated a written message to be read aloud Body: How can you bear the sight of all
in church enlisting the support and prayers these things?50
of the congregation, “that the Lord would
Strengthen and Uphold her, and carry her And even after she had climbed the scaffold
through that hard and difficult Work when ladder, and delivered a deeply moving speech
called thereunto, that she may not be dis­ to the audience of thousands, and an even
mayed at the Sight and Fear of Death.”48 more emotionally pitched and passionate
These same congregants formed part of the prayer, and after the sheriff had tied the blind­
vigilant and expectant circle of spectators fold over her face, just moments before he
around the gallows who scrutinized every placed the noose over her head, another
move she made. Everyone wondered: what attending minister, Reverend Wise, stepped
was the state of her mind, heart, and soul as forward and took that moment to cross-exam­
she looked death in the face? Had she accom­ ine her again: “Now is the great Crisis of
plished the laborious work of conversion Time. Does your Faith hold in God and Christ
sufficiently? still? She answers, God be thanked it does,
And if these questions were not already in God be thanked.” Then, with the rope around
many spectators’ minds, they certainly would her neck, and after her final, almost frantic,
have been stirred up by the attending clergy outcry—“O Lord Jesus, Now Lord Jesus, I am
who continuously questioned her conversion a coming. . . .”—even at that most vulnerable,
as they cross-examined her throughout the plaintive moment, as she waited for the drop,
grim proceedings. Toward the end of this exe­ “Lifting up her Hands to Heaven,” the unflap­
cution morning sermon, the Reverend Rogers pable Reverend Wise stepped forward again,
challenged her: and extended her only the conditional comfort
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Lethal Theatre 471

of the subjunctive mood: “If your Hopes can The ambivalence of her spiritual condition,
lay hold upon the irresistible Grace and Mercy the gap between closure and uncertainty that
of God in Christ, and [if] you can cast your self the ministers pried open, also provided a space
into His Armes, you are Happy for Ever. And for multiple ways of seeing and other specta­
so we must bid you Fare-Well.”51 torial positions unbounded by Puritan ortho­
The Ipswich pastors seized the occasion of doxy. Executions encouraged spectators to
Esther Rodgers’s execution to dramatize and gaze intently at the body on display and
drive home the point that conversion was granted extraordinary ritual license for the
a moment-by-moment contingency: at any condemned, especially if they were women, to
instant mortals could be “assaulted with make spectacles out of their bodies.55 Just as
Temptations to Unbelief or Fear.”52 Esther the sentence of death had to be “executed on
died a saint, but throughout the protracted her body,” so also the signs of grace had to
drama of her execution-cum-salvation her be manifested bodily.56 Execution audiences
state of grace was both affirmed and deferred, closely monitored the prisoner’s gesture, car­
contrapuntally played out and kept in agoniz­ riage, countenance, demeanor, deportment,
ing suspense right up until the end. The vocal intonation, inflection, timber. An
processual, equivocal, anxious, contested “admiring observer” noted Esther’s “Compo­
dynamics of conversion heightened the tension sure of spirit, Cheerfulness of Countenance,
and turned a familiar execution scenario into a pleasantness of Speech, and a sort of Com­
cliffhanger. The moral drama was heightened plaisantness in Carriage towards the Ministers
and made compelling by this deep interplay who were assistant to her.”57 But was there
between knowing, and not knowing, for sure. slippage in the frames through which she was
Further, Puritan sermons were filled with viewed? And did even a pious allegorical read­
warnings against dissemblers, hypocrites, and ing pivot on a doubling of vision, an interplay
charlatans who masqueraded piety: “Lyars: of perspectives that saw her as both a wanton
Such as are deceitful, and dissembling, who woman and an aspiring Christian? She had
speak otherwise then they think; and do oth­ been, until very recently, a harlot. Everyone
erwise then they speak; such as accustom knew the sexual nature of her crime and her
themselves to speak falsly” and those are “par­ “scarlet” past. She had confessed that she was
tial and feigned in their repentance.”53 Esther a creature wholly given over to “lust.”58
Rodgers was a person who knew how to keep Reverend Rogers reminded her, and everyone
secrets, how to feign and hide: she had con­ else, in his morning execution sermon: “Thy
cealed not one, but two pregnancies, carried ways have been all filthy, thy whole Walk, a
the babies to term, secretly delivered, and no walk after the Flesh; thy course a course of
one knew, not even the fathers. And she had filthy Communication and Conversation.”59
successfully covered up the first murder. At With that phrase still ringing in their ears,
least one supporter felt the need to preempt how did spectators view her “Walk” to the
questions about the sincerity of her jailhouse gallows? Her choice to forego the customary
conversion: “Neither shall any need to ques­ cart and to “walk on foot”?60 How did they
tion the truth of the repentance of the person observe the moving body of this young, sexu­
Condemned, and after Executed, from the ally active woman, surrounded by men, as
shortness of the time of her Experiences: it paraded by them? Was she a walking
The Thief that Commenced Converted on palimpsest, the imprint of her harlot past shad­
the Cross . . . is a proof of the possibility owing and alternating with her Christian
hereof.”54 image? Which image came into sharper and
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472 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

more sustained focus for whom, at what points thoughtful spirits” were pulling against other,
in the procession? How did bystanders inter­ more unruly and irreverent dispositions.68
pret her vivacious physicality, especially the Moreover, sensuality was not banished from
remarkable moment when she responded to Puritan piety. Recent historical research dis­
a minister’s question by “turn[ing] about, and putes the stereotype of the dour, sexually
looking him in the face with a very smiling repressed Puritans and argues that they exu­
countenance”?61 What did various spectators berantly “conjoined earthly and spiritual
make of the moment when she stumbled upon passion” and that a striking aspect of their
first seeing the gallows, and then, after this religious life was “the eroticisation of the
“Reluctancy of the Flesh,” her recovery when spiritual.”69
“she lift up her Feet, and Marched on with an Execution audiences were encouraged to
Erected, and Radiant Countenance”?62 How identify deeply with the condemned as fellow
did different audience members construe “the sinners. They did not shrink in moral revulsion
very affecting Gestures” with which she took from even the most despised and heinous crim­
her leave of the ministers at the foot of the gal­ inals. The typical response was “there but
lows?63 How did they watch her as she paused, for the grace of God, go I.” At the 1674 exe­
composed herself, “and so without stop or cution of Benjamin Goad for sodomy, Samuel
trembling went up the Ladder”? And what Danforth vehemently denounced his horrid
went through their minds during the physically and unnatural “lasciviousness” but then
delicate moment of “turning herself about” on reminded the audience: “there are sins with
the narrow ladder so that she could face the the Spectators, as well as with the Sufferers.
crowd? And how did they take in her spectac­ . . . If we ransack our own hearts . . . we shall
ularly displayed body, especially when she finde such sins with us. . . . The holiest man
arched it, “being bid [by the sheriff] to lean her hath as vile and filthy a Nature, as the
Head back upon the Ladder, to receive the Sodomites. . . .”70 This way of seeing encour­
Halter”?64 aged a deeply sympathetic, theatrical identifi­
We can be sure that profane ways of cation in which the spectators could
looking commingled with pious perspectives imaginatively exchange places with the con­
within this huge gathering. The sheer size of demned, instead of holding themselves aloof
the crowd, numbering in the thousands, must in distanced judgment. The ideal spectator
have created a social effervescence. Executions at executions became a deeply engaged, co­
in England during the same time period performative witness.
were rowdy, rambunctious, “carnivalesque” The Puritan structure of feeling that
affairs.65 And the large number of young embraced wrongdoers as members of the same
people in the audience—“great Numbers moral community in need of repentance was
whereof were expected” and their large pres­ superceded in the nineteenth century by a
ence was “accordingly” noted—must have gothic view of criminals as “moral aliens” and
charged the event with libidinal energy.66 “moral monsters.”71 The dramaturgy of exe­
Puritan sermons reverberated with warnings cutions changed from large-scale public rituals
about “youthful lusts.”67 The massive ideolog­ of redemption and reincorporation to exclu­
ical pressure of the execution sermons attests sive, privatized rituals of retribution and
indirectly to the excitement and desire that the expulsion. This new, bourgeois structure of
preachers struggled so forcefully to rein in and feeling about criminals is registered powerfully
control. If we read these official documents in an 1848 American Whig Review article,
against the grain of their orthodoxy, we can “On the Use of Chloroform in Hanging.”72
understand that all the appeals to “serious and Criminals are now seen as “miserable
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Lethal Theatre 473

wretches whom we simply wish to cast Putting the prisoner to sleep before killing him
contemptuously out of existence.”73 Class or her is more about cosmetics than compas­
lines are now sharply drawn and patrolled by sion; it keeps up the appearance of decency,
social performances of civility and respectabil­ protects the witnesses from messy scenes, and
ity, all based on bodily deportment: “the rude masks the violence of state killing with a
have one species, the refined another.”74 A humane medical procedure.
“gentlemanly nation” should be “severe
towards crime”; therefore the respectable
THE MAGICAL REALISM OF
classes “must overcome sympathy”75 to crimi­
MODERN CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
nals who are “aliens to the race”:
The multibillion dollar business of incarcera­
The reason should condemn them, the fancy tion with its ramified rituals of punishment
recoil from them, and the pride scorn them. provides the bodies—and they are dispropor­
All that can spring from the deepest deter­ tionately racialized and working-class bod-
mination to wipe out such stains from
ies—that serve as the concrete referents for
humanity, or express the universal strong
disgust which they inspire, should be society’s ideas about “justice,” “law and
brought to bear against them. Mankind are order,” and “public safety.”79 Executions
bound to affect towards them the manners anchor belief in the criminal justice system,
of loathing and horror.76 dramatizing in an especially vivid way that
“something is being done,” that the system is
Peck proposed chloroforming prisoners in control, order has been restored. Foucault
before hanging them, not out of any compas­ argued: “without the right to kill, would the
sion for the condemned, but because some of judicial system be anything more than a public
the loathsome creatures had the bad manners utility a bit less efficient than the post office?
to struggle and convulse while being executed, The right to kill is the last emblem of its
“thus tending to disturb the nervous peace, supremacy.”80 Never has Foucault’s insight
which is the support of refinement.” A been demonstrated more clearly than in the
botched execution was “against good man­ FBI bungling of the McVeigh evidence in the
ners, and unbecoming in a civilized Christian most high-profile capital trial in recent history;
people.”77 Coming midway between the 1701 the FBI lost 4,400 documents, evidence that
execution of Esther Rodgers and the 2001 exe­ should have been turned over to the defense
cutions of Timothy McVeigh and Juan Raul team. This was such a breach of due process
Garza, Peck’s pivotal document registers the that Attorney General John Ashcroft had to
profound shift in structure of feeling about issue a one-month stay of execution.81 If the
the death penalty and prefigures the modern judicial system can break down and bungle a
interest in new methods and technologies for case of this magnitude, under an international
sanitizing death. Although Peck’s idea to anes­ media spotlight, imagine what happens with
thetize criminals before executing them was everyday prosecutions. This crisis of confi­
not adopted in his day, it resurfaced in 1977 dence was redressed by speedy review, and
when Oklahoma invented lethal injection as within a few weeks the McVeigh execution
the preferred mode of capital punishment for bandwagon was back on track and a new
the modern age. The lethal injection protocol death warrant signed for June 11. These events
includes a first dose of sodium pentothal, dramatically drive home Foucault’s larger
which puts the prisoner to sleep, followed by a point that executions justify Justice, that
muscle relaxant that paralyzes the lungs, and they provide a satisfying sense of closure and
then potassium chloride that stops the heart.78 cover for a shaky system that pretends to be
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474 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

infallible. Northwestern University’s Center attractive, completely rehabilitated, devoutly

for Wrongful Convictions has documented spiritual Karla Faye Tucker was transformed
more than one hundred cases of men and into an effigy, a scarecrow, and methodically
women who were sentenced to death and then put to death as “the Pick-Axe Killer.” These
exonerated. In Illinois, 13 men in recent years effigies take on manifest powers and become
have been freed from death row; that is one not just surrogates for the accused, but stand-
more than the state has executed since the ins for crime and all anti-social forces of evil
United States reinstated capital punishment that threaten law and order. When the Federal
in 1976. One of these released men, Anthony government strapped Juan Garza onto a gur­
Porter, came within 48 hours of being put to ney on June 19, 2001, and stuck a needle into
death; he had already ordered his last meal the calf of his right leg, it was not killing a lov­
and been measured for his coffin.82 ing father of young children who was much,
Contemporary execution rituals work their much more than the single worst thing that he
magic and derive their efficacy from the effu­ had ever done. They were sticking pins into an
sive power of the effigy. Here I draw together effigy: “Drug Kingpin,” the headlines blared
Joseph Roach’s performance theory of the on execution day. And they did this in the
effigy in Cities of the Dead with Michael name of Justice and for the sake of Order to
Taussig’s rereading of the anthropological ward off omnipresent social dangers and the
literature on effigies and magic in Mimesis specter of crime.
and Alterity.83 Effigies are crudely fashioned Race figures prominently in the construc­
surrogates that bear little resemblance to the tion of these effigies. Glaring racial disparities
person for whom they stand in. They produce at every level of the death penalty system are
magical power from parts, pieces, effluvia, shocking and egregious. Of the 760 people put
operating on principles of contiguity and to death since capital punishment was rein­
synecdoche—the piece, the part that stands stated in 1977, 44 percent have been minori­
for the whole—more than likeness or resem­ ties, when minorities are only 29 percent of
blance. Effigies are rough fabrications made the population. And this disproportion is even
from distorted parts of a person, often excre­ more skewed if we focus on blacks: 35 percent
ments such as saliva, blood, hair, fingernail of the people executed were black, when
parings, semen, fingerprints, footprints, which blacks are only 12 percent of the population
are then performatively deployed to put the (Table 26.1). And 43 percent of the prisoners
real person in harm’s way. An effigy is the currently on death row are black (Table 26.2).
fusion of image and body, symbol and source, The racial profile of people put to death
the figurative and the physical. Because a jury becomes even more stark when we look at
will never vote to kill a human being, the fun­ juvenile offenders. First, I need to point out
damental task of the prosecutor is to turn the that the United States is one of a small number
accused into an effigy composed of his or her of countries in the world that still has a juve­
worst parts and bad deeds. Before they are nile death penalty. Not only is the US out
strip-searched and strapped down to the exe­ of step with other western democracies that
cution gurney, the condemned must first be long since have stopped putting their citizens
stripped of all human complexity and reduced to death—abolition of the death penalty is a
to human waste, the worst of the worst. These condition of membership in the European
waste parts are then crafted onto prefabricated Union—but also only five countries that still
figures: stereotypes of the violent criminal, retain capital punishment execute minors:
cold-blooded killer, animal, beast, brute, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the
predator, fiend, monster. Thus a young, United States. And no nation in the world has
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Lethal Theatre 475

reported executions of minors since 1997, Table 26.4 19 Juvenile Offenders Executed
except the United States: we have executed Since 1985
seven juvenile offenders since 1998, three in Texas Executed 11
2000, one in May, 2002 (Napoleon Beazley,
the young African American man, whose last 7 Minority 64%
6 Black
words I quoted in the epigraph for this essay).
1 Latino
Not even China, the world leader in number 4 White 36%
of executions per year, still executes juvenile
offenders. Of the 38 states with death penalty May, 2002
statutes, 23 authorize the execution of
children; 18 states allow the execution of
children as young as 16 (Table 26.3). Texas Table 26.5 83 Juvenile Offenders on Death
has executed 11 of the 19 juvenile offenders Row

26 on Texas Death Row

Table 26.1 Race of 760 Defendants Executed,
1977–2002 22 Minority 85%
11 Black 42%
(US pop.) 10 Latino 39%
1 Asian 4%
White 430 56% (71%) 4 White 15%
Minority 330 44% (29%)
Black 265 35% (12%) February, 2002
Latino 50 7% (12%)
Other 15 2% (5%)

U.S. Census 2000 who have been put to death since 1985, and
Execution count up to February 19, 2002 64 percent of that group were minorities
(Table 26.4). And 26 of the 83 juvenile offend­
ers currently awaiting execution are on Texas’
Table 26.2 Race of Death Row Inmates death row: 85 percent of them are minorities
(Table 26.5).84
Minority 54% Furthermore, if we look at other jurisdic­
Black 43%
tions in addition to the 38 states with death
Latino 9%
Other 2% penalty statutes, the racial disparities are even
White 46% more glaring. The United States military has
its own death penalty statute, and 86 percent
January 1, 2002
of the military prisoners on death row are
minorities (Table 26.6). This statistic does not
augur well for the military tribunals that
President Bush has authorized by executive
Table 26.3 Juvenile Death Penalty
order to adjudicate capital cases in the wake
23 of the 38 Death Penalty States Permit the of September 11. The federal government also
Execution of Minors has its own death penalty statute that autho­
Minimum Age rizes the execution of prisoners in the name of
every citizen in the nation. 84 percent of the
16 (18 states) prisoners on federal death row are minorities
17 (5 states)
(Table 26.7). Because of these statistics, the
18 (15 states)
federal government went to great lengths to
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476 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

Table 26.6 U.S. Military Death Row media spotlight as the “first” prisoner executed
by federal government in 38 years. In this
Total 7
sense, McVeigh’s high profile execution was a
Minority 6 86% perverse form of whiteface minstrelsy,
Black 5 71% a whiteout of the glaring racial inequities
Asian 1 14%
in the way capital punishment is meted out
White 1 14%
in America. Juan Raul Garza, a Mexican
Reinstated in 1984 by executive orders of
Pres. Ronald Reagan American who came to this country as an
impoverished migrant laborer, was far more
Last military execution in 1963 (hanging) representative of death row inmates than
Timothy McVeigh, especially on the federal
death row, which is 84 percent minorities.
A similar whiteface staging occurred in 1979
Table 26.7 Federal Death Row
when there was much maneuvering around
Total 19 who would be the historic “first” person exe­
Minority 16 84% cuted since the Supreme Court reinstated the
Black 14 74% death penalty with the 1976 Gregg decision.
Latino 2 10% John Spenkelink, a working-class white man,
White 3 16% was cast in that leading role. Despite his
(Four cases pending: 3 Black, 1 Asian) lawyer’s argument that his execution was
January, 2002 speeded up for purely political reasons, that
as a white man Spenkelink’s execution
“would inoculate Florida from 150 years of
racial discrimination in capital cases,”
assure that McVeigh would precede Mexican- Spenkelink was carried, terrified, to Florida’s
born Garza to the federal death chamber. electric chair on May 25, 1979, to become the
The federal government had not put anyone first person executed involuntarily since the
to death in thirty-eight years, so whoever 1976 restitution of capital punishment.”85
inaugurated the newly built state-of-the-art Race refracts and distorts other parts of the
federal execution chamber in Terre Haute, death penalty system as well. 95 percent of all
Indiana—strategically chosen as the geo­ the prosecutors responsible for death penalty
graphic “crossroads of America”—would cases are white. Because only a tiny fraction of
attract extraordinary media attention. Garza all homicides are prosecuted as capital cases it
originally had been scheduled to go to the is very disturbing to see such systemic racial
gurney first, August 5, 2000, but two stays of asymmetry with an overwhelmingly white
execution pushed back his date to June 19, group of people holding the power and respon­
2001, behind Timothy McVeigh who was sibility to decide which cases are prosecuted for
scheduled for May 16, 2001. The shocking death and at the other end a staggeringly dis­
revelation on May 10 that the FBI had failed proportionate number of people of color sen­
to turn over 4,400 documents of evidence tenced to death (Table 26.8). Race registers its
to the McVeigh defense team, as they were greatest impact when we look at the race of
required to do by law, threatened to derail victims in capital cases.86 Even though only 50
McVeigh’s timely execution. However, percent of all murder victims are white, 81 per­
Attorney General John Ashcroft granted only cent of murder victims in capital cases are
a one-month reprieve, which kept McVeigh white. And interracial murders compound
just in front of Garza, absorbing the full the effects of race: “African Americans who
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Lethal Theatre 477

Table 26.8 Race of Prosecutors Responsible sexual orientation—prison is not a safe place
for Death Penalty Cases to be “out,” notwithstanding the non-norma­
95% White, 2% Black, 3% Latino tive sexual activity that is encouraged by these
enforced homosocial environments—it is
State White Black Latino difficult to know exactly how many queers
Texas 137 0 11 are on death row. However, one 1992 article
Virginia 113 8 0 in Advocate estimated that 40 percent of the
Missouri 115 0 0 women on death row are lesbians.92
Florida 19 1 0 The death penalty is a potent political sym­
Oklahoma 26 0 0
bol, a sign and litmus test for tough-on-crime
1998 politicians. The symbolic center of the “war”
on crime, it is a gendered symbol, a mantle of
“political macho” that female politicians, like
Dianne Feinstein and Jeanne Shaheen, the first
murder whites are 19 times as likely to be woman governor of New Hampshire who
executed as whites who kill blacks.”87 vetoed the legislation to abolish that state’s
And in America, race articulates with class. death penalty, can wear to masculinize them­
Middle and upper class people who can afford selves in the public sphere. Male Democratic
to hire skilled lawyers do not end up on death politicians can use their vigorous support of
row. Mumia Abu-Jamal, currently on Pennsyl­ the death penalty to counter charges of “soft”
vania’s death row, observed: “Them’s that got liberalism.93 Bill Clinton masterminded this
the capital don’t get capital punishment.”88 All New Democrat centrist strategy. He infa­
of the whites on death row are working class mously left the presidential campaign trail in
and poor. According to Stephen Bright, a sea­ 1992 to return to Arkansas to oversee the exe­
soned death penalty lawyer, defendants get the cution of Rickey Ray Rector, a young African
death sentence “not for the worst crime but American man so mentally impaired that at
for the worst lawyer.”89 Even though statistics his last meal he asked the guards if he could
on the class status of people sentenced to death save the piece of pecan pie for later.94 During
and executed are not systematically collected the year 2000, when he campaigned for the
or as accessible as those on race and gender, presidency, George W. Bush presided over 40
there are other ways of ascertaining class sta­ Texas executions, which broke the record for
tus. Anyone who doubts that people sentenced the largest number of annual executions ever
to death in this country are overwhelmingly performed by a state in the history of the
impoverished and working class should go to nation.
the web site of the Texas Department of In 1984, Velma Barfield, a North Carolina
Criminal Justice. For some bizarre reason, it grandmother, probably became the first
posted the last meal requests of all the people woman executed since 1962 because a trial
it has put to death.90 Because food preferences judge set her clemency hearing four days
are shaped and bounded by class “tastes,” it is before the general election. Her execution
a very revealing and poignant experience to became a political issue because Democratic
read through the last meals requested by the Governor James Hunt was locked in a tight
Texas condemned.91 race for the United States Senate against ultra­
There is also some evidence of the role that conservative Jesse Helms. It has been twenty-
homophobia plays in creating execution effi­ two years since a woman had been put to
gies. Because of the fluidity of sexualities, as death in this country, and there was strong
well as the difficulty of collecting data on support and pressure for Governor Hunt
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478 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

to grant clemency to this sweet-natured express his moral outrage and mimetically
grandmother who had become a model pris­ respond to the FBI’s botched raid and burning
oner. But fearing a political backlash in his of the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco,
closely contested senate race with Helms, Texas. He chose April 19, 1995 as the date for
Hunt allowed the execution of Barfield to pro­ blowing up the federal building because it
ceed. The prison personnel responsible for was the second year anniversary of the Waco
killing Barfield, who was affectionately called conflagration and the 220th anniversary of
“Granny,” as well as the entire prison staff the Battle of Lexington and Concord.98 In his
who had come to know and like her were warped imagination and twisted aesthetics,
absolutely devastated by her execution.95 It the violence he perpetrated in Oklahoma City
took fourteen years before another state had was the performative reparation for the vio­
the stomach to execute a woman. In 1998 lence that the federal government wreaked
Karla Faye Tucker became the first woman on the Branch Davidian Compound. He, in
put to death in Texas since before the Civil turn, paid with his life when the federal gov­
War. Her execution, which attracted wide­ ernment responded in kind by killing him.
spread media coverage, seemed to break the At McVeigh’s execution, anti-death penalty
execution chamber glass ceiling for women. activists exposed the circular absurdity of
In 2001, three women were executed, all in mimetic violence with this question carried on
Oklahoma. The last time three women were placards and emblazoned on T-Shirts: “Why
executed was 1953, when the Federal govern­ Do We Kill People, Who Kill People, to Show
ment electrocuted Ethel Rosenberg in that Killing People Is Wrong?”
New York, gassed Bonnie Headley in The persistence of the death penalty defies
Missouri, and electrocuted Earle Dennison logic and exceeds rational explanation. There
in Alabama. Wanda Jean Allen, one of the are at least four troubling problems with capi­
three women executed in 2001, became the tal punishment. (1) It is not a deterrent to
first black woman put to death in 47 years. crime. Even conservative criminologists no
The prosecution highlighted her lesbianism in longer justify it as a deterrent to crime. (2) It is
arguing for the death penalty.96 meted out in an inconsistent and capricious
Federal Judge Robert Bork provides insight way. There are glaring racial and geographical
into the expressive and performative politics disparities in its application. (3) The system
of the death penalty. In a brief he filed in sup­ sometimes executes the wrong person: one
port of the 1976 Supreme Court decision that scholar estimates an error rate of one innocent
reinstated the death penalty—the Gregg person out of every seven executed.99 (4) It is
Decision—he argued that capital punishment extremely expensive. Each execution (from
“serves a vital social function as society’s trial to death chamber) costs on the average
expression of moral outrage.”97 This thinking 1.5 million dollars, far more expensive than
releases capital punishment from accountabil­ a life sentence.100 Why then does it persist?
ity as a crime-fighting tool a deterrent, and When logic cannot uphold it, when it does not
reframes it as a theatre of retribution and work, and then it is not cost-effective? It is
revenge. It becomes a form of “poetic justice,” adhered to for emotional and expressive pur­
a “revenge tragedy” that operates on the prin­ poses that can be exploited for political gain.
ciple of mimetic magic: the belief that only vio­ Like other rituals of sacrifice, executions
lence can cross out violence. Timothy McVeigh tap the generative power of violence and har­
was caught at both ends of this contagious ness the volatile energies surrounding death
chain of mimetic violence. He bombed the for political purposes. Newt Gingrich once
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City to explained that the two cornerstones for
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Lethal Theatre 479

building a conservative majority in the United electric chair has focused on the performance
States are (1) tax cuts, and (2) the Death technology of executions.
Penalty.101 A close reading of the dramaturgy Officials are anxious to control the perfor­
of contemporary execution rituals reveals the mance because condemned prisoners, although
deep and terribly fraught contradictions, acutely vulnerable, are not without agency.
conundra, tensions, and anxieties that are They can fight back and force the guards to
never fully reconciled. drag them kicking and screaming to their
death. In June 2000, Gary Graham, also called
Sankofa, refused to cooperate and go quietly to
THE DRAMATURGY OF
the execution chamber. A helmeted “extraction
CONTEMPORARY EXECUTIONS
team” maced and forcibly removed him from
The central performance challenge of execu­ his holding cell. Protesting his innocence
tion rituals is to differentiate between judicial he resisted every step of the way, and even as
killing and murder.102 This distinction is dra­ the poison was dripping into his veins, he
matized through the careful and elaborate loudly protested, “They’re killing me tonight,
staging of props, participants, and players: the they’re murdering me tonight.”105 On the other
entire scenography and choreography of the hand, prisoners sometimes panic and collapse
event signal order, control, propriety, and in terror at the moment of the final walk to
inevitability. The real violence of state killing their premeditated death. Either response—
is veiled behind protocols of civility and the defiant resistance or terrified hysteria—rips
pretense of courtesy toward the condemned— off the mask of civility, the illusion of order,
hence the hollow gestures of permitting the inevitability, procedure, due process, the fiction
condemned to order his or her last meal and to that what is taking place is “natural,” “clean,”
speak his or her last words. Some guards and “solemn,” “dignified,” and “humane,” an
wardens even eat with the condemned to give acceptable performance of Justice in a modern
them some company during the ceremony of democracy.106
the last meal. The prison staff show an Sometimes executions are botched simply
unusual attentiveness and air of concern for because of the performance anxiety or inepti­
the condemned during the final countdown tude of the executioners. Each one of the
hours of the death-watch.103 methods for putting people to death requires
But all this consideration is as much about a mastery of technique, and none guarantees
controlling the performance, making sure that a death that is quick, painless, and clean.
it proceeds smoothly without a glitch, as it Hanging involves an intricate calculus between
is about compassion or empathy for the con- the length of the rope and the weight of the
demned. Inasmuch as possible, spontaneity prisoner. If the drop is too short, the neck is not
and improvisation are foreclosed in the execu­ broken, and the condemned kicks and writhes
tion scenario. Everything is carefully scripted, in the agony of slow strangulation. If the drop
choreographed, rehearsed, and directed—
micro-managed right down to the tiniest of Table 26.9 All Nations Have Abolished the
details, nothing left to chance. The condemned Juvenile Death Penalty Except
must order his or her last meal seven days in Five
advance. Ritual theatre intersects with man­ Iran, Pakistan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia,
agement science to produce the bizarre con- and the United States
temporary form of modern executions.104
The U.S. has executed seven juvenile
Much of the debate surrounding the death
offenders since 1998 (three in 2000)
penalty since the 1890 invention of the
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480 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

is too long, the head is ripped off. The electric the fragile and volatile nature of these modern
chair requires skillful application of electrodes rituals of state killing. The Execution Protocol,
to the shaved head and leg to ensure a good a 56-page manual issued by the Federal
connection, and the careful measurement of Bureau of Prisons, outlines the procedures (see
voltage and timing of the jolts. With too pow­ below).109 Leaving no detail to the imagination,
erful a charge, the condemned catches on fire, the last page of the execution manual instructs
which happened twice in Florida’s electric that the execution chamber should be cleaned
chair in 1990 and 1997. But even when elec­ by staff “trained in hygiene and infectious
trocutions go smoothly they are messy affairs. disease control.”
The eyes bulge, sometimes popping out of
their sockets, and the condemned urinate and Section V. “THE FINAL THIRTY MINUTES
defecate in the chair. The gas chamber was PRIOR TO THE EXECUTION”
supposed to be a technological improvement
A. Final Sequence of Events: Preparation
over the rope and the chair, but it proved no
more efficient or humane than the other tech­ 1. Bringing the Condemned Individual to the
nologies. Prisoners had different reactions to Execution Room: At a time determined by the
warden, the condemned individual will be:
the poison gas. Some convulsed violently,
a. removed from the Inmate Holding Cell by
thrashed and foamed at the mouth, and the Restraint Team
bashed their head against the back metal pole. b. strip-searched by the Restraint Team and
Even lethal injections, the most antiseptic and then dressed in khaki pants, shirt, and slip-
clinical of all the modes, are sometimes on shoes
c. secured with restraints, if deemed appropri­
botched. Sometimes the technicians cannot
ate by the Warden;
find a good vein; there are documented cases d. escorted to the Execution Room by the
of them searching and pricking both arms, Restraint Team
ankle, and finally going to the neck, taking 45
2. Restraint Team Procedures
minutes to insert the needle. Sometimes the
needle pops out under the pressure of execu­ In the execution room the ambulatory restraints,
tion, spewing the toxic drugs and spraying the if any, will be removed, and the condemned
witnesses. Some prisoners heave and violently individual will be restrained to the Execution
choke. Botched executions knock down the Table. . . .
ritual frame and expose the gruesome reality
of actually putting a human being to death. VI: FINAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS:
The illusion of nonviolent decency is torn EXECUTION
away. Botched executions also are the stuff of
A. Staff Witnesses
sensational news stories and political embar­
rassments. Graphic images and grisly reports 1. Staff participating in the preparation for the
of botched executions erode the public faith in execution will exit the Execution Room but
stand by in an adjacent area
the “ultimate oxymoron: a humane killing.”107
To prevent embarrassing glitches and disrup­ 2. Staff members remaining to participate in and
tions, modern executions have become ever observe the execution will include the:
a. Designated United States Marshal
more controlled, engineered, and bureaucra­
b. Warden
tized performances.108 c. Executioner
The regular rehearsals, precise stage direc­ d. Other staff authorized by the Director of the
tions, and obsessive planning and detail reveal Bureau of Prisons
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Lethal Theatre 481

B. Countdown into a pact of complicity with his or her

1. Once the condemned individual has been executioners. This is perversely apparent with
secured to the table, at the direction of the the gas chamber, with the customary final
Warden, staff inside the execution room will admonition to the condemned as some form
open the drapes covering the windows of the of: “Breathe deeply, it’ll go easier for
witness room you that way.” But the life-force is so strong
2. The Warden will ask the condemned individ­ that few comply, and that’s why the gas
ual if he/she has any last words, or wishes to chamber was soon dubbed a chamber of hor­
make a statement. The condemned individual rors. Norms of masculinity are deployed
will have been advised in advance by the war­
when wardens exhort prisoners in cliched
den that this statement should be reasonably
brief. . . . fashion to “go to your death like a man, take
your medicine like a man.” My interview with
3. At the conclusion of the remarks, or when the
the warden at the Terre Haute Federal Prison
Warden determines it is time to proceed, the
Warden will read documentation deemed nec­ revealed a new innovation in the casting of
essary to the execution process. The Warden execution scenarios. With federal executions,
will then advise the Designated United States the administrators now bring in staff from
Marshal that, quote, “We are ready.” Close other institutions, just for the executions, As
quote. A prearranged signal will then be given explained by the warden: “It’s too traumatic
by the Designated United States Marshal to the
Warden, who will direct the executioner to
for the local staff who know the prisoner and
administer the lethal injection. in some cases have formed a relationship with
him or her over the years on death row.” And
4. If the execution is ordered delayed, the
I hasten to add that I interviewed the new
Designated United States Marshal will instruct
the Executioner to step away from the execu­ warden, David Olson, who is now in charge
tion equipment and will notify the condemned of the Federal “execution facility,” as it is
individual and all present that the execution called in the bureaucratic manuals. His imme­
has been stayed or delayed. the Warden will diate predecessor, Harley Lappin, scored high
direct stand down procedures and return the marks for directing the June, 2001 executions
institution to normal operations after the con­
of McVeigh and Garza, again the first federal
demned individual has been returned to appro­
priate living quarters. executions since 1963. By the time I was able
to return to Terre Haute in September, 2001
C. Execution to tour the prison and talk with staff, Lappin
already had been rewarded with a promotion
After receiving the signal from the Designated and transfer. He is now the Director of the
United States Marshal, the Warden will direct the
Mid-Atlantic Region, with twenty prisons
executioner to administer the lethal injection.
under his supervision.
Even the demonstrators who come to
And the condemned prisoner is enlisted as protest the executions are carefully monitored
a cooperative player within this grisly script. and controlled. No one is permitted onto the
The condemned face a devil’s bargain. When prison grounds with his or her own trans­
all hope for reprieve is gone, the only option portation. At both the McVeigh and Garza
left is in common phraseology “getting through executions, we had to meet at a designated
this,” with as much dignity and as little pain park, walk down a fenced corridor, and get
as possible. Perhaps one of the most perverse searched before being permitted to board the
cruelties is the way the prisoner is coerced Bureau of Prisons busses. We were required
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482 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

to take a “Pledge of Nonviolence,” which no spasms, no smells or sounds—just sleep,

included: “we will not swear or use insulting then death.” Governor David Boren pointed
language. We will not run in public or other­ out that it provided “a nice clean exit
wise make threatening motions. We will honor plan.”112 Susan Blaustein, a media witness
the directions of the designated coordinators. to a lethal injection in Texas, described the
In the event of serious disagreement, we will experience in a Harper’s Magazine article
remove ourselves from the Vigil Action.” titled, “Witness to Another Execution in
Once on the bus, two guards with rifles Texas: Death Walks an Assembly Line.” She
accompanied us, one riding up front, the other wrote: “The lethal injection method has
in the back. Each bus was escorted to the turned dying into a still life, thereby enabling
prison by two police cars with flashing lights, the state to kill without anyone involved feel­
one car in front, one in the rear. ing anything at all. . . . We have perfected the
“What is at stake,” Sarat asks, “when art of institutional killing to the degree that it
the state imagines itself killing painlessly, has deadened our natural, quintessentially
humanely?”110 When it invents new and human response to death.”113
improved technologies for putting people to Tulsa Republican representative William
death with “decency” and “dignity”? What do Wiseman, Jr., was the principal architect of
the shifting modes and methods of execution Oklahoma’s lethal injection bill. He argued
say about public standards of taste and thresh­ that the needle would “make the death penalty
olds of squeamishness? The quest for quick, more humane by eliminating the brutality and
efficient, and clean modes of execution that violence of electrocution”—Oklahoma’s then
do not disfigure the corpse is for the sake of current method for executing criminals. In
spectators more than the condemned. When June 2001, Wiseman published an apologia in
Ronald Reagan was governor of California, he the Christian Century. He admitted: “The dra­
was one of the first government officials to matic irony of my action as a legislator is that
imagine lethal injection. He observed, “as a what purported to be a means of reducing vio­
former rancher and horse raiser, I know what lence became instead a means of increasing it.
it’s like to eliminate an injured horse by shoot­ The moral burden I carry is that, if it were not
ing him,” recommending instead, “a simple for my palatable technique of death, many
shot or tranquilizer.”111 Reagan’s point was who have now been executed would likely
not to spare the defendant pain, but to shield have been spared by squeamish juries.” He left
the executioners—and by extension, civil politics and is now pursuing a Master’s of
society—from the horror and anguish of exter­ Divinity degree at a theological seminary in
minating a human being. Tulsa.114
In 1977 Oklahoma reinvented capital pun­ Lethal injection, the favored method of
ishment for the modern age by developing the modern capital punishment, borrows props
new performance technology of “lethal injec­ from the medical profession and eerily mimics
tion.” In 1982 in Texas, Charles Brooks a therapeutic intervention. Missouri’s lethal
became the first prisoner executed by lethal injection chamber at Potosi Correctional
injection. Outside the United States, China Center is right in the center of the prison hos­
first used lethal injection in 1997, which it pital ward.115 One of the uncanny conse­
deemed more scientific than shooting a kneel­ quences of this slippage between curing and
ing prisoner in the back of the head at killing is that there is a new emergent justifica­
close range. When lethal injection was first tion for executions: executions are justified
discussed in the Oklahoma legislature, so that the families of victims can heal and
advocates argued the merits of: “No pain, achieve “closure.” This is a new development
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Lethal Theatre 483

in the history of justifications for capital One of them, Tom Kight, placed the blue
punishment. We have moved from support of federal badge identifying him as “Witness
capital punishment as a deterrent, as retribu­ 223” at the execution telecast on the com­
tion, and now as an extension and necessary memorative chair for his stepdaughter killed
part of the grieving process and form of group in the blast.120 Several newspapers reinforced
therapy. This link between capital punishment this conflation of capital punishment with
and mourning is aligned with the politics of rites of mourning by running full color pho­
the powerful victims rights movement: “By tographs of the Oklahoma City National
transforming courts into sites for the rituals Memorial Center underneath banner head­
of grieving, that movement seeks to make pri­ lines announcing McVeigh’s execution. On
vate experiences part of public discourse.”116 June 12, the New York Times ran “McVeigh
Appellate Judge Alex Kosinski says that when Dies for Oklahoma City Blast” headline
he reviews and signs off on executions, he above a photograph of family members kneel­
“hear[s] the tortured voices of the victims ing and grieving by the chair commemorating
calling out to [him] . . . for vindication.”117 their mother at the Oklahoma City National
The execution of McVeigh demonstrates Memorial Center. The caption explained that
the political efficacy of mourning. The same the family members had just come from
group of mourning survivors and family and watching the execution on closed-circuit
friends of victims who planned the Oklahoma TV.121 The same day the Chicago Tribune ran
City National Memorial also campaigned “U.S. Executes Its Worst Terrorist” banner
for passage of the 1996 Antiterrorism and headline above a panoramic photograph
Effective Death Penalty Act, legislation that of the Oklahoma City National Memorial
restricts the right of appeal and habeas Center likewise showing grieving family
corpus in order to streamline and speed up members just arrived from viewing the execu­
the execution process. They also successfully tion, kneeling at memorial chairs. On an
lobbied Attorney General Ashcroft to telecast inside page, there was another photograph of
McVeigh’s execution to an invited group of a woman holding a radio and listening
designated mourners in Oklahoma. In an intently while kneeling in front of one of the
unprecedented move, Attorney General memorial chairs. The caption read: “Renee
Ashcroft authorized the closed circuit telecast Pendley listens to a radio report on the execu­
of McVeigh’s execution to an arena filled tion as she kneels near the memorial chair for
with relatives of victims and survivors of the her friend Teresa Lauderdale.”122
Murrah building bombing. He infamously Two of the relatives of Oklahoma City
said that survivors and families of victims need bombing victims, who won the lottery to
to be able to see McVeigh executed “to help witness the McVeigh execution live in Terre
them meet their need to close this chapter in Haute, pressed photographs of deceased loved
their lives.”118 Over one thousand people were ones against the window as they watched
invited to the live telecast of McVeigh’s execu­ McVeigh die. What does it mean when the rit­
tion, more than half declined, and on the uals of state killing are conflated and enfolded
morning of June 19, 2001, 232 showed up at within rituals of mourning and bereavement?
the telecast site, a federal prison.119 In the wake of September 11, 2001, with its
Several of the invited people went directly massive trauma to the national psyche, we can
from watching the telecast of McVeigh’s expect to see the death penalty figure promi­
execution to the Oklahoma City National nently in the politics of grief as executions are
Memorial Center, thus collapsing the execu­ argued for and justified as necessary therapies
tion into personal rituals of bereavement. of collective healing and closure.
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484 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

Author’s note: I have delivered earlier versions Condition (Princeton: Princeton University
and different parts of this essay at four confer­ Press, 2001), 242.
5. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish:
ences where I received helpful and incisive
The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan
comments, critiques, and suggestions. I thank (New York: Vintage, 1979 [1975]).
Jill Dolan and David Román for inviting me 6. Ibid., 307.
first to present this new work as part of the 7. Ibid., 302.
“Fresh Print” series at the ATHE convention 8. There are several excellent books that track
in Chicago, August, 2001. I thank Janelle this history: Stuart Banner, The Death Penalty: An
American History (Cambridge: Harvard University
Reinelt for inviting me to present another
Press, 2002); Hugo Bedau, ed., The Death Penalty in
version at the “Performance, Policy and America: Current Controversies (New York: Oxford
Culture: Dead Man Walking and the Death University Press, 1997); Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Jesse
Penalty in America” conference at University Jackson, Jr., and Bruce Shapiro, Legal Lynching: The
of California, Irvine, March, 2002. I am Death Penalty and America’s Future (New York:
New Press, 2001); Robert Jay Lifton and Greg
grateful to Helen Schwartzman, Chair of
Mitchell, Who Owns Death?: Capital Punishment,
Northwestern’s Anthropology Department, the American Conscience, and the End of Executions
who invited me to present an extended version (New York: Morrow, 2000). See also Thomas
as the annual Frontier Lecture in Anthropology, Laqueur, “Festival of Punishment,” London Review
March, 2002. I thank Peggy Phelan for inviting of Books, 5 October 2000: 17–24; Gary Wills, “The
me to present and curate a panel on the death Dramaturgy of Death,” New York Review of Books,
21 June 2001: 6–10.
penalty at the “Theatres of Life” Performance
9. The most authoritative source for updated
Studies International conference at New York data on the death penalty is the Death Penalty
University, April, 2002. I am especially grateful Information Center, Washington, D.C. Their excel­
to my colleagues Micaela di Leonardo and lent web site address is http://www.deathpenalty
Lisa Merrill for their sustained and generous info.org/.
10. See John D. Bessler, Death in the Dark:
responses to this work. And I thank Leigh
Midnight Executions in America (Boston:
Bienen, Tracy Davis, Harry Haines, E. Patrick Northeastern University Press, 1997), 146.
Johnson, Dwight McBride, Denise Quirk, 11. See especially Banner, The Death Penalty.
Sandra Richards, Mary Strine, Sunwolf, and 12. The White House, Office of the Press
Mary Weismantel for bracing discussions and Secretary, Military Order: Detention, Treatment,
sharing resources. and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War
Against Terrorism, 13 November 2001.
13. The American Heritage Dictionary of
NOTES the English Language, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin, 2000).
1. These are the last words of Napoleon 14. See Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger
Beazley, a young African American man, who was (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966);
executed in Huntsville, Texas, May 28, 2002. His Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures
last words are posted on the web site of the Texas (New York: Basic, 1973); Victor Turner, The
Department of Criminal Justice. Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure
2. Albert Camus, “Reflections on the (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969) and From
Guillotine,” Resistance, Rebellion, and Death Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play
(New York: Vintage, 1995 [1960]), 234. (New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications,
3. John Whitley, the warden responsible 1982); Roy Rappaport, Ritual and Religion in
for directing executions at Louisiana’s Angola the Making of Humanity (Cambridge: Cambridge
State Prison, quoted in Ivan Solotaroff, The University Press, 1999). See also Catherine Bell,
Last Face You’ll Ever See: The Private Life Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York:
of the American Death Penalty (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), and Ritual:
HarperCollins, 2001), 34. Perspectives and Dimensions (New York: Oxford
4. Austin Sarat, When the State Kills: University Press, 1997). For important studies of
Capital Punishment and the American political rituals, see Katherine A. Bowie, Rituals of
Madison-26.qxd 10/17/2005 10:53 AM Page 485

Lethal Theatre 485

National Unity: An Anthropology of the State 22. Ibid., 296.

and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand 23. Wayne Minnick, “The New England
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Execution Sermon, 1639–1800,” Speech Mono­
David I. Kertzer, Ritual, Politics, and Power (New graphs 35 (1968): 80.
Haven: Yale University Press, 1988); Richard J. 24. Banner, The Death Penalty, 25. Theatre
Evans, Rituals of Retribution: Capital Punishment historian Peter G. Buckley concurs: “Of all colo­
in Germany, 1600–1987 (New York: Oxford nial ritual, executions drew the largest crowds.”
University Press, 1996). For a historical case study See Peter G. Buckley, “Paratheatricals and Popular
of execution rituals, see Mark Fearnow, “Theatre Stage Entertainments,” in The Cambridge History
for an Angry God: Public Burnings and Hangings of American Theatre I, ed. Don B. Wilmeth and
in Colonial New York, 1741,” Drama Review 40, Christopher Bigsby (Cambridge: Cambridge
T150 (1996): 15–36. University Press, 1998), 428.
15. Victor Turner, The Anthropology of 25. Cotton Mather, A Sorrowful Spectacle.
Performance (New York: Performing Arts Journal In Two Sermons, Occasioned by a Just Sentence of
Publications, 1986), 48. Death, on a Miserable Woman, for the Murder of
16. Robert Johnson, Death Work: A Study a Spurious Offspring. The One Declaring, The
of the Modern Execution Process, 2nd ed. Evil of an Heart Hardened, under and against
(Belmont: Wadsworth, 1998), 20. all Means of Good. The Other Describing, The
17. Richard Schechner, Between Theater and Fearful Case of Such as in a Suffering Time, and
Anthropology (Philadelphia: University of Pennsyl­ much more such as in a Dying Hour, are found
vania Press, 1985), 36–37. See also Schechner’s without the Fear of God (Boston: printed by
The Future of Ritual: Writings on Culture and T. Fleet & T. Crump, 1715).
Performance (New York: Routledge, 1993). 26. See “Hanging Day” in Banner, The Death
18. For pathfinding analyses of the processual Penalty, 24–52 and “The Design of Public
and improvisatory dynamics of ritual see Nicholas Executions in the Early American Republic” in
B. Dirks, “Ritual and Resistance: Subversion as a Masur, Rites of Execution, 25–49. See also Ronald
Social Fact,” in Culture/Power/History: A Reader A. Bosco, “Lectures at the Pillory: The Early
in Contemporary Social Theory, ed. Nicholas B. American Execution Sermon,” American Quarterly
Dirks, Geoff Eley, and Sherry B. Ortner (Princeton: 30 (1978): 156–76; Daniel E. Williams, “‘Behold a
Princeton University Press, 1994), 483–503; Tragic Scene Strangely Changed into a Theater of
Margaret Thompson Drewal, Yoruba Ritual: Mercy’: The Structure and Significance of Criminal
Performers, Play, and Agency (Bloomington: Conversion Narratives in Early New England,”
Indiana University Press, 1992). American Quarterly 38 (1986): 827–47.
19. Louis P. Masur, Rites of Execution: 27. John Rogers, Death the Certain Wages of
Capital Punishment and the Transformation Sin to the Impenitent: Life the Sure Reward of
of American Culture, 1776–1865 (New York: Grace to the Penitent: Together with the only Way
Oxford University Press, 1989), 6. See also for Youth to avoid the former, and attain the
Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History latter. Delivered in Three Lecture Sermons;
of Manners, trans. Edmund Jephcott (New York: Occasioned by the Imprisonment, condemnation
Urizen Books, 1978); John R. Kasson, Rudeness and Execution, of a Young Woman, who was
and Civility: Manners in Nineteenth-Century guilty of Murdering her infant begotten in
Urban America (New York: Hill & Wang, 1990); Whoredom (Boston: Printed by B. Green and
Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow/Lowbrow: The T. Allen, 1701), 147.
Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America 28. See Peggy Phelan, Unmarked: The
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988). Politics of Performance (New York: Routledge,
20. Cotton Mather, Faithful Warnings to 1993).
Prevent Fearful Judgments. Uttered in a Brief 29. Banner, The Death Penalty, 44.
Discourse, Occasioned, by a Tragical Spectacle, 30. Rogers, Death the Certain, 144.
In a Number of Miserables Under a Sentence of 31. Ibid., 2, 118. For important historical
Death for Piracy (Boston: printed and sold by studies of Puritan culture, see Daniel A. Cohen,
Timothy Green, 1704). Pillars of Salt, Monuments of Grace: New
21. John Dunston, quoted in Edwin Powers, England Crime Literature and the Origins of
Crime and Punishment in Early Massachusetts, American Popular Culture, 1674–1860 (New
1620–1692: A Documentary History (Boston: York: Oxford University Press, 1993); David D.
Beacon, 1966), 295. Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment:
Madison-26.qxd 10/17/2005 10:53 AM Page 486

486 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

Popular Religious Belief in Early New England 58. Ibid., 122.

(New York: Knopf, 1989). 59. Ibid., 114.
32. Ibid., 153. 60. Ibid., 143.
33. Ibid., 124. 61. Ibid., 144.
34. Ibid., 123. 62. Ibid., 119.
35. Ibid., 2. 63. Ibid., 146.
36. Ibid., 2, 142. 64. Ibid., 152.
37. Ibid., 3. 65. See Thomas W. Laqueur, “Crowds,
38. Ibid., 118. Carnival, and the State in Early English
39. Jonas Barish, The Antitheatrical Executions, 1604–1868,” in The First Modern
Prejudice (Berkeley: University of California Press, Society: Essays in English History in Honour of
1981). Lawrence Stone, ed. A. L. Beier, David Cannadine,
40. Rogers, Death the Certain, 118. James M. Rosenheim (Cambridge: Cambridge
41. Samuel Danforth, The Cry of Sodom University Press, 1989), 305–55.
Enquired Into: Upon Occasion of the 66. Rogers, Death the Certain, 113.
Arraignment and Condemnation of Benjamin 67. Danforth, The Cry of Sodom, i.
Goad, For his Prodigious Villany. Together with 68. Rogers, Death the Certain, 2.
a Solemn Exhortation to Tremble at Gods 69. Richard Godbeer, Sexual Revolution
Judgements, and to Abandon Youthful Lusts in Early America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
(Cambridge: printed by Marmaduke Johnson, University Press, 2002), 55.
1674). 70. Danforth, The Cry of Sodom, 10.
42. Rogers, Death the Certain, 3. 71. See Karen Halttunen, Murder Most Foul:
43. Ibid., 119. On “performative metaphors,” The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination
see James Fernandez, Persuasions and (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998);
Performances: The Play of Tropes in Culture Leigh B. Bienen, “A Good Murder,” in The Death
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986). Penalty in America, ed. Hugo Bedau (New York:
44. Rogers, Death the Certain, 2. Oxford University Press, 1997), 319–32.
45. On “interpretive communities,” see 72. G. W. Peck, “On the Use of Chloroform
Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in this Class?: in Hanging,” American Whig Review 8 (1848):
The Authority of Interpretive Communities 283–97. Peck opens with an extended “essay on
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980). manners” and does not even mention capital pun­
46. John Williams, Warnings to the Unclean: ishment until page 292, ten pages into the essay.
In a Discourse from Rev. XXXI. 8. Preacht at Peck is much more interested in the everyday per­
Springfield Lecture, August 25th. 1698. At the formativity of class—manners, deportment, refine­
Execution of Sarah Smith (Boston: Printed by ment, cultivation of speech and gesture—than he
B. Green and J. Allen, 1699), 7. is in the cultural performance of executions. His
47. Rogers, Death the Certain, 118, empha­ essay resonates with other elocutionary texts of
sis added. the period. For a discussion of the class and racial
48. Ibid., 133. exclusions upon which the elocutionary move­
49. Ibid., 115–16. ment was based, see my “Rethinking Elocution:
50. Ibid., 119, 144. The Trope of the Talking Book and Other Figures
51. Ibid., 152. of Speech,” Text and Performance Quarterly 20
52. Ibid., 132. (2000): 325–41.
53. Williams, Warnings, 12, 37. 73. Ibid., 295.
54. Rogers, Death the Certain, 3. 74. Ibid., 286.
55. For important works on spectatorship 75. Ibid., 291.
see Jill Dolan, The Feminist Spectator as Critic 76. Ibid., 292.
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988); 77. Ibid., 296.
Lisa Merrill, When Romeo Was a Woman: 78. See Johnson, Death Work.
Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle of Female 79. See Michael Taussig, The Magic of the
Spectators (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan State (New York: Routledge, 1997), 187. On
Press, 1999). the massive incarceration campaign and prison
56. Rogers, Death the Certain, 133. building boom, see Elliott Currie, Crime and
57. Ibid., 153. Punishment in America (New York: Metropolitan
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Lethal Theatre 487

Books, 1998); Joseph T. Hallinan, Going Up the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice
River: Travels in a Prison Nation (New York: (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
Random House, 2001); Marc Mauer and The 92. Victoria Brownworth, “Dykes on Death
Sentencing Project, Race to Incarcerate (New Row,” The Advocate, June 1992, 62–64. See also
York: Free Press, 1999); Christian Parenti, Victor Streib, “Death Penalty for Lesbians,”
Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age National Journal of Sexual Orientation Law 1
of Crisis (New York: Verso, 1999). (1995): 105–26; Richard Goldstein, “Queer on
80. Michel Foucault, Power, ed. James D. Death Row,” Village Voice, March 2001.
Faubion (New York: New Press, 1994), 435–36. 93. Lifton and Mitchell, Who Owns Death?,
81. See David Johnston, “Ashcroft Delays 135.
Death of McVeigh Over FBI’s Lapse,” New York 94. Ibid., 101.
Times, 12 May 2001, A1. 95. See Bessler, Death in the Dark, 142. For
82. See the Center On Wrongful Convictions studies of the stress and trauma that executions
web site: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/ wreak on the prison staff whose job it is to actu­
clinic/wrongful/index.htm. ally carry out this grisly work, see Donald A.
83. Joseph Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum- Cabana, Death at Midnight: The Confession of an
Atlantic Performance (New York: Columbia Executioner (Boston: Northeastern University
University Press, 1996), 36–41; Michael Taussig, Press, 1996); Johnson, Death Work, 109–16; Ivan
Mimesis and Alterity: A Particular History of the Solotaroff, The Last Face You’ll Ever See: The
Senses (New York: Routledge, 1993). Private Life of the American Death Penalty
84. The Death Penalty Information Center (New York: HarperCollins, 2001).
is a reliable source for demographic data on the 96. Tonya McClary, “Sexuality and Capital
death penalty. See also, Deborah Fins, Death Row Punishment: The Execution of Wanda Jean Allen,”
USA, Quarterly Report, NAACP Legal Defense Outfront: Amnesty International’s Program for
and Educational Fund, 2002. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Human
85. See William S. McFeely, Proximity to Rights, Winter, 2002, 1, 4, 6.
Death (New York: Norton, 2000), 69. Gary 97. Robert Bork, quoted in Sarat, When the
Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in Utah in State Kills, 33.
1977, making his the first post-Furman execution. 98. Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, American
But because he refused all appeals, he was consid­ Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma
ered a “volunteer.” City Bombing (New York: HarperCollins, 2001),
86. See U.S. General Accounting Office, 226.
“Death Penalty Sentencing: Research Indicates 99. Sarat, When the State Kills, 258.
Pattern of Racial Disparities,” in The Death Penalty 100. Jackson, Jackson, and Shapiro, Legal
in America, ed. Hugo Bedau, 268–74. See also Lynching, 110.
Bienen, “A Good Murder,” 327. 101. Sarat, When the State Kills, 17–18.
87. Jackson, Jackson, and Shapiro, Legal 102. Timothy McVeigh’s death certificate
Lynching, 75. listed the cause of death as “Homicide.” See
88. Mumia Abu-Jamal, quoted in ibid., 35. “Coroner Prepares to Sign Death Certificate,”
For an astute historical analysis of the codependent Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 11 June 2001, A6.
connection between capitalism and capital punish­ 103. See Johnson, Death Work.
ment, see Peter Linebaugh, The London Hanged: 104. See Jon McKenzie, Perform Or Else:
Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century From Discipline to Performance (New York:
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Routledge, 2001).
89. Stephen Bright, “Counsel for the Poor: 105. See Frank Bruni and Jim Yardley,
The Death Sentence Not for the Worst Crime But “Inmate is Executed in Texas as 11th-Hour
for the Worst Lawyer,” in The Death Penalty in Appeals Fail,” New York Times, 23 June 2000,
America, ed. Hugo Bedau, 275–309. A18. See also, Amy Dorsett, “Execution Day,” San
90. http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/finalmeal Antonio Express-News, 22 June 2000, 1A, 8A.
.htm 106. For scathing critiques of the hypocrisy of
91. See Mary Douglas, “Food as a System of sanitized lethal injection as a modern and humane
Communication,” in The Active Voice (London: method, See Lifton and Mitchell, Who Owns
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982), 82–124; Pierre Death?, 43–69; Sarat, When the State Kills,
Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the 60–84.
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488 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

107. Lifton and Mitchell, Who Owns Death?, 116. Sarat, When the State Kills, 35. On
44. For examples of botched lethal injections, see victims’ rights movement, see Wendy Kaminer, It’s
ibid., 65–66. Bungled executions are so common­ All the Rage: Crime and Culture (New York:
place that the Death Penalty Information Center Addison-Wesley, 1995); for trenchant critique of
documents them under the special topic, “Botched the privatization of public discourse, especially the
Executions.” See http://www.deathpenaltyinfo­ way victims are cast in the role of exemplary citi­
.org/botched.html. zen, see Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America
108. Modern executions conflate the three Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and
performance paradigms that Jon McKenzie identi­ Citizenship (Durham: Duke University Press,
fies as “the efficacy of cultural performance,” the 1997).
efficiency of organizational performance,” and 117. Alex Kosinski, quoted in Lifton and
“effectiveness of technological performance.” See Mitchell, Who Owns Death?, 162.
McKenzie, Perform or Else, 27–135. 118. See Mike Dorning, “Hundreds Will
109. A redacted version of the Execution Watch McVeigh Die,” Chicago Tribune, 13 April
Protocol is posted on the internet at http://www 2001, 1, 20.
.thesmokingun.com/archive/bopprotoc011.shtml. 119. See Rick Bragg, “McVeigh Dies
110. Sarat, When the State Kills, 69. for Oklahoma City Blast,” New York Times,
111. Quoted in Jackson, Jackson, and Shapiro, 12 June 2001, A1, A19; Lisa Anderson,
Legal Lynching, 113. In 1984, Reagan issued an “In Oklahoma City, Some Feel Cheated
executive order that reinstated the Military Death by ‘Easy’ Death,” Chicago Tribune, 12 June
Penalty. 2001, 1, 14.
112. William J. Wiseman, Jr., “Inventing Lethal 120. Anderson, “In Oklahoma City, Some
Injection,” Christian Century, 20 June 2001, 6. Feel Cheated,” 14. For an excellent study of the
113. Susan Blaustein, “Witness to Another politics of memory and how this played out in
Execution,” in Death Penalty in America, ed. the contested process of planning, designing, and
Hugo Bedau (New York: Oxford University Press, building the Oklahoma City National Memorial
1997), 387–400. Center, see Edward T. Linenthal, The Unfinished
114. Wiseman, Jr., “Inventing,” 6. See also Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory
James Walsh, “The Medicine that Kills: Lethal Injec­ (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001).
tion for Execution,” Lancet, 7 February 1998, 441. 121. Bragg, “McVeigh Dies,” A1.
115. See Lifton and Mitchell, Who Owns 122. “The McVeigh Execution,” Chicago
Death?, 97. Tribune, 12 June 2001, 14.
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27
Who Is This Ancestor?
Performing Memory in
Ghana’s Slave Castle-Dungeons
(A Multimedia Performance Meditation)

SANDRA L. RICHARDS

I initially wrote this piece in spring, 2003

in order to formally inaugurate my tenure
as the Leon Forrest Professor of African
elegance of a Mahalia Jackson, Nat King Cole,
or Michael Jordan; and interdisciplinary
collaborations with sculptor Richard Hunt
American Studies at Northwestern University. and composer T. J. Anderson1—the occasion
Luckily, my endowed chair represented more also gave me a certain license. I would not
than a name from a distant past, for the late have to deliver the usual academic lecture; his
novelist and department chair had recruited creative history authorized me to move back
me to Northwestern. Thus, the event occa­ towards my own past as a theatre director and
sioned multiple, bittersweet rememberings. I to transform it. After years of watching my
was revisiting the recent loss of a colleague faculty colleagues and graduate students in the
who at times acted like a wonderful mirror performance studies department, I could take
that could capture and reflect my potential in center stage and attempt to enact my research.
ways that I had not suspected. Defying logic as Like many other college-educated African-
memory often does, I wished that Leon could Americans, I had grown up with poet Countee
be present to enjoy how the university was Cullen’s question, “What is Africa to me?”
honoring his 24 years of academic service made all the more provocative by intellectual
and his stellar contributions to the fields of and social structures that posited Africa as
African-American and American literature. In lack. Perhaps I had been haunted by its chal­
that he was deeply engaged by performance— lenge without realizing it, and my subsequent
the sermonic styles of black preachers; the focus first on African-American and later,

489
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490 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

African theatre had been a way of answering. operates “strategically” (Simon, Rosenberg, &
More recently, I had begun to study African- Eppert, 2000), for we visitors to heritage sites
American tourists to slave sites in the Black treat it as a pedagogical exercise that teaches a
Atlantic. In conducting ethnographic research lost history and orients students towards the
in West Africa, I was keeping journals of my present and future. We explain our activities
own reactions, but I did not know quite how through such truisms as “those who don’t
to incorporate them into academic texts in a know their history are destined to repeat it,”
way that preserved the emotional integrity of or “you can’t know where you’re going unless
my responses. Further, as I discuss in this text, you know where you came from.” Closely
one particular memory of my trips to Ghana related to this instrumental deployment of
kept recurring: The grave site of eighteenth memory is the moral demand that we honor
century Anglican priest Philip Quaque repeat­ the sacrifices of the dead by making our pre­
edly came to mind, challenging me to come to sent world better. In the case of black people,
terms with his history. whose communities worldwide have histori­
“The real magic happens when the word cally been under siege, this moral demand is
hits your breath,” says Anna Deavere Smith intensified. The suffering of the past is
(Roach, 1995, p. 45). In choosing to perform redeemed, so this line of thinking argues, by
the letters that Quaque wrote to the Society the quality of the lives we presently lead.
for the Propagation of the Gospel in England But memory at times defies this neat teleol­
from his post at Cape Coast Castle, I had to ogy. Like performance, it can confound time so
confront questions like the following: Where that past, present, and possible future seemingly
does my subject stand in time? How do I become one undifferentiated force field of
understand the historical quality of the emo­ emotion and identification. For example,
tion that animated Quaque and then translate African-American travelers to slave dungeons
that intellectual apprehension into my own sometimes conflate their persons with enslaved
emotional responses? Why does his biography ancestors. Film maker Shirikiana Aina, whose
both repel and attract me? What is my invest­ work I excerpt in my performance, speaks of
ment in now attempting to inhabit his words? the Cape Coast castle-dungeon from which
These are some of the challenges that mem­ “we were sent away” (Through the Door of No
ory also poses. Thus, in my script readers will Return, 1997). Further, she imagines contem­
encounter memory, not as the recuperation of porary Ghanaians as surrogates (Roach, 1996,
a fixed past, but rather as a social and moral p. 2) for indigenous populations of some two
practice through which individuals labor to to three hundred years ago when she wonders
constitute the remembered object even as the whether the people left behind will remember
object determines their experience and sense of her identity. Not only is memory operating as
identity (Antze & Lambek, 1996, p. xii). As a imagination, but in this instance of collective
social practice, memory insists upon a collec­ trauma, it is also functioning as the desire to
tive identity in which we posit ourselves as reverse history. The victims will perform their
descendants in a genealogy to which we may history differently this time: Enslaved Africans
have no actual, blood relationship; we see our­ were driven through the castle-dungeon door to
selves as the inheritors of a legacy transmitted be shipped across the Atlantic, and European
by those who preceded us and enact various traders arrogantly proclaimed that exit “the
rituals, like elementary school Thanksgiving door of no return.” Now free Africans, in the
Day pageants, in order to deposit into the surrogates of Aina and other diasporans, have
body and naturalize constructions of collective made the trip back across the ocean and walked
identity. In addition, as social practice memory through these same castle doors. As one
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Who Is This Ancestor? 491

professor, who undertook a similar journey, Because Philip Quaque’s history as an

triumphantly exclaimed, “Now there is a door Anglican priest, whose religious practice facil­
of return. Their spirits have come back” (“The itated European penetration of the then-Gold
Great Homecoming,” 1998).2 Not only have Coast of Ghana, was a memory that I initially
the long-lost returned, but as enacted in naming did not want to claim, I thought I had been
ceremonies staged for diasporans, they have spared the risk of superimposing my narratives
taken their place within the family lineage. onto his. But as I admit in my script, I did
Orphaned in the Americas, answering the want him to speak to my identification with
seductive trope of family used by American and those shipped to the Americas. “I know the
Ghanaian tourism, we journey across the memory I want to have,” I protested, but he
waters hoping to be able to re(?)locate ourselves continued to haunt me, refusing my desires yet
within the clan, thereby achieving full person­ demanding that I attempt to see him and
hood and freedom.3 understand how we are connected. In other
But our capacity to imagine ourselves as words, I was not spared the challenge of deter­
surrogates standing in the place of long-gone mining what would constitute a productive
ancestors is not without danger. We run the remembering that deployed empathy but rec­
risk of displacing the past entirely, planting ognized difference, disjuncture, and irrecover­
ourselves center on the stage of the past rather able loss as a starting point for reconfiguring
than seeking to negotiate our relationship to the present and imagining another future
that past. Given the denigration of blackness (Simon et al., 2000). In performing his words
that connects the transatlantic slave trade to and mine, in now writing about the text, I con­
present day aggression on Africa-descended tinue to be haunted by Quaque who returns to
people, very often the gesture of erasure hap­ ask: “For what purposes are you using your
pens quickly and goes unnoticed. Thus, for research? How does inhabiting my words
example, in the video segment included in the change how you move through your world?”
performance, the expatriate African-American I suspect that Quaque knows better than I that
guide leading visitors on a tour of Ghana’s with each reappearance of memory, his signif­
slave dungeons moves effortlessly from recall­ icance and my answers to his questions will be
ing the distress of enslaved ancestors to that of different.
black children growing up in America’s ghet­ In introducing this script, there is one
tos. What is unclear is whether, assaulted by other observation I wish to make. It relates
the heat, smells, and oppressive history of this to what I term “the politics of citation.”
slave monument,4 he and his listeners recog­ Readers will see that I refer to the pressures
nize their location as relational rather than of memory with Yoruba and Ibo terms
identical. As Deborah Britzman (2000), writ­ (abiku and obanje, respectively) rather than
ing about the trauma of the Jewish holocaust, with Freudian terminology. I do not deny
has observed, “For part of what must be that a concept such as “the return of the
worked through are the projective identifica­ repressed” is equally appropriate, but I wish
tions that impede our capacity to make an to stress that Africa-descended peoples pro­
ethical relation to the stranger, to encounter duce(d) knowledge and generate(d) theories
vulnerability as a relation” (p. 35). We are of the world that are as viable as those
challenged to recognize that our pain is grounded in European history and experi­
twofold, constituted by the contemporary con­ ence. With the institutionalization of black,
ditions we are undergoing and by “the sec­ ethnic, women’s, and performance studies,
ondary effects of distress, helplessness, and this emphasis has in one sense become passé,
loss that the [earlier] pain symbolizes” (p. 39). as the academy has moved to recognize the
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492 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

contingent, perspectival quality of truth As scholars, we are challenged to use and

claims. Yet, too often relevant articulations develop effective—that is, deeply informed
emanating from the so-called margins are still and sufficiently nuanced—analytical tools that
treated as having no validity for their own describe particular phenomena. As Philip
cultures as well as for the mainstream; they Quaque’s biography attests, the globalization
do not appear in bibliographies or are cited that linked Europe, Africa, Asia, and the
as simply repeating what has already been Americas produced societies that were simul­
pronounced in a western metropole. In taneously distinct and hybrid. And, as his
speaking of abiku and not of Freud or Lacan, reappearance asserts, we must enact answers
I insinuate a reversal in the directional flow to the challenge: Knowledge and memory for
of knowledge production. what purposes?

WHO IS THIS ANCESTOR? PERFORMING

MEMORY IN GHANA’S SLAVE CASTLE-DUNGEONS
Voices
SLR who at various points is the Scholar, the Tourist and Journal Writer, and the
Performer now divulging her subtext. She is dressed not in her usual, western-style
clothing but in an African print and style, purchased during a trip to the continent.

Video Travelers

Philip Quaque noted in the script as KWAKU in order to remind SLR of the correct
pronunciation.

Mr. Adoy

Setting
An ordinary, campus lecture hall with a proscenium stage. This one has two aisles on
the right and left sides, allowing SLR to circle the audience.

I. GREETINGS
(In the tradition of welcoming and listening to what the a cappella singing group
“Sweet Honey in the Rock” terms “the ancestors’ breath” [Barnwell, 1993], this event
begins and ends with music that the ancestors enjoy.)

(Music: “Exu” from Odum Orim [Afro-Brazilian music] [Grupo Ofa, 2000])

SLR the Performer

Having studied Yoruba belief systems in Nigeria, Brazil, and other parts of the
Americas, I know that no undertaking is safe from mishap if Esu is not acknowledged
at the outset. With this music and movement, I greet the so-called trickster god, the
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Who Is This Ancestor? 493

divine messenger who reminds us that each day is unique, presenting the traveler with
choices as to how she will craft her life-script. May Esu, ancestors known and
unknown who have accompanied me so far, and the spirits of Mahalia Jackson and
Leon Forrest who loved her so, be pleased and guide me.

(Music: “Summertime” [Gershwin, Gershwin, and Heyward, 1935], followed by

“Motherless Child” from The Best of Mahalia Jackson [1956/1995])

Summer time and the livin is easy

Fish are jumpin and the cotton is high
Oh, your daddy is rich and your ma is good lookin
so hush little baby, do . . . n’t you cry.
One of these mornings
you gonna rise up singin
you gonna heist your wings—ohhh—and take to the sky
And til that mornin
nothin will harm you
with daddy and mammy, they’ll be standin by.

(During “Summertime” SLR enters from house right and proceeds counterclockwise
through the auditorium, handing out programs and greeting audience members.)

SLR the Performer thinks

The slow, gentle tinkle of a piano and the clear, sweet moanin’ of Mahalia Jackson. She
uses the “Summertime” melody for both songs. In moving seamlessly from the popular,
Porgy and Bess folk opera song “Summertime” to the traditional spiritual “Motherless
Child,” Jackson belies her protests that she sang only religious music. Both feel like a
blues of longing for the security that a family presumably provides. Why in the good
times of summer, with material plenty, does the baby cry? What danger does the mother
anticipate and hope to preempt with the image of the child assuming a bird’s form? Will
daddy and mammy—in a later verse, Mahalia substitutes “mommy”—indeed protect
the child/me from a world of racist violence? As if responding to my question, Mahalia
switches and acknowledges her/my sense of latent danger.

(With the beginning of “Motherless Child” SLR picks up her baggage and continues
circling the space.)

Sometime I feel like a motherless chile

Sometime I feel like a motherless chile
Sometimes i feeeel like a motherless chile
just a long way from my home oh lord
just a long . . . way from home

(Jackson hums and repeats “Summertime.”)

SLR the Performer continues (thinking)

The deliberate, bass notes on the piano sound as though someone is moving resolutely
through the world. A whole race of motherless people, diaspora people, torn from our
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494 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

places of origin, hated in the world in which we have been forced to make a home. And
so, some of us attempt the trek back . . . back to the “green beginning of the world,” as
playwright Derek Walcott would have one of his characters say (1970, p. 326). The
“green beginning” of imagination and desire, come face to face with the realities of
contemporary West Africa. Though Mahalia coos, “don’t you cry,” the juxtaposition of
the soaring, crystalline beauty of her voice against the awe-filled history back to the pre­
sent and future, sketched by that voice, seems to predict that tears will be part of the
journey.

(SLR sets props—big Bible and file of Quaque’s letters to Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel—in Quaque’s space, stage left [SL] and then sets down her own props—
books, candle—in her space, stage right [SR])

II. THE LECTURE-PERFORMANCE

SLR the Scholar (Speaking from podium downstage right [DSR])
Why, you might ask, is someone trained in theatre scholarship and practice
researching tourism to slave sites? What intellectual credentials validate her venturing
into such an area? Consider some of the parallels between tourism and theatre. Travel
mobilizes a variety of calculations concerning the possible roles that both hosts and
tourists can adopt: As host, how do I represent/re-present my hometown and identity
therein, so that visitors, in search of some emotional experience that they may not be
able to define, will discover something sufficiently distinct or different from what they
left at home? How must I disguise my required labor and economic interests as open,
voluntary hospitality? As tourist, how do I present myself or perform an identity in rela­
tion to what I have read about, hope to find, or encounter at my destination? Or think
of a heritage site, like the slave-castle dungeons of Ghana, as a large set on which the
tourist audience joins a local troupe of host-actors. That is, through its arrangement of
artifacts, narration of history, and interactive engagement with visitors, a successful her­
itage site, much like a play in the theatre, seeks to create an illusion or transform an
abstract absence into a palpable presence.
To these issues of identity and difference, role playing, and mediated authenticity,
cultural travel to slave sites adds several more: How is a history of pain to be repre­
sented so that people will want to visit (and revisit) the site? Whose story is to be nar­
rated? In that enslavement meant being dispossessed of one’s body, let alone of
material possessions, how is absence to be memorialized?
African-Americans who travel to Ghana’s slave castles often explain their motivation
in terms of ancestors. They speak of hearing the ancestors’ voices urging remembrance
of a painful history, demanding descendent recognition of links and obligations to that
past.

Video: “Ghana Slave Dungeon Document: St. Paul Trip to Ghana”

(Visuals of well-fed, middle class travelers, dressed in African print, weighted down with
photo and video cameras and water bottles, and waiting to begin their tour of the Cape
Coast castle. An unseen male voice intones)
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Who Is This Ancestor? 495

This [video] is for my ancestors who are unknown because they were omitted from
the history books,
This is for my ancestors murdered and left to rot in unmarked graves on land
and in the sea . . .
This is for my ancestors who worked plantations from sunup to sundown with
disgust and mistrust of anyone who tried to justify their enslavement . . .
Time has not let their spirits rest . . .
Join me in paying homage to them whose spirits are still living in the shadows,
riding the wind, restless because they will always be unknown.
This tribute is written in anger, in tears.
It is a reminder to those of us who are here today and have no knowledge of
yesterday
The spirit of our unknown live in all of us.
You honor them when you take time to acknowledge them.
Join me so that they can be free.
(Brown, 1996)

Video: “Through the Door of No Return”

(Next seen is a match being lit in the darkness. Gradually becoming discernible are
water and Cape Coast Castle from the perspective of the Atlantic Ocean. As an unseen
boat approaches the castle, a woman’s voice confesses:)

My father’s voice joined my ancestors’ voice to call me back, as they called him . . .
“Our arms reach up from the depths of the ocean to guide you. Come back home.
Come back home . . . We wait for you, with never-closing eyes, to return home . . .”
Millions of hands from billions of bones reach up through the leagues of cold, cold
water . . . hands of weavers, hands of carpenters, . . . and painters and children lov­
ing to play.

(As the castle comes more clearly into view, the voice says:)

Here it is. Here it is. The point of departure, the door of no return. Here it is. It is
from here that we were sent away at night by the water, and it is at night by the water
that I return. Do they remember us? Do they remember us? Is our memory buried
here? Is our memory buried here? Can I find my father’s memory here? my ancestors’
memory? my memory? Can I find our memory? Who’s here? Who can answer me?
Can these walls talk?

(The unseen voice has joined a group of diasporic Africans on a private castle tour and
ritual of healing conducted by One Africa founders, IMAKHUS, and Nana Okofu Iture
Kwaku I. Now deep underground in the slave dungeons, the voice wonders:)

Is this where my father stood, on the very ground on which my ancestors stood
before being shipped out into the horrible time of the Middle Passage? How do we
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496 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

face this history of exile? The legacy of the lash on our backs now imprinted on our
souls seems to give us the strength to remember.

(Nana reminds these tourists/pilgrims:)

We are here today to come back forward and to give thanks and praise that the
Almighty has spared our life . . . These are the monuments that have been built to
corral us, to house us. So we come forward today to say thank you to our ancestors:
Help us to go back and pull that youngster or that brother, that sister together and
say, “Hang on. Stay strong. You’re gonna make it. . . .” His voice begins to break.
Hallelujah . . . hallelujah, hallelujah . . .

(Then, he instructs the group:)

Blow out the candles. Take a moment. Call out the names of those ancestors who
have gone on. Harriet Tubman. Frederick Douglass . . . Rosa Parks . . . the local post­
man, Maude Robinson, my son Kelly. Don’t be ashamed. Call them out. Let those
ancestors know that we’re still fighting. Amen.
(Aina, 1997)

(SLR joins the circle of video travelers, picking up her candle, blowing it out when
instructed, and repeating names as they do. The video fades to black.)

SLR the Scholar (moving downstage center [DC]:)

The former bondswoman, Sethe in Toni Morrison’s (1987) Beloved, knows what her
traveler descendants will experience when she counsels her daughter:

If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place—the picture of it—stays, and not just in
my rememory, but out there in the world. . . . Someday you be walking down the road
and you hear something or see something going on. So clear. And you think it’s you
thinking it up. A thought picture. But no. It’s when you bump into a rememory that
belongs to somebody else. . . . The picture is still there and what’s more, if you go
there—you who never was there—if you go there and stand in the place where it was, it
will happen again; it will be there for you, waiting for you . . . nothing ever dies. (p. 36)

But, as Denver soon learns, sometimes even if you never go there, what was there,
the past, will come to you, unexpectedly, when your defenses have relaxed, when your
rational mind has taken a coffee break. Memory is an abiku, an obanje, an unruly child
who torments its parents by being born and dying again and again; it keeps coming
back, appearing to accept our inducements to lead a domesticated, ordered life, and
then mysteriously disappearing yet again. Memory is an abiku, an obanje demanding
that we confront the past (Davies, 1994; Ogunyemi, 1996; Okri, 1992). “To repress
memory, ‘to keep the past at bay,’” says literary critic Helene Moglen (1997) “is to
divert it into the dark silences and crippling diversions of hysteria” (p. 206). On all sides
of the Atlantic—in the United States and Canada, in Britain, in Ghana and Senegal—
nations of hysterics, exhausted perhaps from doing battle with ghosts, are beginning to
look at the past, yet are tempted to transmute it into palatable, comprehensible, theme
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Who Is This Ancestor? 497

park narratives that will take away the pain and shame of genocide, slavery, and unjust
privilege.
Memory is also like grandmother’s crazy quilt, made out of scraps of cloth that lie
next to each other in no immediately apparent pattern. Thus, one bit of memory some­
times stimulates another scrap that logically does not belong with the first, and together
they engender even more pieces whose coherence may promise an emotional, if not
a factual, truth.
So what happens when, warmed by grandmother’s crazy quilt, we begin to listen to
ancestors? What happens, when the ancestral world complies with the desire of
humans to remember but with a perverse logic, sends representatives whose stories we
would rather forget? I found out in 1998, after I had returned home from a month-long
tour of slave routes in Ghana and Benin, sponsored by Northwestern’s Institute for
Advanced Study and Research in the African Humanities in collaboration with the
African Humanities Institute at the University of Ghana, Legon. Jet-lagged from the
transatlantic flight home and stimulated by a performance of Leon Forrest’s Divine
Days, I remember my trip to Cape Coast Castle and then (look at SLR’s chair upstage
right—(UR)—look back at audience, and then) watch myself remembering (moving
into SLR’s personal space), as I record in my journal: (SLR reads from the journal.)

Temporarily located betwixt Ghana and Illinois time zones, I awaken in the early
Chicago hours to read a chapter of Morrison’s Paradise. I can’t go back to sleep and thus
decide to meditate. The grave of Philip KWAKU (Quaque) comes clearly into my vision.
Why have you come to me, Philip? You who were the first African, Anglican mission­
ary, trained in England and posted to the trading company at Cape Coast?
At least you help my memory’s eye/I to differentiate between Cape Coast

(Slide of Cape Coast Castle appears5)

and Elmina,

(Slide of Elmina appears)

merged into one site of horror, the one castle-dungeon barely distinguishable from
the other unless I force myself to linger over the memory and recall carefully. In remem­
bering the site of your grave there at Cape Coast,

(Slide: Philip Quaque’s grave)

there in the blazing sun on the ground floor of the castle, I realize that at Cape Coast,
one can at least see the sea, hear its roar from the ground floor.

(Slide: Cape Coast Castle with its cannons facing the sea)

In contrast, when I picture myself standing at ground level in Elmina castle, all I can see
are the various rooms built by the Portuguese and later, by the Dutch.

(Another slide of Elmina: This time of the Portuguese chapel, later converted into a
slave market hall.)

No glimpse of the sea beyond, only the confines that are Elmina. This recall of the sea
at Cape Coast gives me a momentary lift: at least present in that place was some sense
of nature, of something beyond man’s control into which a captive could escape for a
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498 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

brief comfort. But then later, I realize that my perspective is wrong: I am seeing from the
vantage of the sailors and merchants, those free to walk about on the ground floor of
the castle. No, I need to readjust my view to where it “belongs”

(Three slides of dungeons)

down below in that dungeon, where there were too many people, too little air, too
much stench, too much fear and despair (2 March 1998).

SLR the Scholar (now rises and moves slightly downstage)

Years have passed, I have begun to research and write—in academic tones—about
the experience of visiting Cape Coast and Elmina castle-dungeons. But like an abiku
or obanje, you Philip KWAKU (Quaque) keep returning. Why have you captured my
attention, demanding that I learn more about you? Let me then recite the history of this
ancestor who has taken a seat at the memorial table.

SLR the Performer (moving center towards Quaque’s space)

Along with two other boys, you left your Cape Coast home in 1754, at the age of 13,
to sail to England and acquire a Western education. In 1766, now as the Reverend
Philip KWAKU (Quaque), first African, Anglican priest, you returned as “Missionary,
Catechist, and School Master” to the indigenous people on the Gold Coast” and as
“Chaplain” to the English “gentlemen”—as the merchants and officers were called—
and to the soldiers at Cape Coast Castle. For the next 50 years, you dutifully wrote
letters to your sponsor, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
even though in all that time, the Society rarely wrote back. (No longer the composed
scholar, SLR quarrels): Preaching the Christian gospel to slave traders, inside and out­
side the castle fort! What was this Christian education supposed to do? Render
believers more humane in their trade?

The story I want is the one of what happened under the ground, in the dungeons.
I pore over your letters, searching for the clear assertion of repulsion or distress at
what is transpiring below. I know the memory I want to have, so I continue to read,
squinting at your handwriting preserved on microfilm. But along the way, I become
seduced by the life your letters reveal. I devour them, read the missionary accounts
of your mentor, the Reverend Thomas Thompson, and even turn to Stories of a
Strange Land and Fragments from the Notes of a Traveller, authored by one Mrs. R.
Lee who traveled with her young daughter to the Gold Coast in the mid-1820s. Even
though she approaches the castle from the sea, and I have seen it only from land-
side, we agree that it is impressive. She writes,

I had ample time to contemplate the lovely appearance this place presents, when
viewed from the sea. The castle. . . is a large white stone building. . . . The native
houses, interspersed with the more tasteful dwellings of European merchants, lie to the
right; and everywhere the hills rise from the water’s edge, covered with the richest and
most luxuriant forest. (p. 302)

For me, such an incongruous, natural beauty that belies the manmade horrors.
Somehow, I would have more easily understood an ugly physical site, but no, Cape
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Who Is This Ancestor? 499

Coast, the even larger castle-dungeon of Elmina, clearly visible in the distance, and
the mighty Atlantic ocean with its plumes of water hitting the rocks are beautiful.

(Moves stage left–[SL]–to Quaque’s–[Q’s]—table)

Did you notice the beauty of the landscape as you returned to the Gold Coast in
February 1766 with your English wife, the former Catherine Blunt? (Now sitting in Q’s
chair) Lodged in Cape Coast Castle and beginning his ministry, the Reverend KWAKU
(Quaque) wrote to his benefactors (finding the letter on Q’s table) in September of
that year, that given the recent death of the more religiously minded castle governor,
he had little hopes for success, because the men are (searching for the exact word­
ing) “all Scotch and Irish people, rank Presbyterians” (1766/1972); illiterate, they
“defile” themselves by having multiple liaisons with local women. Further, the
Caboceer or Fanti chief is ambivalent about Christian conversion and education.

SLR the Scholar (Shifting in her seat, SLR is the Scholar once again)
What emerges from these letters is a picture of the precariousness of life on the
Gold Coast, given the formidable health challenges that many Europeans fought
against—and lost—and given the political instability, violence, and ambition that the
slave trade unleashed upon African populations. The terms “whites” and “blacks” are
used, indicating that racial significations are operative, yet they are crosscut by more
powerful ethnic, religious, and class identities: Thus, the reverend writes of rivalries
that fracture the whites into Scotch and “rank Presbyterians” versus English and
Anglican, English versus Dutch, officer versus soldier. The “blacks” include Ahantas
who possess (consulting letters again) a “quiet temper, a ready mind and [are]easy
to be governed” (Quaque, 1766/1972, p. 125), versus the Fantis who, though allied
to the English, are nonetheless “strangers to civil discipline . . . enemies of public
tranquillity” (Quaque, July 30, 1775/1972), and the even more menacing Asantes,
who for more than 40 years waged wars against their neighbors in order to build an
empire that extended from Kumasi down to the coast, some 140 miles away.
Literally related to both groups, negotiating both worlds are biracials or “mulattoes,”
as they were termed, who were acquiring the cultural capital to advance in the new
world brought about by Portuguese “discovery” in 1471. Also evident is the fact that
Philip KWAKU (Quaque) is operating in a world where racism does not yet exist.
Europeans seem to treat him as an equal who is tolerated or disliked, because they find
his religious commitment to saving their souls, irrelevant or annoying. He, in turn, con­
demns or looks down upon his countrymen—and he does use that term of collective
identification—because of their wily refusal to convert to Christianity.
Two topics capture my attention, as I pursue my mission of remembering, namely,
KWAKU (Quaque)’s comments about his wives—he married three times—and his
relentless proselytizing. Though he never mentions any of his wives by name, it is clear
that KWAKU (Quaque) felt closest to the English Catherine Blunt, for she, like him, was
schooled in Christian doctrine and behavior. Thus, he writes that some six or seven
months after their arrival, she is dying; (consulting next document) in March of 1767,
he admits a “piercing loss,” made even sharper in “these sullen and cruel climates,”
as he records for the Society’s benefit Blunt’s last testament of faith. Some two years
later, he wrote informing the Society that he had married Blunt’s former waiting maid
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500 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

in hopes of silencing those reproaching his widowerhood. By 1772, KWAKU (Quaque)

had buried his second wife and married a third “girl” whom he first baptized. He says
only, “She is very tractable and seems willing and mindful for the little time she has
been with me, which is now two months and better,” and in the next sentence states
the numbers of people whom he has buried (March 8, 1772/1972).

(SLR the Scholar rises and moves center, hoping that this simple movement captures
the attention of those whose interest may be wandering)
But even the brief references to these unnamed African women offer painful, yet
telling insights. Painful because seemingly, no one thought these African women—who
are my ancestors too—important enough to remember them by name. Telling because
of the shift in Fanti life from a clan-focused, collective, or corporate identity to an indi­
vidual perspective. “Wretchedly reduced” to debilitating illness and concerned about
the confusion that rumors of war are engendering, KWAKU (Quaque) also complains
in one of his last letters in 1811:

(Returning to Q’s table for the relevant document)

My own family, whom I have brought up . . . are plotting my ruin, particularly by rais­
ing up a malicious dispute with Mrs. KWAKU (Quaque) merely through jealousy and
hatred and envy, and opposing every measure I take for the future benefit of my wife,
as if a man has not power and authority to do and dispose of his own property as he
pleaseth, without the controlling or interferring of anyone. (Priestley, 1967, p. 138).

SLR the Scholar (puts the letter down and continues her lecture.)
This dispute over inheritance is intimately related to the reverend’s larger project
of winning converts, for according to Fanti custom, descent and the resources accru­
ing therefrom are traced through the mother. KWAKU (Quaque) was apparently
related to Cudjo Caboceer, an important chief and brother to the King Amrah KoFI
(Coffi) (Thompson, 1970, p. 34). Cudjo Caboceer served as chief linguist or negotia­
tor between the British and the locals and had selected KWAKU (Quaque) for schol­
arship abroad. By custom, KWAKU (Quaque) was obligated to Cudjo Caboceer and
expected to contribute to the collective wealth of his extended, maternal family. Yet,
as his letter suggests, the reverend was planning to defy custom by passing along his
inheritance to his wife.
KWAKU (Quaque) never ceased hoping that his “uncle” or head of the family, the
Caboceer, would convert to Christianity, for if the chief did, many of the other relatives
and townspeople would follow his example. In seeking to enlighten his countrymen,
the reverend was engaged in an elaborate dance in which each party in this cultural
“contact zone” of shifting and uneven power relations (Pratt, 1992, pp. 6–7) acqui­
esced, resisted, masked, and tested the resolve of the other. (Here SLR uses appropri­
ate hand gestures to emphasize her point about the subtle negotiations that occurred.
These gestures will change to resemble a waltz in the story that follows.) Let me illus­
trate my point with a story about events over a three-week period in August 1767.

SLR the Performer (taking up a position SL, near Q’s pulpit)

One Sunday morning, Reverend KWAKU (Quaque) prepares for service in the cas­
tle (moves forward SL 2 steps as in an assertion) but is summarily ordered to remove
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Who Is This Ancestor? 501

all the sacred items (backs up 2 steps). Disappointed but not defeated, (moving for­
ward) he does so and then goes to town (forward again) where he casts his “lot”
with “my own countrymen who behaved laudably and very decent, much beyond
my expectation: although attended w/ a little inconveniency of noised and clamour.”
(Quaque, 1767/1972). No longer fluent in Fanti—or in the customary modes of
social interaction—KWAKU (Quaque) explains the sacrament of baptism as best he
can, promising to send for Mr. Frederick Adoy, who will serve as his translator.

(Mr. Adoy comes through the auditorium and waits DSL of Q’s pulpit. SLR is now stand­
ing SR of the pulpit.)

SLR the Performer continues:

The next week, Mr. Adoy comes from his village, and together they preach the word
of God to some 25 townspeople. On the following day (SLR moves sideways, SR) two
elders arrive to thank him and to assert that now that he has made them Christians by
reading and showing them the word of God or NYANCUMPONG (Yancumpong), he
should give them something to drink. (Two steps back) KWAKU (Quaque) gives them
a flask of liquor, because as he reports to his superiors, he reasoned that through such
a device, he will lead them to God. But when next (moving forward on a diagonal)
he tries to hold service with the townspeople, they respond that they are involved in
the critical duties of making sacrifices (back again 2 steps!) to restore the health of
sick neighbors. The following Sunday, Reverend KWAKU (Quaque), with Mr. Adoy as
his translator, begins his service before 20 congregants

(SLR the Performer moves to Q’s pulpit, opens the Bible, and assuming Q’s role,
motions for Mr. Adoy to take his position DSR. But Mr. Adoy remains SL)

Adoy:
Excuse me, sir, but Mr. Adusain says liquor will aid their ability to follow your teachings.

Quaque:
But—Mr. Adoy, please translate (Q gestures again for him to take up his position. Mr.
Adoy complies, moving DSR.)

Quaque and Adoy:

You know that my predecessor Reverend Thompson always preached that we must
take care not to drink immoderately of spiritual liquor. (Q pauses, waiting for the
translation and their response. Sensing their restiveness, he adds). I am a “young
fellow, unexperienced in Life, (pause) surrounded with many difficulties, [and] temp­
tations to encounter in this wicked and degenerate land,” (Quaque, 1767/1972).
(Mr. Adoy stops after “temptations.” Adoy and Reverend KWAKU (Quaque) exchange
glances.) (Q repeats his words) . . . wicked and degenerate land. But, (pause) if you
will remain silent (pause, pleading with congregants) until the service is over, then
we can partake, (pause)in friendship.

(Still as Quaque, SLR the Performer moves away from the pulpit and sits at Q’s table)
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502 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

SLR the Performer

I admit, most Venerable and Worthy Benefactors, I hoped in this way to win these
unthinking people over to our form.

(Switching back into her Scholar mode, SLR rises)

SLR the Scholar

In citing the Reverend Thompson as his authority for initially resisting and then
acceding to their expectations, KWAKU (Quaque) was deploying the local custom of
demonstrating respect for one’s elders. Indeed, the Reverend Thompson, who was the
Society’s first missionary to the Gold Coast, had written of similar resistance in his An
Account of Two Missionary Voyages (1937), for not only did the Fanti locals comment
upon the immorality of the Christians in their midst (p. 36), but they are also reported
as saying in perhaps yet another dance of assertion, masked deference, and reassertion:

(Using forward dance step again) The Christian religion is white man’s fashion. White
men know best, (moving back) but (moving forward and firmly taking a position) black
man follow black man’s fashion. (Thompson, 1937, p. 68)

And so, for the next 49 years, KWAKU (Quaque) and the local people danced in this
way, with a small number of “thinking” people converting to Anglicanism. Sometimes
as many as seventeen, and sometimes as few as two mulatto boys and girls attended his
school, held in his castle rooms.
But, looking at pictures of the castle, replaying the physical landscape in my mind’s
eye, (glancing towards Q’s space) I wonder: What did you do when a new convoy of
captives, weary from trekking hundreds of miles, were finally brought through the castle
gates? From the “gentlemen’s” quarters above, did you hear the men led into the under­
ground dungeons? Did you see the shackled women herded across the courtyard to the
pens near what would become the gate of no return? Did you reach for your Bible then?

(Addressing her audience directly, SLR the Scholar says)

SLR the Scholar

In the entire fifty years of corresponding with the Society, Philip KWAKU (Quaque)
seems to have made only two explicit comments on slavery. In February 1876 he
reports first on an uprising that occurred on a Dutch ship about to set sail for the
Americas. About 150 captives overpowered the ship’s crew, in the captain’s absence.
KWAKU (Quaque) continues: (SLR sits at Q’s table and reads)

But the most dreadful circumstance of all is that after having laid their scheme with sub­
tlety and art, and decoying as many as their countrymen who came far and near to plun­
der on board and near the ship, and also some white sailors from an English ship in hopes
of relieving them, were all indiscriminately blown up to upwards of three or four hundred
souls. This revengeful but very rash proceeding we are made to understand to be entirely
owing to the Captain’s brutish behavior, who did not allow even his own sailors, much
more the slaves, a sufficient maintenance to support nature. If this is really the case, can
we but help figuring to ourselves the true picture of inhumanity those unhappy creatures
suffer in their miserable state of bondage, under the different degrees of austere masters
they unfortunately fall in with, in the West Indies? (Priestley, 1967, p. 133)
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Who Is This Ancestor? 503

Interesting, that though KWAKU (Quaque) documents the captives’ ingenuity, he

attributes the rebellion to the captain’s negligent behavior rather than to any basic,
human drive for personal autonomy.
Immediately following these sentences, KWAKU (Quaque) mentions a revolt that
domestic, castle slaves carried out in November of that same year. Now, (crossing SR
out of Q’s space) I should interject here that in my tours of Cape Coast and Elmina cas­
tles, guides say virtually nothing about castle slaves; they tend to deploy a passive
voice in which there are victims subjected to unidentified agents. But walking through
these large, stone fortifications and catapulting myself back into the past, I can not help
but wonder: Who fed, cleaned up, or doctored those captives destined for international
markets? How did these people interact with locals, what did they tell locals about
events that transpired inside the castle-dungeons? Written histories, such as Lawrence’s
(1964) Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa, provide some of the answers; undoubt­
edly, proverbs, songs and other documents in indigenous languages provide others.
Retaining men, women, and children, all the European trading companies used castle
slaves to perform skilled, artisanal, and agricultural tasks, domestic chores such as
laundering and cooking, and unskilled labor such as portering. They, like all the inhab­
itants of the castle or the smaller forts, were compensated for their work in goods that
could be bartered in the market; presumably, their “pay” was sufficient only to keep
them alive, but through careful husbandry, these slaves might amass a small surplus.
They could not be sold into the transatlantic trade, unless they had committed serious
crimes (Priestley, 1967, p. 134, footnote 76; Lawrence, 1964, pp. 49–50).
Well, Philip KWAKU (Quaque) writes that on November 14, all these slaves
deserted their posts—a sort of Day of Absence! Excuse me, but I can’t help but think
of Douglas Turner Ward’s 1960s comedy, in which all the black folks desert a small,
Southern town, leaving their white employers to figure out how to empty the trash and
to plead for the return of their “nigras” (1966). Except this day lasted a month, and
though KWAKU (Quaque) says that no one has yet understood “the real cause of their
desertion,” he posits—but does not elaborate upon—an analogy between their com­
plaints and the sufferings of the Biblical children of Israel under Egyptian pharaohs.

(SLR the Scholar moves further upstage as though headed for the security of her books)

SLR the Scholar

I attempt an explanation of why the reverend fails to recognize those enslaved
beneath his feet as his brothers and sisters in Christ: They weren’t, in fact, Christians.
Besides, as his counterpart, the former slave and Dutch-educated Reverend Jacobus
Capitein had argued, freedom is constituted by spiritual apprehension, not physical
status. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”
(2 Cor 3:17; Capitein, 2001, pp.105–107; Prah, 1989, pp. 59–61). But this line of rea­
soning feels like sophistry; it does little to assuage KWAKU’s (Quaque) periodically
demanding, abiku resonance in my memory. Sylvia Wynter’s (1992) theory of the
science of the human, articulated both in dense, analytical terms and in an affective,
folk language provides a stronger answer. She argues that our bioculturally pro­
grammed, altruism-inducing mechanism enables us to recognize an affinity and oblig­
ation not to “human beings” but to a particular mode of the human. Ideologically blind
to the partial character of this human whom we think of as universal, we tolerate all
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504 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

kinds of inhumane treatment of those who are defined as outside (Wynter, 1992,
pp. 237–250).
Within the clan, everything.
Outside the clan, nothing.
Family have, you have! Outside the family, tough!
Lineage fight lineage like the Dutch fight the British. The British fight the Prussia.
(Wynter, 1963/rev.1983 p. 62)

says one of Wynter’s dramatic characters in explaining the African origins of the
Jonkonnu mask in Jamaica.
But as one descends into the bowels of the earth, into the small pens in which hun­
dreds of captives were housed, this intellectual understanding of how constructions of
identity necessitate an excluded other is hard to maintain. My body overrides histori­
cal particulars to empathize with the captives. Later in remembering those bodily
responses, I am tempted to dismiss Philip’s life work, his faith and perseverance in the
face of educating so few students and enduring the scorn or indifference of those to
whom he was supposed to minister. (Moving USR to settle in her chair)
Yet, once you turn down the chatter of daily events and begin to pay real attention to
grandmother’s crazy quilt, you also discover that the ancestors send a variety of messages
in order to disturb your arrogance. First were the newspaper accounts of enslaved boys
in the Sudan. Then, Philip KWAKU (Quaque), I suspect, “sent” graduate student Mark
West with an even more direct challenge. Mark came with his performance studies piece
about more than one million young Indian and Nepalese girls who are presently captives
in brothels in South Asia (West, 2003). Even without his use of quotations from Frederick
Douglass and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, the ancestors’ message was clear: How does your
remembrance of a past catastrophe translate into action against this present disaster? Or,
are you/we content to view slavery as a past event which we mourn and about which we
can congratulate ourselves for the distance traveled away from that inhumanity?
Perhaps Philip KWAKU (Quaque), you have come to this memorial event to issue a
challenge. Perhaps you have come to demand of me and others a “productive remem­
bering” that does not impose our current distress on the historical specificities of the
past. A both/and remembering that uses empathy as one avenue to knowledge of and
connection to the past and at the same time, acknowledges the differences that will
always keep that past beyond our desiring grasp. A difficult, both/and memory of con­
tinuity and disruption that in our acts of re-membering (using a gesture that suggests a
putting back together) challenges us to act differently, to interrogate and reconfigure
our present (Simon, 2000, pp. 118–123; Simon, et al., 2000, pp. 4–8).

(SLR the Scholar closes her book and looks SL towards Q’s space)
I take one, small step in the direction of your challenge, Philip KWAKU (Quaque).

(SLR picks up the candle, rises and begins to move SL)

Medaase, thank you, my ancestor.

(SLR exits, SL. As she begins to exit:)

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Who Is This Ancestor? 505

III. L’ENVOI (FAREWELL MUSIC FOR THE ANCESTORS)

(Music: “Nature Boy” from Unforgettable [Nat King Cole, 2000])
There was a boy, . . .
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he . . .
A magic day he passed my way,
And while we spoke of many things—
This he said to me:
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return.

SLR the Performer remembers to herself

This song was one of Leon Forrest’s favorites. The orchestral arrangement is lush, yet
Nat King Cole’s delivery sounds effortless, his message, simple but profound. Like
Cole, Leon had a gentle, seemingly unassuming manner in interacting with people.
His writing was another matter: voluble, pulsating, attuned to and unflinching in rep­
resenting the hidden desires, foibles, triumphs, and sometimes sad jokes in people’s
lives. His was a fierce love affair with life. May I learn from Cole and Forrest to explore
the apparent contradiction, to temper my scrutiny with humility, to remain open to
magic.

(Music: “So Sa So (Eleggua)” from Orishas [Afro-Cuban] [Sintesis, 1997])

SLR the Performer continues

This song comes from Yoruba beliefs as they were adapted to the harsh conditions of
slavery in Cuba. Hopefully, Esu has enjoyed our time together and departs happily.
Certainly, we will meet again—and again—at the crossroads. Oriented by the mem­
ory of what I have learned from these life travels, when I meet you as Esu, Eleggua, or
High John the Conqueror, may I respond to your challenges with grace. Ase. Amen.

NOTES Scott (2000), and Orlando Patterson (1982) have

argued that for enslaved Africans, freedom was
1. See such Forrest (1994) essays as “In the conceptualized less as the absence of bondage and
Light of the Likeness—Transformed,” “Souls in more as grounding in a familial network.
Motion,” “Michael’s Mandate,” or “A Solo Long- 4. There is an absence of consensus as
Song: for Lady Day.” to whether these structures do indeed memorialize
2. Ghanaians—or at the least the state—share slavery. See Bruner (1996) and Richards (in press).
in this desire to rewrite history. Emancipation Day 5. Readers may want to consult the visual
ceremonies, celebrated on the African continent— archive compiled by Handler and Tuite (n.d.) at
in Ghana—for the first time in 1998 included the http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery
transportation of the remains of two Africans
enslaved in the Americas back through Cape Castle
for final interment in Assin Manso.
REFERENCES
3. See Aidoo’s (1970) play Anowa where a lin­
eage-less person is a synonymous term for slave. Aidoo, A. A. (1970). Anowa [Script]. London:
Frederick Cooper, Thomas C. Holt, Rebecca J. Longman Drumbeat.
Madison-27.qxd 10/14/2005 6:00 PM Page 506

506 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

Aina, S. (1997). Through the door of no return Handler, J. S., & Tuite, M. L., Jr. (n.d.). The Atlantic
[Videotape]. Washington, DC: Mypheduh slave trade and slave life in the Americas: A
Films. visual record. Retrieved April 27, 2004, from
Antze, P., & Lambek, M. (Eds.). (1996). Tense http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/Slavery
past: Cultural essays in trauma and memory. Iabolish (the anti-slavery portal). http://www.iabol
New York: Routledge. ish.com
Barnwell, Y. (1993). We are. [Recorded by Sweet Jackson, M. (1995). Motherless child. On The best
Honey in the Rock]. On Sacred ground of Mahalia Jackson [Compact disk]. New York:
[Compact disk]. Redway, CA: Earthbeat! Sony Music Entertainment.
Records. (1995). Lawrence, A. W. (1964). Trade castles and forts
Bartels, F. L. (1955). Philip Quaque, 1741–1816. of West Africa. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford
Transactions of the Gold Coast and Togoland University Press.
Historical Society, 1(5), 153–177. Lee, Mrs. R. (former Mrs. Edward T. Bowdich).
Braun, N. K. Slides of Elmina and Cape Coast (n.d.). Cape Coast Castle; or, the adventures of
Castles. Sir Thomas Fitzosborne among the people of
Britzman, D. P. (2000). If the story cannot end: Fanti. London: Griffith and Farran.
Deferred action, ambivalence, and difficult Lee, Mrs. R. (former Mrs. Edward T. Bowdich).
knowledge. In R. I. Simon, S. Rosenberg, & (1835). Stories of strange lands; and fragments
C. Eppert (Eds.), Between hope and despair: from the notes of a traveler. London: Edward
Pedagogy and the remembrance of historical Moxon.
trauma (pp. 27–57). Lanham, MD: Rowman Moglen, H. (1997). Redeeming history: Toni
& Littlefield. Morrison’s Beloved. In E. Abel, B. Christian,
Bruner, E. M. (1996).Tourism in Ghana: The rep­ & H. Moglen (Eds.), Female subjects in black
resentation of slavery and the return of the and white: Race, psychoanalysis, feminism
black diaspora. American Anthropologist (pp. 201–220). Berkeley: University of California
98(2), 290–304. Press.
Brown, C. (1996). Ghana slave dungeon document: Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. New York: New
St. Paul trip to Ghana. [Videotape]. Brooklyn: American Library.
Trans-Atlantic Productions. Okri, B. (1992). The famished road. New York:
Capitein, J. (2001). The agony of Asar: A thesis Doubleday.
on slavery by the former slave, Jacobus Elisa Ogunyemi, C. O. (1996). African wo/man palava:
Johannes Capitein, 1717–1747 (G. Parker, the Nigerian novel by women. Chicago:
Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener. University of Chicago Press.
Cole, N. K. (2000). Nature boy. On Unforgettable Patterson, O. (1982). Slavery and social death: A
[Compact disk]. Los Angeles: Capitol Records. comparative study. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
Cooper, F., Holt, T., & Scott, R. (2000). Beyond University Press.
slavery: Explorations of race, labor, and citi­ Pratt, M. L. (1992). Imperial eyes: Travel writing
zenship in postemancipation societies. and transculturation. New York: Routledge.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Priestley, M. (1967). Philip Quaque. In P. Curtin
Press. (Ed.), Africa remembered: Narratives of West
Davies, C. B. (1994). Black women, writing and Africans from the era of the slave trade (pp.
identity: Migrations of the subject. New York: 99–139). Madison: University of Wisconsin
Routledge. Press.
Forrest, L. (1992). Divine days. New York: W.W. Prah, K. K. (1989). Jacobus Eliza Johannes
Norton & Company. Capitein, 1717–1747: A critical study of an
Forrest, L. (1994). The furious voice for freedom: eighteenth century African. Braamfontein,
Essays on life. Wakefield, RI: Asphodel South Africa: Skotaville.
Press. Quaque, P. (1972). Letters of Philip Quaque
Gershwin, G., Gershwin, I., & Heyward, D. (1935). 1766–1811 [Microfilm]. Wakefield: EP Group,
Summertime. Los Angeles: Warner Chappell Microform Division.
Music. Richards, S. L. (in press). What is to be remembered?
The great homecoming [Videotape]. (1998). Accra, Tourism to Ghana’s slave castle-dungeons.
Ghana: Visionlink Productions. Theatre Journal.
Grupo Ofa. (2000). Exu. On Odum orim, festa Roach, J. (1995). Culture and performance in the
da musica [Compact disk]. Salvador, Brazil: circum-Atlantic world. In A. Parker &
Geleia Geral–Warner Music Brasil. E. Kosofsky Sedgwick (Eds.), Performativity
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and performance (pp. 45–63). New York: Thompson, T. (1937). An account of two mission­
Routledge. ary voyages. London: Society for Promoting
Roach, J. (1996). Cities of the dead: Circum- Christian Knowledge.
Atlantic performance. New York: Columbia Walcott, D. (1970). Dream on Monkey Mountain
University Press. and other plays. New York: Farrar, Straus &
Simon, R. I. (2000). The paradoxical practice of Giroux.
zakhor: Memories of “what has never been my Ward, D. T. (1966). Happy ending and day of
fault or my deed.” In R. I. Simon, S. Rosenberg, absence: Two plays. New York: Dramatists
& C. Eppert (Eds.), Between hope and despair: Play Service.
Pedagogy and the representation of historical West, M. (2003, March 15). Go to the deep pine
trauma (pp. 9–25). Lanham, MD: Rowman & woods: Trafficking, war, and broken-down
Littlefield. ethnography in South Asia [Performance].
Simon, R. I., Rosenberg, S., & Eppert, C. (2000). Mussetter-Struble Theater, Northwestern
Introduction: Between hope and despair: The ped­ University, Evanston, Illinois.
agogical encounter of historical remembrance. “In Wynter, S. (1992). Rethinking “aesthetics”: Notes
R. I. Simon, S. Rosenberg, & C. Eppert (Eds.”), toward a deciphering practice. In M. Cham
Between hope and despair: Pedagogy and the (Ed.), Ex-iles, Essays on Caribbean cinema
representation of historical trauma (pp. 1–8). (pp. 237–279). Trenton, NJ: Africa World
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Press.
Sintesis. (1997). So sa so (eleggua). On Orishas Wynter, S. (1983, March 6). Maskarade. Revised
[Compact disk]. Burbank, CA: Milan Music unpublished manuscript. (Original version
Entertainment. written 1963)
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28
The Polemics and Potential of
Theatre Studies and Performance 1

JILL DOLAN

T his essay offers a brief history of the

relationship between theatre studies and
performance studies, and describes the trajec­
with radical possibilities. I’ll go on to describe
the burgeoning of theatre and performance
studies as interdisciplinary gold mines for
tory of the theory/practice debate within both scholars interested in the workings of culture;
fields. My aim is pedagogical, in that I want to launch an argument about “teaching the con­
help students and practitioners of the field flicts” through performance; and then end
recall its theoretical past, and pragmatic, in with an exhortation for theatre and perfor­
that I’m concerned with how we use theatre mance scholars and practitioners to return to
and performance studies to teach students and a capaciously humanist, utopian performative
ourselves productive ways to be what I like approach to our mutual work.
to call “citizen/scholar/artists” (Becker, 2000).
Since my commitment is to the politics of per­
IDENTITY POLITICS AND ITS
formance and its scholarship, I’m most con­
INFLUENCE ON THEATRE STUDIES
cerned with how we can think about teaching,
creating, and theorizing performance as a pub­ In the last 20 or so years, the objectivity and
lic intellectual practice with the potential to empiricism of traditional theatre departments
intervene in restrictive or oppressive represen­ have been challenged mostly on the basis of
tations of human capabilities. In making this identity politics, an approach to the social
argument, I will trace the ways in which iden­ in which categories like gender, race and eth­
tity politics, the first theoretically inflected pro­ nicity, class, sexuality, and ability offered
ject to reject the more empiricist bent of the primary lenses through which to view its work­
field, began to transform theatre studies from ings. Identity politics as methodological tools
a more conventional academic pursuit to one rooted themselves in the critical and theoretical

508
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 509

traditions of feminism, queer studies, critical America’s social history and perpetuated by
race studies, and most recently disability stud­ graduate programs in theatre departments.
ies, all of which prompted ideological adjust­ This continuing apartheid in an era when our
ments with enormous impact on the field. In scholars show increasing sophistication in
particular, feminism’s application to theatre national and multiethnic theatre history is
has insured that universal “man” can no unfair to students—and dishonest” (p. 149).
longer be presumed as the objective or “real” Hatch and Wilkerson propose using knowl­
subject of any performance, contemporary or edge gained from identity politics to infuse
historical. Along with feminism, critical race theatre studies’ practices and methods with
studies has had perhaps the largest, most difference. Wilkerson says, “We can no longer
visible influence, so that racial and ethnic cat­ teach or even study theatre as we have in the
egories, as well as gender, can no longer be past. Those of us in theatre production pro­
elided responsibly, or located purely in grams will find ourselves increasingly margin­
instances of cultural impersonation like min­ alized or isolated in our institutions if we do
strelsy and black-face that absented people of not include in very fundamental ways the
color as subjects even while they derided them new population (students of color and others)
as objects of an imperialist white gaze. constituting our student bodies. . . . The path-
Margaret Wilkerson (1991), in an article that breaking scholarship in [other] fields is revolu­
stresses the changing demography of Ameri­ tionizing the ways in which we see ourselves
can theatre, reminds theatre scholars that they and the places where we look for knowledge”
will have to continue to rethink the Eurocen­ (1991, p. 240).
tric history of their theory and practice if the­ Despite their location in academic institu­
atre programs are to succeed further into the tions that sometimes militate against such
twenty-first century. Wilkerson says, “Theatre thinking, university theatres, for example,
provides an opportunity for a community to could respond to Wilkerson’s and Hatch’s
come together and reflect on itself . . . It is admonishments by offering a forum for
not only the mirror through which a society embodying and enacting new communities of
can reflect upon itself—it also helps to shape performers and spectators and by using their
the perceptions of that culture through the laboratories to enact the possibilities of differ­
power of its imaging” (p. 239; see also Elam ence. By doing so, they could become sites for
& Alexander, 2002; Hatch & Hill, 2003; more radical interventionist work. University
Hatch & Shine, 1996; Uno & Burns, 2002). theatres are spaces that might productively be
Wilkerson’s aspiration for theatre requires that given over to theories and practices of identity
the discipline, and the scholars who teach it, in all its complex intersectional variety, and
look elsewhere than the Eurocentric canon for studies of performance in all its aspects, rather
knowledge. than protected as museums to house imita­
James Hatch (1989) offers a similar tions of the canonical white masterpieces of
reminder of the continuing importance of dramatic literature. Yet such moves remain
criticizing racial and cultural exclusions in surprisingly difficult. Panels at many profes­
the contents and methods of theatre studies. sional conferences continue to address the
Hatch excoriates theatre programs for contin­ unequal or misaligned representations of
uing to overlook African influences in theatre race and gender in the industry, in the profes­
history and African-American work in con­ sion, and in theatre departments, and pan­
temporary theatre. He suggests, “The roots elists and participants continue to bemoan the
of the problem are woven inextricably into lack of opportunities on their campuses for
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510 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

production work that includes attention to well as written meanings, it provides a way
minoritarian experience. Even when the cur­ of seeing identity as complex, as crossed with
riculum has improved attention to new ways difference, and never as the static, innate,
of thinking about social identity in perfor­ unchangeable thing it’s described to be in
mance—through the addition of courses on other venues of social life. Performance allows
women in theatre, gays and lesbians in theatre, an investigation of the materiality of the
people of color in theatre—and to critical corporeal, since the presence of bodies
approaches to the experience reified in canon­ requires direct and present engagement. Such
ical drama, production programs tend to lag questions can be brought to bear in the tem­
far behind. Sometimes, these imbalances stem porary communities that theatre-producing
from the separation between theory and prac­ and theatre-going construct. Theatre scholars
tice in many theatre and performance studies might productively borrow the language of
departments; sometimes, the excessively con­ science to explain their goals and methods. As
ventional seasons our departments offer come Wilkerson has remarked, research universities
from an unimaginative notion of what audi­ understand the workings of “laboratories.”2
ences want to see and the kinds of theatre Theatre studies might use the analogy, even
they’re willing to attend. These shopworn while it discards its positivist trappings.
ideas about spectatorship need to be over­
hauled to reinvigorate how our production
PERFORMATIVITY, PERFORMANCE
seasons speak to our students’ needs and those
STUDIES, AND THEATRE STUDIES:
of the communities in which we work.
A PERSONAL GENEALOGY
As Joseph Roach (1992) reiterates, after
Raymond Williams, “The convergence of The importation of identity politics to the
material productions with signifying systems academy, and their inflection with post-
inheres in the fundamental nature of theatrical modern understandings of culture that privi­
performance” (p. 11). Because of such a pro­ lege undecidability rather than truth, gave rise
ductive convergence, theatrical performance to theories that described identity as malleable
offers a temporary and usefully ephemeral site and social, superficial and constructed, rather
at which to think through various important than innate and fixed. Theorists like Judith
questions about the representation not only Butler described identity as performed, which
of individual identities but of social relations gave rise to new notions of “performativity”
within, across and among identity categories, as a way to talk about gender and sexuality,
and across communities and cultures. For especially, as functions of surface rather than
instance, questions of the signifying body that depth (Butler, 1990; see also Austin, 1962).
determine how we read what bodies mean, by The new language of performativity propelled
considering them as “signs” of meaning, are performance to new visibility in academic dis­
readily available by looking at actors’ gestures course and participated in the project of unset­
and their relationships to each other in the tling white hegemony in the academy and in
physical space of the stage. Questions of how theatre studies. But the theorists who used the
bodies in space exemplify social relations can metaphor of performance to talk about iden­
be studied in the embodiment of texts as per­ tity itself were mostly interested in the perfor­
formance, and in a director’s choices to posi­ mance of identity constructions in everyday
tion actors around a set or within an empty life, rather than in performance qua perfor­
space. Because performance demonstrates the mance. As a result, feminist, queer, and critical
ways in which any reading is always multiple, race theorists seem to borrow the language of
and illustrates the undecidability of visual as theatre without giving serious consideration to
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 511

the artifacts that we prize in our study—the everyday life. The Department of Performance
richness of performance itself. Studies at New York University has perhaps
The general introduction to Janelle Reinelt been the primary proponent of this latter, inter­
and Joseph Roach’s edited volume, Critical disciplinary, social sciences–based branch of
Theory and Performance (1992), is insightful the field, and Richard Schechner, an experi­
about the peculiar status of theatre studies mental theatre director working actively since
as a discipline; performance scholarship, the the 60s, and a long-standing faculty member in
editors note, has always crossed institu­ NYU’s performance studies department, his­
tional disciplinary lines. Yet theatre scholar­ torically has been one of its preeminent spokes­
ship belongs to a particular tradition,3 one that people. At a conference of the Association
Reinelt and Roach recall has had a long for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE) in
history of theoretical speculation, now bol­ the mid-1990s, and in a “Comment” in The
stered by the interest in critical theory across Drama Review (TDR) he published shortly
the academy. “Ironically,” Reinelt and Roach after, Schechner argued that professional the­
write, atre training programs sell “snake oil” to
students, and that they should be dismantled so
the history of the discipline of theatre studies that theatre can return to the humanities (and
is one of fighting for autonomy from English social sciences) through performance studies,
and Speech departments, insisting on a kind in all its cultural variety (see Schechner, 1992,
of separation from other areas of study. It
was necessary, politically necessary, to claim
1995).4 Essentially, he was arguing that so-
this distinctiveness, even at the expense of called “professional theatre training pro­
becoming somewhat insular and hermetic— grams,” or any program that purports to
a result that unfortunately became true of prepare young students for a theatre industry
many departments of theatre. Now, how­ in which they can hardly make a living, is
ever, it is even more necessary to recognize
offering a corrupt sense of possibility, and
and insist on the interdependency of a related
series of disciplines and also on the role of training undergraduates for a future that
performance in the production of culture in doesn’t exist.
its widest sense. (Reinelt & Roach, p. 5; see Schechner’s comments, and a slowly build­
also Bottoms, 2003; Jackson, 2004) ing consensus among some scholars in the
professional organizations that theatre studies
The field of performance studies has come could well be amplified by a broader attention
to encompass this broader approach to cul­ to performance, led to various public debates
tural production. about the relationship between the two fields.
While theatre studies traces its genealogy That debate saw the establishment of a perfor­
through speech departments that once focused mance studies focus group in ATHE, which
on the oral interpretation of literature, as well eventually led to the formation of Performance
as English departments that focus on dra­ Studies international (PSi) as a freestanding
matic literature, performance studies has also professional organization. In addition, perfor­
branched off from several different genres of mance studies divisions or subgroups have
academic study. One prevalent form of perfor­ been established in the National Communica­
mance studies incurs an equal debt to the trans­ tions Association and in the American Studies
formation of texts from page to stage in speech Association, and the field has come to influ­
departments, while another grounds itself in ence more and more the direction of work pre­
methods and theory borrowed from literary sented in the relatively august Drama Division
criticism, folklore, social science, and the of the Modern Languages Association. This
study of popular culture and performance in infiltration of the professional organizations,
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512 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

which provide important venues for visionary central to their communities, as well as an
work and its distribution, has had a large arena for gaining visibility and staging their
impact on the visibility of performance studies identity” (p. 187). Performance not only
in theatre departments around the country, broadened what I could study, but it helped
and has changed the status of “drama” as a me understand how feminism could profit
genre study in English departments. from thinking through performance as an
I was a graduate student at New York embodied relationship to history and to
University just after it had converted its gradu­ power. The notion of performance could let
ate drama department into the Department me find Dick Hebdige’s book Subculture: The
of Performance Studies in 1981. I originally Meanings of Style (1979), and use it to theo­
returned to grad school because I wanted a rize about lesbian erotics and style as a per­
supportive intellectual context in which to formance of resistance. I charted my own
think about feminist theatre criticism. I had an itinerary through my own desires and, through
activist artistic agenda that the feminist politi­ performance studies, helped establish for
cal community in which I then lived in Boston myself an embodied relationship to poststruc­
wouldn’t support, so I decided to see how the turalist theory, which was just beginning to be
academy might facilitate and nourish my think­ applied in feminism.
ing. As I learned more about performance stud­ Through poststructuralism, I escaped from
ies, it appeared that although I hardly knew the essentialisms of some forms of feminism
what I was getting into, I’d made the right that promoted strict and rather conservative
choice. In performance studies, I’d landed in a understandings of gender, race, and sexuality
program that was proud of its resistance to tra­ as innate; I moved outside the hegemony of
ditional modes of knowledge, and that wanted authorship into an understanding of perfor­
to give students the tools to produce knowl­ mance and theatre as “readerly” texts open to
edge differently, through popular culture stud­ multiple interpretations, which I found very
ies, interculturalism, and folklore. Performance helpful politically in making my arguments;
Studies was nonconventional enough to enable and I freed myself from searching for “true”
feminism to carve out a niche there, which was politics to assert against the dominant, hege­
important to my own nascent interest in femi­ monic “truths” from which I thought theatre
nist criticism and theory.5 The notion of per­ and performance could dissent. Although I
formance could accommodate the marginalized later came to reassert some of the values that
productions of women’s theatre. It offered poststructuralist criticism and theory taught
methods through which to account for women me to suspect (such as the usefulness of meta­
creating texts of their bodies and their lives, physics and notions of truth), when I first
whether as mimes in front of Greek theatres, applied poststructuralist ideas to my research
or in upper-middle-class salons. A performance on feminist performance, I found that they
paradigm helped analyze these women’s rejec­ revolutionized my thinking in performance
tion of public architecture, which was in any studies.
case out of their reach, to create new meanings When I confronted a class of students as
in private spaces in which they wielded some a first-time teacher in the School of Drama at
power. the University of Washington in 1987, I had to
As Dwight Conquergood (1991) notes, explain my training in performance studies,
“Particularly for poor and marginalized and entice students to go with me as we
people denied access to middle-class ‘public’ revised the frame of reference through which
forums, cultural performance becomes the to look at theatre. My performance studies
venue for ‘public discussion’ of vital issues education let me persuade them that the plays
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 513

we read extended well outside the classroom, ways in which theatre is viewed in the
that they were artifacts of culture (what James academy too often restrict it to something
Clifford calls “survivals”) that needed to be precious, or expensive, or irrelevant; the divide
engaged, studied, and contested to figure between theory and practice in our departments
out what they might tell us about how we live, tends to work against a more broad-based com­
but more importantly, how we might live mitment to performance as a public cultural
(Clifford, 1993, p. 68). I encouraged students practice; and American culture still predomi­
to stage cross-gendered versions of scenes nantly views theatre as “entertainment,” rather
from the canon in my play analysis class. We than as an important site of social understand­
delighted in the fact that gender was a perfor­ ing and political coalition-building.
mative practice (although we didn’t have that For example, when I chaired the Depart­
language then) that was part of our perfor­ ment of Theatre and Drama at the University
mances. Feminism brought me to an embodied of Wisconsin–Madison in the mid-1990s,
approach to learning for which performance bemused administrators tolerated my impas­
offered a strategy. Using performance in the sioned explanations of our work in theatre
classroom became a different epistemology, a studies, but never appeared to take our depart­
way of knowing not just our selves, but also ment seriously. Our productions seemed
the world. Performance studies refused to pale imitations of work they hoped to see in
privilege the text, and connected theatre and New York, the real center of what they under­
performance as what Schechner calls “restored stood as theatre production.6 Our scholarship
behavior” (Schechner, 1985; see also Carlson, seemed odd in its interdisciplinarity; I recall
1996; Schechner, 1988). These ideas invigo­ the Dean of Graduate Studies, as I was trying
rated my interventions into a more traditional to impress upon him the connections theatre
theatre studies curriculum, and the classroom studies has made with a number of different
became a new site of my feminist activism fields, asking why we needed to work in a the­
around gender and representation. atre department. As Marvin Carlson (1992)
has written, we have to be able to “say clearly
what distinguishes theatre history from [other
USING PERFORMANCE STUDIES TO
histories],” or the “university administrators,
REINVIGORATE THEATRE STUDIES
legislators, or funding agencies . . . may . . .
AND PRODUCTION PROGRAMS
begin to wonder why our activity cannot be as
I needed a politicized performance paradigm easily taken care of by one or several of these
to generate ways of looking at theatre that other disciplines” (p. 92). The very interdisci­
aren’t gilded with the rhetoric of highbrow plinarity that’s invigorating the field could
culture, and with what Lawrence Levine endanger it within universities and colleges
(1998) calls its missionary attitude toward always looking to streamline their administra­
saving or guarding itself against an “uncivi­ tive and academic structures.
lized” public. I wanted to help find rationales At the City University of New York
for theatre studies and performance in the Graduate Center, where I chaired the PhD pro­
academy and in culture that aren’t about how gram in the late 1990s, I was impressed that,
they rescue people from degeneracy, but that this being New York, people presumed they
clearly and forcefully articulate tools for cul­ knew what it was we did in the Theatre
tural intervention, ways of engaging and Program. They still couldn’t quite grasp that
thinking about social relations as we know ours was a solely academic study of theatre, and
them and as they could be. This remains a turned to us occasionally for cheap entertain­
continuing struggle for several reasons: The ments. One year Carlson, my colleague at
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514 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

CUNY, was irate during the student demon­ and work and modes of production, academic
strations against the budget cuts when he was theatre practice often aspires to imitate “real
asked if the Program could put together some theatre” that happens elsewhere and strives to
sketches, or something dramatic that might be replicate the high-art, elite centers of produc­
effective on the streets. I had mixed responses tion that progressive cultural critics, often
to this request. On the one hand, I agreed with in their own departments, are simultaneously
Carlson that we have to educate our institu­ challenging. Preprofessional BFA and MFA
tional colleagues against the notion that our programs often virulently insist on unexamined
labor is simply available to throw together skits. discourses of high-art elitism, as they prepare
On the other hand, following more of a perfor­ students to enter what is described monolithi­
mance studies itinerary through this anecdote, cally as “the profession.” And as Roach (1999)
I do think it would have been interesting to has suggested, even the architecture of theatre
encourage our students and faculty to work buildings tends to separate our departments
with the protesters to integrate performance from the rest of the campus, removing theatre
into their activist strategies. For the Theatre to sometimes isolated locations with ample
Program to be perceived in this new way would parking and room to build shops, fly lofts,
require a different kind of institutional educat­ and large auditoriums (pp. 3–10).
ing.7 How can we offer what we know to Some departments, working through the
student demonstrators and striking workers, to challenges of identity politics, have built cur­
people without large public forums to share riculum and created production projects to
what they know, through performance? How challenge traditional understandings of theatre
can we offer performance as a tool that can be as an art, and have immersed their students in
embraced and harnessed toward exactly that performance as an art practice with multiple
kind of public educational process, a process of articulations in the sociopolitical world.8 But
difficult social change? Implicit here is a ratio­ the theory/practice split that rends the field has
nale for theatre and performance that extends allowed many production programs to con­
well beyond the academy. tinue to describe the actor, especially, as out­
Theatre studies is in a unique position to side of history, as objective, empirical, inspired
experiment with the construction of knowledge not by context but by genius and canonical
and new ways of learning, precisely because knowledge. As a result, these departments are
many of its departments include production often considered naive or irrelevant to the
components that can embody the questions of larger intellectual project of the university or
content, context, theory, and history raised by college. Theatre departments generally haven’t
its scholars. Through a performance studies done very well at teaching new models for
model, we can think of performance as how to be artists.9
research, as part and parcel of the ideas we Theatre scholar Sandra Richards (1995)
have to offer to the store of knowledge. Yet says that “given the evanescence of theatre,
there remains something fundamentally divi­ and its insistence upon subjectivity as part of
sive in how theatre departments are structured, its methodological approach, academics from
carefully mixing and matching and sometimes other disciplines all too often view the schol­
blending practice and intellectual work rather arly validity of drama departments with vary­
than premising both on the other. The conven­ ing degrees of skepticism; that ambiguity,” she
tions of theatre training too often jealously goes on, “reproduces itself within departments
guard the theory/practice split that hobbles our as a contentious divide between practitioners
field. Caught up in still romantic notions of and scholars, such that each group jostles to
artistry as unthought, as unmediated by choice privilege its mode of activity, and the insights
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 515

of one often do not inform those of the other” survive in academic institutions that are now
(p. 67). To counter this unproductive standoff, economically motivated, and they must be
Richards considers herself as a “critic working responsible for training their students toward
in theatre . . . whose directing constitutes a some sort of financially viable future. But how
critical praxis addressed to a non-professional can faculty more responsibly train theatre
audience, and whose subsequent writing to an majors to think of their skills as critical tools,
academic audience is partially shaped by those rather than encouraging their students’ fan­
experiences” (p. 69). Such a dialectical move­ tasies about their future stardom, inspired by
ment keeps Richards from foundering in an an excessive American culture of celebrity?
unproductive debate. How can faculty persuade students that theatre
Production could come to mean something degrees might make them employable later, or
much more vital in theatre departments and that a thoughtful use of their degrees can mean
the communities in which they’re located. more, personally and politically, especially
Rather than succumb to the marketplace pres­ when they’re young, than secure employment
sures of theatre, film, and television for which prospects? It sounds excessively privileged to
they’re grooming some students, university suggest that an arts education is more impor­
theatres could take more risks, producing texts tant than a livelihood. But faculty committed
that might share with the academic and public to the arts know that they can offer important
communities something new about theatre, ways of structuring identity, of seeing the
and about people’s contemporary situation in world critically, of thinking about and experi­
culture. Too often, university theatres fail to menting with social relations and their poten­
use their resources to introduce their faculty tial. Such critical and social thinking should be
and students and others to a new writer, a new a vital part of any student’s education.
performance style, a new issue or identity in
the space of their stages. Rather than employ­
STAGING THE ARGUMENTS
ing a pedagogical model of theatre production
IN THEATRE STUDIES
and practice, they adopt the market strategies
of the industry they seek to emulate. The In addition to focusing the ways we teach
Broadway productions they replicate are more theory and practice on their potential use in a
and more driven by market research, by audi­ wider social world, theatre and performance
ence surveys that determine the structure, studies are ideal places to engage public
shape, and narratives of mainstream product debate through the methods of performance.
(Kakutani, 1998, p. 26). The cultural capital Theatre studies might use performance and
of seeing a Broadway show and reproducing it the built environment in which our depart­
in a university theatre builds intellectual capi­ ments are housed to engage students with the
tal in theatre departments. But shouldn’t uni­ larger world, encouraging them to be not only
versity theatres reach higher than that, and scholar/artists but citizen/scholar/artists, not
try to create performances that reach deeper, to participate in unselfreflexive nationalism
intellectually, artistically, and even spiritually? but to use art and research, aesthetics and
Theatre departments, of course, are hardly intellect to participate in a civic conversation
free from the market pressures that influence about what “America” is and what it does.
their students. The circulation of academic, cul­ Such a vision of the university, in which vari­
tural, and financial capital drives their teaching ous constituencies might cooperate to find a
and their research and the productions they common social voice or political vision, has
select for their seasons in one way or another long made conservatives fearful, perhaps
(Bourdieu, 1984). Departments need majors to partly because such an activist intellectual
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516 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

environment would clearly contribute to participants in that argument rather than

shaping public life. Carol Stabile (1995), in passive spectators” (pp. 210, 212).
fact, argues that the “culture wars” and the Actually staging arguments in theatre
debates about political correctness that have studies would make faculty and students
long divided college campuses were engi­ more self-conscious of the public, progressive
neered by the first Bush administration during possibilities of theatre and performance. A
the Gulf War as a way to contain campus good example of such a staging occurred in
protests against this conflict and to manufac­ fall 1996, when white, Harvard/American
ture consent (pp. 108–125).10 Whether or not Repertory Theatre–based New Republic critic
one agrees with Stabile, the culture wars have Robert Brustein and the noted, often-
succeeded, to a certain extent, in isolating produced African-American playwright August
progressive academics by making them Wilson waged their own battle over universal
appear doctrinaire and ridiculous (Gitlin, versus particular knowledge, identity politics,
1995; see also Rorty, 1998). Conservative and ways that theatre might engage with
rhetoric about political correctness has made deeply contentious cultural issues. In the pages
progressives seem against a democratic notion of the trade magazine American Theatre,
of human community and for the “special Wilson argued that African-American plays
interests” that have been disparaged in public should not be produced by white theatres, and
culture in recent legislative initiatives against spoke against color-blind and cross-race cast­
gays and lesbians, against affirmative action, ing. Wilson’s argument, though persuasive in
and against welfare. The very identity politics some respects, was an essentialist and mod­
that have opened up our field remain threat­ ernist vision of identity politics. But Brustein’s
ening to a government that retains a vested universalist, blindly humanist response sug­
interest in supporting a powerful, “unmarked” gested that art conquers difference, which
elite (Phelan, 1993). makes attention to the specifics of identity irrel­
The terms of scholars’ work need to change evant. In a later issue of American Theatre,
to connect more directly to a diverse public. Patti Hartigan, a cultural reporter from
Henry Giroux, for example, argues that liter­ Boston, suggested that Brustein and Wilson
acy has to be reconceptualized as a critical cul­ should give their debate over to African-
tural practice in which students become agents American performer/playwright Anna Deavere
of their own lives by learning to understand Smith to stage as a polemical performance in
the representational practices through which the style of her On the Road pieces. Smith,
they’re often excluded. “This is not merely Hartigan suggested, could perform it for
about who speaks and under what condi­ Brustein and Wilson and the theatre commu­
tions,” he writes. “It is about seeing the uni­ nity, investigating its ideologies and its implica­
versity as an important site of struggle over tions much as she did for Crown Heights
regimes of representation and over ownership and East LA. (Smith, 1994; see also Smith,
of the very conditions of knowledge produc­ 1997; Smith, 2004). Through performance,
tion” (Giroux, 1995, p. 249). Gregory Jay and this debate about the meaning of theatre, and
Gerald Graff (1995) suggest that rather than how it structures representations of our cul­
trying to resolve them, we should “teach the ture, might enter the lives and imaginations of
conflicts. . . . The ‘politicized’ university . . . a much larger community. Theatre people,
would look to turn the campus into . . . a com­ Hartigan implied, should assume responsibility
munity where empowered citizens argue as public intellectuals and make our work
together about the future of their society, accessible and relevant to a broad public
and in so doing help students become active audience.
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 517

In fact, in January 1997, Smith moderated rights, immigration and welfare, or even about
a public debate between Brustein and Wilson the ways in which academic courses and
at Town Hall in New York City. Sponsored productions create knowledge in theatre and
and organized by Theatre Communications performance studies?
Group, the sold-out event was one of the high Another productive example of such public
points of the season, attracting a more ethni­ debate was staged at the ATHE conference
cally and generationally diverse audience than in 1998, when the organization’s Advocacy
typically appears for theatre productions in Committee programmed a plenary session on
midtown Manhattan (Grimes, 1997, p. C9). arts funding called “Showdown on the Arts in
The theatre buzzed with interest and excite­ San Antonio.” The debate was prompted by the
ment; people felt each other’s presence as a city council’s decision to cut the local arts bud­
necessary anchor. The liveness of the moment, get by 15 percent, and to deny funding com­
and the investment in a very material commit­ pletely to the Esperanza Peace and Justice
ment to a theatre community our presence rep­ Center, one of the city’s most progressive pro­
resented, buoyed the spirits of the people in ducing organizations for the Latino and gay
the large, cold hall. The evening was con­ and lesbian communities. The city’s defunding
tentious and the power dynamics disconcert­ of Esperanza was widely seen as political—in
ing, as Brustein and Wilson refused to cede fact, one of the city council members, who
ground to each other’s arguments. Despite attended the ATHE panel, stood up in the audi­
Smith’s mediating presence, the debate framed ence to identify himself and to wave a flyer for
poles of power in contemporary theatre, and Esperanza’s gay and lesbian film festival
still managed to leave out a wide spectrum of as “evidence” of the organization’s depravity.
work and invested viewpoints. Many of the Although he was in the minority in the mostly
people attending were theatre-makers in their liberal crowd, the panel framed various sides in
own right, who were discouraged from speak­ the contentious local struggle and extended the
ing publicly into the forum, making the questions raised into the national arena. The
evening two separate monologues instead of a panelists disagreed vocally, and the audience
true public forum about race and theatre in lined up at microphones in the house to partic­
America. Smith read questions solicited from ipate in the debate. The event proved one of the
the audience in the second half of the evening, most stimulating hours at the conference and
but Brustein and Wilson’s responses only inspired much heated discussion that continued
demonstrated the multiple layers of issues through the meetings. The plenary was an
involved, rather than profitably untangling example of a more effective town hall meeting
them to clarify, and the audience often than the one that was actually held at Town
groaned in frustration when either of the two Hall between Brustein and Wilson in
men would drastically miss the point. And New York. That is, the ATHE event allowed
although the evening focused on race, both everyone who came to line up at the micro­
men displayed blind spots when confronted phones strategically placed in the house so that
with gender or sexuality issues. Still, the event they, too, could have a turn to speak into the
was invigorating and moving, a heartening public forum. The variety of comments, and the
demonstration of how much people care vehemence and urgency with which they were
about theatre. Why don’t theatre departments delivered, were themselves highly performative;
and performance studies departments open the whole event was a wonderful example of
their theatres to just this sort of debate, about performance in the public sphere.11 Why
racial issues, gender issues, sexuality issues, shouldn’t theatre faculty teach these and other
about affirmative action, gay/lesbian civil conflicts, so that faculty and students can
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518 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

assume the moral accountability that publicly situate the very complicated politics of
engaging difficult debate requires? Wouldn’t it Rebecca Gilman’s play, Boy Gets Girl, think­
be exciting, relevant, and educationally stimu­ ing of a university theatre department as the
lating to regularly program town hall meetings site of its production and anticipating that its
in our departments for our students and for very complicated sexual politics would need
our community? Shouldn’t there be contentious some interrogation to escape the incipient
talkbacks after every performance that raise sexism of the piece.
important issues about the production and how Another student staged a reading of a cut
it relates to our lives? For example, theatre fac­ from Naomi Wallace’s play In the Heart of
ulty might make their decisions about season America for the occasion of a conference on
selection open to faculty, students, and a wide human rights at the UT law school, and
public, who would discuss the kinds of plays another described a performance of A Song
that might be produced and why, taking into of Greenwood, which premiered in 1998
consideration the new knowledge and aesthetic and was remounted in 2001 in honor of
values they might share and with whom. They the anniversary of the Tulsa race riots in
might sponsor debates about curriculum with Oklahoma, describing, in the process, the
students, faculty, and staff from theatre and movement of history across these two public
other departments, which could address how to events. Another student wrote to Austin’s
balance new knowledge with canonical knowl­ local weekly newspaper, suggesting a new
edge. They might explain the decisions they mode of arts reviewing in which “critic col­
make as teachers and administrators about why leagues” would engage each other’s work
they teach what and how they do, so that their without the presumption of objectivity that
choices are historicized and contextual. too often limits the local dialogue about what
In a graduate seminar I teach at the the arts are and how they function in our com­
University of Texas at Austin, under the aus­ munity. Another student practiced for her
pices of the MA/PhD program’s emphasis in colleagues portions of a site-specific, traveling
performance as public practice, we investigate performance that eventually took us all out
what it means to be a public intellectual in the into the streets of a local Austin neighborhood
arts, trying to find ways to make our intellec­ where we watched, as spectators moving and
tual and artistic practices relevant to a wider moved, an elegiac public performance that
public constituency that might follow or referred to losses we all incurred on 9/11. All
extend the town hall format. Students in this of these projects and more exemplified the
seminar have practiced these skills by pro­ possibility for widening the public discussion
ducing speculative dramaturgical and critical of local arts practices, and for embedding
and creative work that allows them to prac­ those practices in larger discussions about
tice methods for centering performance pressing social issues.12
in public debate and discourse. One student,
for example, wrote an article for the UT
RADICAL HUMANISM AND
student newspaper that contextualized an
SITUATED UTOPIA AS THE
upcoming production of Wendy Kesselman’s
POTENTIAL OF PERFORMANCE
play My Sister in This House in the complex
history of the real events on which it’s based, After nearly twenty years of progressive schol­
arguing that the UT Department of Theatre ars using identity politics to open up the
and Dance productions could be made more sphere of discovery in the field, at the begin­
vital for the wider UT student population. ning of the twenty-first century, we seem
Another pair of students offered ways to poised to reembrace a more radical humanism,
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 519

one infused with the lessons about difference that looks at performance as a public practice,
so useful to questioning the historically white, and concentrates on what it can do in the
male canon. That is, the way we are subjects, larger world.
or people in the world, is more complex now As I’ve demonstrated throughout this
than ever. Our identities are less coherent; we essay, one of my primary goals is to train my
see ourselves not just through one identity cat­ students to use performance as a tool for mak­
egory (immigrant, African-American, lesbian, ing the world better, to use performance to
Jew), but through several simultaneously. As a incite people to profound responses that shake
result, how we identify within communities is their consciousness of themselves in the world.
also more and more complex. Theatre produc­ Perhaps this is a utopian belief, the idea that
ing organizations often try to appeal through theatre can do any of those things. Yet that’s
identity categories to spectators who are actu­ the depth of reaction for which I long when
ally linked by geography or by desires that I go to the theatre—I don’t think we should
transcend the specifics of identity—they might expect anything less. Theatre remains, for me,
live near the theatre, or they might share a a space of desire, of longing, of loss, in which
common desire to attend the theatre, to see I’m moved by a gesture, a word, a glance, in
how it might speak to them, inspire them, and which I’m startled by a confrontation with
teach them something about their lives. Who mortality (my own and others’). I go to theatre
they are can’t be captured in simple categories, and performance to hear stories that order,
and what they do with performance—how for a moment, my incoherent longings, that
they engage it and use it in their lives—is much engage the complexity of personal and cultural
more complex (Wolf, 1998, pp. 7–23). As a relationships, and that critique the assump­
result, the idea of doing an “African-American tions of a social system I find sorely lacking.
play,” or an “Asian-American play,” simply to I want a lot from theatre and performance.
appeal to those presumptively clear identities, I’ve argued here for the ways in which the­
even in a theatre with a mixed-race popula­ atre studies in the academy might be engaged
tion, is rather ludicrous, as the category is as a site of progressive social and cultural prac­
much too simplistic and too narrowly identity- tice. I urge students to be advocates for the arts,
based to be meaningful. Likewise, it’s become to be theatre-makers committed to creating
more and more difficult to teach courses about performances of insight and compassion, and
only one area of identity, like “gender” or to become spectators who go to see perfor­
“race,” and much more important to find mance because they want to learn something
ways to teach all the vectors of identity as about their culture that extends beyond them­
mutually influencing our theatre and perfor­ selves and the present circumstances of our
mance practice and reception. I find that common humanity (Dolan, 2001a). I’ve argued
when I combine all the terms of identity into that theatre and performance create citizens
a course syllabus, other themes sometimes and engage democracy as a participatory
become more pressing and apparent. Consider­ forum in which ideas and possibilities for social
ations of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, equity and justice are shared, and I’ve sug­
and the other categories of identity are urgent gested how we might reimagine theatre studies
in the work my students and I study, but often, programs to meet these goals. The final
our materials are organized around issues thought of this essay takes the same beliefs, the
like contemporary production practice more same faith in theatre’s transformative impact
generally, or around a question like what it on how we imagine ourselves in culture, and
means to be a public intellectual in the arts. applies it more closely to performance itself.
More and more, I’m interested in pedagogy While I’m still addressing the ways in which
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520 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

theatre and performance studies promote contribute to the making of culture. Such
citizenship and subjectivity, I’d like to end by desire to be part of the intense present of per­
imagining how a commitment to theatre and formance offers us if not expressly political,
performance as transformational cultural prac­ then usefully emotional, expressions of what
tices might offer us, in fact, glimpses of utopia. utopia might feel like.
As theatre and performance scholars and Seen through the lens of performance, the
practitioners, we might revel in what Peggy possibility for utopia doesn’t only happen
Phelan (1993) calls the nonreproductive when the lights go down and the “play”
capacity of performance, while arguing that its begins. I’ve argued in this essay for the impor­
ephemerality is partly what helps it build com­ tance of considering production, and the
munity. And as performance scholar Diana “backstage” work of performance, as equally
Taylor (2003) argues, despite its ephemerality, important sites of inquiry into how identities
performance also offers an archive of human are constructed, rewarded, made visible, and
experience, and a repertoire of cultural prac­ understood. Extending this investigation into
tices on which we can rely to ground our the possibility for utopia, for instance, might
histories and build our futures. How can let us see rehearsals as a place to practice not
performance, in itself, be a utopian gesture? only the performance at hand. Director Anne
Why do people come together to watch other Bogart, in fact, says, “I often see my rehearsal
people labor on stage, when contemporary situation as utopian. Rehearsal is a possibility
culture solicits their attention with myriad for the values I believe in, the politics I believe
other forms of representation and opportuni­ in, to exist in a set universe which is within
ties for social gathering? Why do people con­ the room” (Bogart, 1995, p. 182). She suggests
tinue to seek the liveness, the present-tenseness that rehearsals are the moment of utopian
that performance and theatre offer? Is the expression in theatre, when a group of people
desire to be there, in the moment, an expres­ repeat and revise incremental moments, trying
sion of a utopian impulse? I believe that people to get them right, to get them to “work.”
are often drawn to attend live theatre and per­ Anyone who considers herself a theatre person
formance for emotional, spiritual, or commu­ knows when something “works”—it’s when
nitarian reasons. Desire, perhaps, compels us the magic of theatre appears, when the pace,
there, whether to the stark, ascetic “spaces” the expression, the gesture, the emotion, the
that house performance art, or to the aging light, the sound, the relationship between
opulence of Broadway houses, or to the ser­ actor and actor, and actors and spectators,
viceable aesthetics of regional theatres.13 all meld into something alchemical, something
Audiences are compelled to gather with nearly perfect in how it communicates in that
others, to see people perform live, hoping, instance. We all rehearse for the moments that
perhaps, for moments of transformation that work, and critics look out for them, when
might let them reconsider and change the they’re still idealistic enough to believe in
world outside the theatre, from its macro to its them. Through an itinerary of performance,
micro arrangements. Perhaps part of the desire we can enlarge the potential territory in which
to attend theatre and performance is to reach something might “work” to the social frame
for something better, for new ideas about how of performance and look more widely for a
to be and how to be with each other. I believe glimpse of utopia (see Schechner, 1988).
that theatre and performance can articulate a I’ve been moved by the palpable energy that
common future, one that’s more just and equi­ performances that “work” generate; I’ve felt
table, one in which we can all participate more the magic of theatre; and I’ve witnessed the
equally, with more chances to live fully and potential of the temporary communities
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 521

formed when groups of people gather to see largely specific to, a given mode of cultural
other people labor in present, continuous production” (p. 18).17 These feelings and sensi­
time, time in which something can always bilities, in performance, give rise to what I’m
go wrong.14 Surely any gathering can promote calling the “utopian performative.” In many
community. But Herb Blau (1982) once said ways, utopian performatives gesture toward
that watching live performance is watching the my own desire to knit together performativity
actor dying onstage; I think sharing that live- and performance, bringing real performance
ness promotes a necessary and moving con­ to the site of so much invigorating theoretical
frontation with mortality.15 The actor’s willing discourse. Borrowing from J. L. Austin (1962),
vulnerability perhaps enables our own and utopian performatives describe moments which,
prompts us toward compassion and greater through their doing, allow audiences to experi­
understanding. Such sentiments can spur ence, for a moment, a sense of what utopia
emotion, and being moved emotionally is would feel like were the claims of social justice
a necessary precursor to political movement movements realized.
(see Cohen, 1991, pp. 84–85). Anna Deavere A utopian performative is like a Brechtian
Smith (1995) says, “The utopian theatre gestus; it represents, in a crystalline moment
would long for flesh, blood, and breathing. It of performance, an understanding of social
would be hopelessly old-fashioned in a techni­ relationships full of potential, full of warmth,
cal world, hopelessly interested in presence, desire, caring, and love. Utopian performatives
hopelessly interested in modes of communica­ sometimes derive from a kind of performed
tion requiring human beings to be in the same romanticism found, for example, in solo
room at the same time” (pp. 50–51). By cling­ performances by Peggy Shaw or Deb Margolin
ing to the fleshy seductions of old-fashioned (see Dolan, 2001b, 2003). Romanticism is an
primal emotion and presence, Smith’s work affective address that, like love, has been per­
spurs political action by reminding us, perhaps, haps banished too long from our discussions
that however differently we live, our common, of performance or research (see Domínguez,
flesh-full cause is that in performance, we’re 2000).18 Dyer notes, “Romanticism is a partic­
dying together. ularly paradoxical quality of art to come to
Theatre can move us toward understanding terms with. Its passion and intensity embody or
the possibility of something better, can train create an experience that negates the dreariness
our imaginations, inspire our dreams, and fuel of the mundane and everyday. It gives us a
our desires in ways that might lead to incre­ glimpse of what it means to live at the height of
mental cultural change.16 My concern here our emotional and our experiential capaci­
is not with the content of performance—not ties—not dragged down by the banality of
necessarily with plots or narratives that address organized routine life” (Dyer, 1995, p. 413).
utopia, but with how utopia can be imagined This intense, utopian romanticism is what cre­
or experienced affectively, through feelings, in ates those moments of magic and communion
small, incremental moments that performance in performance that I’m calling utopian perfor­
can provide. As Richard Dyer (1992) says, matives; they lift us from our more prosaic
“Entertainment does not . . . present models of lives, into an almost exalted sense of what life
utopian worlds. . . . Rather the utopianism is could be like, if we lived the “what if” instead
contained in the feelings it embodies. It pre­ of the “as is.”19
sents . . . what utopia would feel like rather Anthropologist Victor Turner’s (1982)
than how it would be organized. It thus works notion of “communitas” in social drama very
at the level of sensibility, by which I mean an much describes what I’m calling utopian
affective code that is characteristic of, and performativity in performance. He says,
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522 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

“Spontaneous communitas is ‘a direct, immedi­ perfect. But I believe in the politically progres­
ate and total confrontation of human identi­ sive possibilities of romanticism in perfor­
ties,’ a deep rather than intense style of personal mance, what Dyer (1992) calls “the intensity
interaction. ‘It has something “magical” about of fleeting emotional contacts . . . and the
it. Subjectively there is in it a feeling of endless exquisite pain of [their] passing” (p. 413). I
power.’” Turner asks, “Is there any of us who believe that in performance, we can achieve
has not known this moment when compatible moments of spontaneous communitas, which
people—friends, congeners—obtain a flash of Turner (1982) says “is sometimes a matter
lucid mutual understanding on the existential of ‘grace’” (p. 58). “Communitas,” he says,
level, when they feel that all problems, not just “tends to be inclusive—some might call it gen­
their problems, could be resolved, whether erous” (p. 51). This, for me, is the beginning
emotional or cognitive, if only the group which (and perhaps the substance) of the utopian
is felt (in the first person) as ‘essentially us’ performative: in the performer’s grace, in the
could sustain its intersubjective illumination?” audience’s generosity, in the lucid power of
(Turner, 1982, pp. 47–48). These moments of intersubjective understanding, however fleet­
communitas offer springboards to utopia. ing. These are the moments when we can
I’ve also argued, earlier in this essay, the believe in utopia. These are the moments
importance of teaching students to be critical, theatre and performance make possible.20
engaged citizen/scholar/artists, people who can
bring their passion to spectatorship just as
easily as they can to their artistry. I was struck NOTES
recently, teaching a class of graduating senior 1. This essay was adapted and rewritten
theatre majors, how rarely some of them even from the author’s book Geographies of Learning
go to see theatre or performance, and realized (2001a) and her article in Theatre Journal
how important it was for me, as one of their (2001b).
last instructors, to instill a sense of commit­ 2. She made this remark as an audience
member at an ATHE conference panel in 1998
ment to our mutual artistic pursuits. As per­ on emerging scholarship and institutional issues
formance scholars and students, one of our in the field. This panel took place on 14 August
primary goals should be creating a new gener­ 1998. Panelists included Shannon Jackson, Jay
ation of passionate spectators, who’ll become Plum, and Stacy Wolf, and I moderated.
the new arts advocates and intellectuals, as 3. See some of the essays in Postlewait and
McConachie, particularly Vince, for narratives of
well as the artists. The passion of the audience
theatre scholarship’s “tradition.”
explains why live performance continues; the 4. Schechner (1992) is quoted as saying, “Get
desire to see it, to participate in its world- out of the phony training business and into the
makings persists. People in my generation culture business.” A performance studies focus
must instill such desire in people in the next. I group is now well established in ATHE, and has
been instrumental in the formation of a new asso­
want to perpetuate experiences of utopia in
ciation called Performance Studies international.
the flesh of performance that might performa­ PSi intends to remake the practices of professional
tively hint at how a different world could feel. associations, attempting to resist the typically con­
I know that at the end of a more sober essay servative impulses of institutionalization while it
about the possibilities for institutional change charts new territory in this still growing field.
around the production of theatre and perfor­ 5. Bottoms (2003) raises important questions
about what he sees as the implicit homophobia of
mance knowledge, I’m suddenly risking senti­
performance studies as Schechner espoused it early
ment; I know that community and theatre, like in its development. Although a certain amount of
utopia, can be coercive, that nothing is outside misogyny was also present in the NYU training
of ideology, and that nothing is ever, truly, in the early 1980s, the department as a whole
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The Polemics and Potential of Theatre Studies and Performance 523

still provided a context in which nascent radical by the National Endowment for the Arts for reasons
critiques could flourish. that were egregiously political. For a discussion of
6. For further explanation of the centrality of and bibliography on this aspect of the culture
New York as the scale by which all theatre is mea­ wars, see Dolan 2001a.
sured, university and otherwise, see Wolf, 1994 11. Jaclyn Pryor has kindly pointed out that
and 1998. Esperanza has regular events called platicas, which
7. These misreadings of our program as only are similar to town hall meetings in that they
about entertainment or theatre practice persisted. allow Esperanza to practice civic engagements in
In preparation for the opening of the Graduate large public forums. I’d like to thank her for this
Center’s new building at Thirty-fourth Street and insight.
Fifth Avenue in fall 2000, I was asked to serve on 12. These presentations/performances were by
the “Arc of Celebration” committee. People could- Abigail Self, Elia Nichols and Kim Dilts, Shannon
n’t fathom why I wasn’t interested in encouraging Baley, Kevin Hodges, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, and
students to do some performances to honor this Jaclyn Pryor. Baley and Hodges went on to create
event. My explanation that our program is strictly Living Newspaper performances based on interna­
academic, rather than one in which students act and tional workers’ rights for the “Working Borders”
direct, was completely opaque to my colleagues on Human Rights Conference at the University of
the committee. This seems to me a misunderstand­ Texas at Austin in February 2005. Bonin-
ing of the intellectual, as well as the practical, value Rodriguez, Jaclyn Pryor, and I are now collabo­
of theatre studies. And while, had students been rating on a project of revisionary writing about
interested in performing for the event, that would performance that we call, inspired by Bonin-
have been just fine, the administrators’ presumption Rodriguez, “colleague criticism.” And Pryor’s
was about “entertainment,” not about performance piece became floodlines [sic], her MA thesis at the
as research or social intervention. University of Texas, which was performed in April
8. For instance, the undergraduate program 2004 and remounted in April 2005 as part of the
in theatre at San Francisco State University has a Refraction Arts Fusebox Festival in Austin.
curriculum that encourages the theory and prac­ 13. As Holly Hughes says ironically, “Theater
tice of performance to be applied to activism. And tends to happen in theaters, whereas performance
the Performance as Public Practice emphasis in the art tends to happen in spaces. A theater will be
MA/PhD Program at the University of Texas at defined . . . as somewhere with a stage, some
Austin, which I head, is committed to investigating lights, a box office, a dressing room, head shots,
through scholarship and performance research the and people who know how to run these things. A
ways in which people engage performance as a theater is a place that has been designed for the­
social act with larger political and cultural ramifi­ ater, whereas a space has been designed for some
cations. These two examples offer just a glimpse of other purpose: it’s a gas station, an art gallery,
the kind of more culturally inflected curricula now somebody’s living room, a church basement, and
beginning to appear in theatre and performance it’s always better suited for pancake suppers and
studies departments in the United States. giving oil changes than for performing” (Hughes
9. See Becker, 1996b, for a creative, politi­ 1996, p. 15).
cized, and pragmatic approach to training artists 14. Playwright Sarah Schulman quotes perfor­
in a postmodern era. See also Becker, 1996a, and mance artist Jeff Weiss, who said to her in refer­
Becker, 1994. ence to the AIDS crisis, “We have a moral and
10. The “culture wars” generally refer to a ethical obligation to persist in the living of real (as
public discourse of the late 1980s through the opposed to ‘reel’) time. That is the power of the­
1990s in the United States in which conservative ater. We’re all in this together, at the same time.
commentators accused leftist academics of dogma­ We’re totally engaged in being human together,
tism and “political correctness,” which they sharing the identical instants as our time advances,
defined as a doctrinaire attitude towards social parallel, in unison” (Schulman, 1998, p. 61).
identity (see Gitlin, 1995, for example, and Dolan 15. Blau’s comment is actually, “When we
2001a, for a counterargument). The culture wars speak of what Stanislavski called Presence in act­
also tend to refer to the public funding debates of ing, we must also speak of its Absence, the dimen­
this era, in which, for instance, artists Andres sionality of time through the actor, the fact that he
Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, and queer who is performing can die there in front of your
performance artists Holly Hughes, Tim Miller, eyes; is in fact doing so. Of all the performing arts,
John Fleck, and Karen Finley were denied funding the theater stinks most of mortality” (Blau, 1982,
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524 PERFORMANCE AND POLITICS

p. 83). I’d like to thank Amy Steiger, who The politics of culture: Policy perspectives for
reminded me of the exact quotation by citing it in individuals, institutions and communities (pp.
her MA thesis in the Department of Theatre and 236–246). Washington DC: New Press.
Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, spring Blau, H. (1982). Take up the bodies: Theater at the
2001. vanishing point. Champaign-Urbana: University
16. These ideas, of course, resonate with the of Illinois Press.
important work of Brazilian radical theatre theo­ Boal, A. (1979). Theatre of the oppressed.
rist and practitioner Augusto Boal, who sees the­ New York: Urizen Books.
atre as a “rehearsal for revolution” (Boal 1979). Bogart, A. (1995). Utopia forum. Theater, 26(1/2),
17. See also Jameson, in which he suggests, 182.
“The hypothesis is that the works of mass culture Bottoms, S. (2003). The efficacy/effeminacy braid:
cannot be ideological without at one and the Unpacking the performance studies/theatre
same time being implicitly or explicitly Utopian as studies dichotomy. Theatre Topics, 13(2),
well: they cannot manipulate unless they offer some 173–187.
genuine shred of content as a fantasy bribe to the Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique
public about to be so manipulated” (1979, p. 146). of the judgment of taste (R. Nice, Trans.).
18. Domínguez argues that love and affection Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
have a place in cultural (even in scholarly) dis­ (Original work published 1979)
course. Domínguez is writing specifically to schol­ Brustein, R. (1996). Subsidized separatism.
ars in anthropology, but her comments on the American Theatre, 13(8), 26–27, 100–107.
necessity for love and affection in our discourse Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and
resonate usefully here. See also Sandoval (2000). the subversion of identity. New York:
See also Dolan (2005) for a discussion of German Routledge.
philosopher Ernst Bloch, whose theories of utopia Carlson, M. (1992). Theatre history, methodology,
were quite influenced by romanticism. Bloch’s and distinctive features. Theatre Research
philosophies undergird my ideas here. International, 20(2), 90–96.
19. For a useful discussion of the utopian Carlson, M. (1996). Performance: A critical intro­
implications of exploring the “what if” instead of duction. New York: Routledge.
the “as is,” see Wickstrom and the other essays Clifford, J. (1993). On collecting art and culture.
in the special issue of Modern Drama devoted to In S. During (Ed.), The cultural studies reader
utopian performatives (Dolan, 2004). (pp. 49–73). New York: Routledge.
20. I’d like to thank my research assistant Cohen, E. (1991). Who are “we”? Gay “identity”
Jaclyn Pryor for her perceptive editorial advice as political (e)motion (a theoretical rumination).
and her patience with the mechanics of citation in In D. Fuss (Ed.), Inside/out: Lesbian theories,
preparing this essay for publication. gay theories (pp. 71–92). New York: Routledge.
Conquergood, D. (1991). Rethinking ethnogra­
phy: Towards a critical cultural politics.
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Index

Symbols Agents and Assets, 437

1470’s, gay bar and, 14 AIDS, benefit for, 166
1851 London Great Exhibition, 118 AIDS/HIV treatment, 40
1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Aina, Shirikiana, 490
Penalty Act, 483 Alexander, Bryant K., 175, 182-183, 461
60 Minutes, incarcarated women and, 320 Performance and Pedagogy and, 253-260
Alexie, Sherman, 59
A Alice in Wonderland, 231
“antidiscipline”, mythology of, 217-218 Allen, Gracie, 283-284
A Song of Greenwood, 518 Allen, Wanda Jean, 478
Abrahams, Roger, 200 Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN, 40
Abu Ghraib, 30 criticisms raised by, 41
Abu-Jamal, Mumia, 477 marginalized voices and, 42
Achugar, Luciana, 394 Almighty Voice and His Wife, 327
Active culture, principle of, 434 Alternate ROOTS, 437
Activist curriculum, changing society and, Amateurism, performances of, 15
263-269, Ambling, 292-293
Activist performance, community-based Ambulant pedagogy, 278-293
performance, 429-430 American Anthropological Association, 76
Adams, Don, 431 American Theatre, African-American
Adaptations plays, 516
adapting adaptations and, 241-246 American Whig Review, “On the Use of
as critical pedagogy and, 374-383 Chloroform in Hanging”, 472-473
ethnography and politics of, 366-382 Anderson, Benedict,
institutional spaces and contexts and, 371-374 classical Angkor and, 48
process of Casting and Production Design, Anderson, John, 198, 202
377-379 Anderson, Laurie, 224
process of Rehearsal and Performance, Anderson, T. J., 489
379-381 Angels in America, 271
remembrance and, 381-383 Anna Karenina, 237, 243
“sensuous fidelity” and, 369-374 Annan, Kofi, Global Compact and, 40
Adorno, Thedor, 11 Anti-Slavery Convention of American
Advocacy criticism, 12 Women, 110
Advocate, lesbians on Death Row and, 477 Anticipatory illumination, works
Aeschylus, Oresteia and, 434 of art and, 11
Aesthetics, exploring how art works and, 47 Appadurai, Arjun, commodity and, 56-57
African-American Theatre Ensemble (AATE), 373 Appleby, Joyce, national
Against the Romance of Community, 10 histories and, 68
Agamben, Georgio Appropriating Blackness, 422
“means without and end” and, 11 The Arabian Nights, 232
potentiality and, 10 Archaeology of Knowledge, 76

527
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528 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

The Archive and the Repertoire, 420 dialogism and, 433

Archives, politics of location and, 66-67 represented world and, 54
Aristotle Baldwin, James, 242, 306
definition of good theatre, 214 Ballet, 50-51
potentiality and, 10-11 chronotopic process of, 55
Rhetoric, 194 laws of, 52
Arn, Chorn-Pond, 48 rules for corporeal placement in, 53
Ars Poetica, Horace and, 198 spatial practices and, 56
“Art and Answerability”, 49 Baraka, Amiri, 298, 430, 458-459
The Art of Acting and Public Reading, 197 Barber Theater
The Art of Interpretation, 143 social conditions of, 381
“Articulate Bodies”, 253 Divine Days and, 366
Artificial electrici, movement and, 214 Barfield, Velma, 477
As I Lay Dying, 198, 202 Barthes, Roland, 224
Ashcroft, John, 473, 476, 483 “From Speech to Writing”, 381-382
Association for Theatre in Higher Baryshnikov, Mikhail, 56
Education (ATHE), 76, 511 Basquiat, Jean-Michel, 306
ATHE conference, “Showdown on the Bassett, William, 117
Arts in San Antonio”, 517 Bateson, Gregory, 93
Atlas, Caron, 440 truth functions and, 289-290
Austin, J. L. “Battle in Seattle”, WTO and, 42
definitional heritage of performativity and, 254 Bauman, Richard, 58, 200
How to Do Things with Words, 421 ethnography of communication (EOC), 301
performative speech acts, 36 storytelling and, 3
performatives in, 15 Bearden, Romare, 382
speech utterances and, 6 Beautiful Body: My Journey as a Fatty, 271
utopian performatives and, 521 Beazley, Napoleon, 464
Autobiographical Performance Beck, Julian, 285
conclusions and, 186 Beeman, William, 269
historical performance and, 171-172 Behar, Ruth, 344
identity construction in, 172-186 Bell, Elizabeth, 82, 179
merging of selves and, 174-186 The Belle of Amherst, 172-173, 197
staged personal narrative and, 177-178 Beloved, Toni Morrison and, 496, 504
strategic and aesthetic choices and, 169-186 Bennett, Gordon, 306
Autoethnographer functions, cultural criticism Bennett, Jane, commodity situation and, 57
and, 332-333 Benston, Kimberly, 458
Bergasse, Nicholas, 210
B Bergasse, Nicolas, 215
Bâ, A. Hampaté, 448 Berlin, James, 81
Babcock, Maud May, 195-202 Berry, Cecelie, 43
Bacon, Wallace, 191, 199-202, Bérubé, Michael, 77
236-237, 143, 146-147 Best, Shannon, 97-98, 103
approach to textual study and, 237 Between Theater and Anthropology, 339
art of interpretation and, 207 Bias, definition of, 208
chamber theatre and, 239 Bienen, Leigh, 484
interpretation pedagogy and, 238 Bill Evans Dance Company, 390
Badeau, Adam, 67 Billy Elliot, 56
Bahn, Eugene, 192 bin Laden, Osama, 466
Bahn, Margaret, 192 Bingham, Matthew, 25
Bahti, Mark, sandpainting and, 60 Bisher, Steve, 436
Baker, Don, 441 Bishop, Elizabeth, 202-203
Baker, George Pierce, 80-81 Black Antislavery Critics, 114-117
Bakhtin, Mikhail, 366, 371 Black Arts Movement, 430
chronotope and, 54 Black Arts Repertory Theatre School, 430
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Index 529

Black is . . . Black Ain’t, 422 Breaking the Cycle, 270

Black, Jonathan, 59, 61 Breast cancer, 163-164
Black Panther Party for Self Defense, 302-303 Brecht, Bertolt, 26
Black Performance Studies, 446-461 Mother Courage, 428
as site of resistance, 452-457 stagings of, 423
boundaries of, 457-461 Breen, Robert, 227-228, 234-237
epistemology and, 449-452 abstract psychological relationships and, 238
erasure of, 447-449 auditions for Anna Karenina, 243
Blakesley, David, 26 book adaptations and, 237
Blau, Herb, live performances and, 521 Brisbane, Albert, 218
Blaustein, Susan, 482 Britzman, Deborah, trauma of the Jewish
The Blithedale Romance, 149, 218-220 holocaust and, 491
Bloch, Ernst Brockett, Oscar, 263
anticipatory illumination and, 11 Brody, Jennifer, 461
the ornamental and, 13 Brook Farm, 219-220
Blunt, Catherine, 499 Brooks, Charles, 482
Boal, Augusto, 263-267 “Brown Skin People” poem, 316-319
aesthetic space and, 291 Brown v. Board of Education, 88
city council and, 444 Brown, William Wells, 118
creation of Forum Theatre, 442 Browning, Barbara, 344
critical pedagogical theatre and, 331 techniques of the body, 385-386
Get Up, Stand Up, 271 Bruner, Jerome, 169
Joker System and, 284 Brush and Pencil, 58
metaxis and, 290 Brustein, Robert, New Republic critic, 516
pedagogy and, 278 Burgh, James, 145
Theatre of the Oppressed, 310, Burke, Kenneth, 26, 361
423-Boas, Franz, 389 Burleigh, Margaret, death of, 110
quotidian movement and, 386 Burnham, Li, activist art and, 431
Body, Bush, George W.
as site of knowing and, 352 contrast with father and, 25
techniques of the body, 385-386 executions and, 466, 477
The Body Electric, 220-223 homeland security and, 126
BODY, Movement and Culture, 390 USS Abraham Lincoln and, 27
Bogart, Anne, 520 The Business of Fancydancing, 59
Bogosian, Eric, 170 Butler, Judith
Booth, Edwin, 67 aspects of power and, 26
Boren, David, 482 body and the possibilities of, 280
Bork, Robert, 478 construction of identity and, 46
Boston Courier, anti-slavery society and, 109 crooked nature of signs and, 281
Boston Evening Transcript, minstrel global networks and, 4
shows and, 119 Holocaust and, 49
Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, 109 identity and, 510
Boston New Era, 206 narrative performance and, 156
Botched executions, 480 performative and, 51
Boundaries possibilities of performativity and, 422
performance and ethnography, 355-358 punitive performatives and, 36
rise of performance and, 358-362 speech-act theory and, 254
Bowman, Michael, 149-151, 171-172 By All Means Necessary, 299
literary adaptations and, 239
Bowman, Ruth, 149, 171-172 C
Boy Gets Girl, 518 Cage, Carolyn, 171
Brady, Sara, 431 Caldwell, Ed, 94-97
Brandon, James, death of performers and, 48 Callow, Simon, 235
Brazilian dance, 393-395 Calvino, Italo, 245
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530 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Cameron, Julia, The Artist’s Way, 314 Choreutics, analysis of movement and, 279
Campbell, Jane, 110 Christian Century, lethal injection and, 482
Camus, Albert, 464 Christian, Pam, 173
Canadian Department of Health and Chronotopes
Welfare, 134 formal category and, 55
Canadian Medical Association Journal, temporal relationships and, 54
civil order and, 127 Cima, Gay Gibson, 68-69
Capitein, Jacobus, 503 census labels and, 111-112
Capo, Kay, 173 defining performance history and, 106-108
Capps, Lisa, 157 mid-nineteenth century American women’s
Carey, Alison, 431 performance criticism, 106-123
Carlson, Marvin, 118, 241 women as anti-slavery critics and, 108-110
distinguishing theatre history and, 513 Cities of the Dead, 474
Performance: A Critical Introduction, 368 CIVLOG 64, 128
worker accessibilty and, 438 Clark, Judith, 320
Carnegie Mellon’s School of Fine and Clark, Katerina, chronotopes and, 54
Applied Arts, 75 Clark, VèVè A., 388
Carpenter, Peter, 381 Cleage, Pearl, 242
Divine Days and, 380 A Clean Breast of It, 184, 271
Carpetbag Theatre, 437 The Cleveland Bar Scene in the Forties, 14
Carroll, Lewis, 231 Cleveland, Bishop, sermon and, 451
Carson, Jo, 442 Clifford, James, 341-342
Carver, Heather, 171 non-western historical experience and, 356
Cast of One, 172 “survivals” and, 513
Catch One, 12-13, 20 Clinton, Bill, 327, 477
Cato, Gavin, 342 World Trade Organization and, 42
Cat’s Cradle, 16 Close, Glenn, 320
Cawelti, John, 438 Club Fire and Ice, 11
Divine Days and, 369 Cobley, Paul, 441
CBC broadcasting, 127-128, 131-136 Cocke, Dudley, 441-442
Census labels, slavery and, 111-112 grass roots artists and, 436
Certeau, Michel de, borderlands life and, 357 Code 33, 437
Cervenka, Exene, 9, 13, 19 Cody, Wild Bill, 327
Chaikin, Joseph, 285 Cohen, Sharon, 310
Chamber Theatre, 236 Cold War safety, 69
Chambers, E. K., 234 Cole, Nat King, 489, 505
Chamecki, Rosane, 394 Coleman, Lorraine, 440
The Chameleon Club, 12-14 The Color Line, 441
Chandler, Elizabeth Margaret, 106, 112-113, 117 Color Struck, 458
slave body and, 115 Communication Monographs, 200
Chapman, Maria Weston, 109 critique of, 364
Chatham Street Chapel society, 110 Communitas, ego-dissolution and, 47
Chatman, Seymour, 237 Community-based performance
Chavez, Cesar, 430 activist performance, 429-430
Chekhov Cycle, 246-247 broad participation and, 438-439
Cheney, Dick, 245 expanded notion of art and, 443-444
Chernoff, John, African music and, 300 four principles and, 432-435
Chesney-Lind, Meda, prison reform for hyphenation and, 434
women and, 309 methodologies and, 435-444
Chevigny, Bell Gail, 320 reciprocity and, 432-433
Chicago, Judy, 440 storytelling and, 439-443
Chicago Tribune, McVeigh execution and, 483 CONELRAD stations
The Child That Books Built, 191 civil defense and, 127
Child, Lydia Maria, 114 nuclear war and, 132-135
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Index 531

Connerton, Paul, 48 Critical Race Theory, 333-334

Conquergood, Dwight Critical theory, rethinking ethnography
analogy and, 218 and, 351-364
“black counterpublic readings” and, 448 Critical Theory and Performance, 511
contrast and, 218 Croly, Jane, 119
dramaturgy of executions and, 479-484 Croly, Jane Cunningham, 119
ethnography and, 340 The Crucible, 147
excavation and modes of representation, 367 Cruising Utopia: the Performance and Politics of
folkloric texts and, 155 Queer Futurity, 9
four ethical pitfalls and, 328-329 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, “flow” and, 290
interventionist strategies and, 259 Cullen, Countee, 452, 489
literary history and, 67-68 The Cultural Studies Reader, 342
Madison essay and, 347-350 Cultural performances, polysemic nature of, 361
magical realism of capital punishment and, Cultural Workshop of North Chicago, 241
473-479 Culture as Confrontation: Principles on Cultural
marginalized people and, 512 Policy in 2001-2005, 43-44
narrative performance and, 198 Cumnock, Robert McLean, 230
performance as mimesis and, 345 Cunningham, C. C., 200, 235, 237
performance paradigm and, 258 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
performance studies as Night-Time, 189
radical research, 424 Curry, S. S., 145, 195, 229
Performing as a Moral Act, 340 Curry, Samuel, 80
propriety rights to performance and, 201 Cushman, Charlotte, 66, 420
“Rethinking Ethnography” and, 46-47,
351-364 D
rethinking the world as text, 341 Dahmer, Jeffrey, 466
rituals of state killing and, 466-473 Dana, Charles, 119
scholarly representation and, 219 Dance
symbols driving public policy and, 400 cultural meanings of, 51-52
textual bias and, 299 poststructuralism and, 391-392
Themes and Arguments, 419-425 Dance, Daryl, 453
Constative utterances, definition of, 6 Dance Ethnography, 385-395
Cornerstone Theater, 431, 433, 439 Brazilian dance and, 393-395
Corporate Globalization and Poverty, 402 connections between movement techniques and
Corporeal chronotopes, 55 dance, 390
Corson, Hiram, 80 Dance Exchange, 437
“Costumes by God”, 394-395 Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the
Couldn’t Keep It To Myself, 320 Revolution, 392
Couser, G. Thomas, 163 Davidson, Cathy, 74
Coverdale, Miles, 221-225 Davis, Gerald L., 451
Craft, Ellen, 117-119 Davis, Miles, 298
Craft, Paul, 117 Davis, Tracy, 484
Crandall, Prudence, 116 gendered labor and, 420
Crash, Darby, 19 nuclear war and, 68-69
Crime and Punishment, 234 Davis, Vaginal, 12, 16
Criminal Minded, 299 de Bruijn, Hans, “gaming the numbers” and, 41
Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, de Certeau, Michel
and Performance, 343 “An Art of Speaking”, 58
Critical pedagogy class interests and, 68
adaptation and, 374-383 Icarian fall and, 28
commercialization and, 334 oceanic rumble and, 29
consumerism and, 32 The Practice of Everyday Life, 62
Critical performance pedagogy, 256-258, “prowler” and, 66
333-334 stray details and, 28
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Twin Towers and, 5 Diawara, Manthia, 459

“Walking in the City” and, 52 Dickens, Charles, 170-172
work of historians and, 69 Dickinson, Emily, 172-173, 197
The Writing of History, 368 Differentiation, 91
de Puysegur, Marquis, 213 Dillard, Annie, 328
Death penalty Dimitriadis, Greg, 257-258
botched executions and, 480 hip-hop recordings and, 297-301, 297
George W. Bush and, 466 intersections between educative and
juvenile death penalty and, 479 performative, 296
military executions and, 476 pedagogy and, 304-307
minors and, 475 practices and, 301-304
persistence of, 478-479 Dionysus in 69, 240
Puritan executions and, 468 Disappearance, 10
race and, 474-475 definition of, 6
race of prosecutors and, 477 Disaster, limit of writing and, 24
statistics and, 466 Disciplinary boundaries, consequences of, 153
wrongful convictions and, 474 Disciplinary genealogies, 73-76
Debord, Guy, 87 Discipline and Punish: The Birth of
Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, 233 the Prison, 465
DeFranz, Thomas, 461 Disidentification, 91
déjà vu, 26 Divine Days, 341, 497
definition of, 24 auditions for, 378
Delaney, Samuel, 13 Leon Forrest and, 366
Delft University of Technology, performance Divine Horseman
measurement programs, 41 Maya Deren and, 387-390
Dell’Arte Players, 428 Do You Sleep in That Thing?, 270
Democracy, see Politics Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison, 320
Dening, Greg, 69 Dolan, Jill
history writers and, 70 “Fresh Print” series, 484
Dennis, Ralph, 200, 235 identity politics and, 508-510
Dennison, Earle, 478 performativity and, 510-513
Denzin, Norman, 257-258 production programs and, 513-515
pedagogical terms and performance, 259 radical humanism and situated utopia,
performance and, 296 518-522
Performance Ethnography, 367 social relations and, 424
textual bias and, 299 staging arguments and, 515-518
Deren, Maya, 344 Dolby, Nadine, South African students and, 306
Divine Horseman (I), 387-390 Donkin, Ellen, lack of directors of color and, 378
Derrida, Jacques Donovan, Maureen, 311
theological stage and, 78 Douglas, Mary, ritual performance and, 467
traces and, 11 Douglass, Frederick, 496, 504
Desegregation project Douglass, Sarah, 114-117
listening out loud practices and, 103-104 The Drama Review (TDR), professional theatre
“detour through theory”, 2 training programs, 511
di Leonardo, Micaela, 484 Dramaturgy, executions and, 479-484
Dialogical performance, aim of, 371 Dranoff, Beco, 394
Dialogism, 433-434 Draper, Ruth, 172
Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World, 55 Du Plenty, Tomata, 19
Diamond, Elin DuBois, W.E.B., 375-377, 457-458
historical determination and, 8 Dunbar, Paul Lawrence, 452
on performance and, 421 Dunford, Christine, actors’ bodies and, 247
performance and performativity, 7-8 Dunham, Katherine, 344, 388-389
performativity and, 51 Dunston, John, 468
restored behavior and, 419 During, Simon, 342
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Durov’s Pig, 423 Dwight Conquergood essay, 351-364

Dutch Council for Culture, 43-44 on Dwight Conquergood and, 347-350
Dyer, Richard participant-observation fieldwork and,
intensity of fleeting emotional contacts 351-364
and, 522 participant-observation fieldwork and,
utopian worlds and, 521 352-355
performance ethnography, 339-345
E performance scripts and, 401-402
Earthly Possessions, 244 politics of adaptation and, 366-382
Eason, Laura, 232 redistribution of analytical foci and, 355
Eddy, Nelson, 14 rhetorical reflexivity and, 362-364
Edinburgh Fringe Festival, 177 Ethnography of communication (EOC), 301
Education and Cultural Studies, 255 Evans-Pritchard, E.E., 363
Edwards, Paul, 80 The Execution Protocol, 480
adapting adaptations and, 241-246 Executions
Method and Margin and, 228-234 botched executions and, 480
performance beyond literature and, 143-149 George W. Bush and, 466
performance text and, 240 juvenile death penalty and, 479
Teaching Literature in the Age of Performance military executions and, 476
Studies, 369 minors and, 475
without the words and, 246-247 persistence of, 478-479
Ehrenreich, Barbara, 77, 81, 163 Puritan executions and, 468
Ehrenreich, John, 77, 81 race and, 474-475
Eisenhower, Dwight, 129 race of prosecutors and, 477
farewell to America and, 33 statistics and, 466
El Teatro Campesino, 430 wrongful convictions and, 474
Elam, Harry, 460 Exercise Dustbath scripts, 137
Eliot, Charles, 81 Expression, from elocution to expression,
The Elizabethan Stage, 234 194-202
Ellison, Ralph, 298 Eyes on the Prize, 303
Elocution, 143-144
from elocution to expression, 194-202 F
The Embrace, 437 Fabian, Johannes
Emergency Broadcasting System, 127-128 body-in-time and, 354-355
Emergency Measures Organization, 128 Family storytelling, 165
Emergency Public Information Service, 128 Fear of a Queer Planet, 80
Emerson, Betsy, 59 Federal Bureau of Prisons, execution manual
Emerson, Charles Wesley, 80, 195 and, 480-481
English Composition, 81 Feinstein, Dianne, 466, 477
English, James F., humor and, 283 Female Literary Society of Philadelphia, 114
Ensler, Eve, 320 Female Slave Refugees as Speakers, 118-119
Environmental performance, 38 Feminist consciousness-raising (CR) groups, 440
Epistemology, black performance studies and, Feminist Studio Workshop, 440
449-452 Ferris, Jim, 188
Estimé, Dumarsais, 389-390 Do You Sleep in That Thing?, 270
Ethics Fertile LaToya Jackson, 17
critical performance pedagogy, 333-334 Fictions of Feminist Ethnography, 368
ethics of performance pedagogy, 325-335 Fiddell, Alvan, 133-134
participatory performance action inquiry, Fields, Michael, 436
334-335 Wild Card and, 428
performance of, 258 Fieldwork, participant-observation fieldwork
performance studies and, 328-332 and, 352-355
Ethnography Fierce Love: Stories From Black Gay Life, 460
dance ethnography and, 385-395 Fine, Elizabeth C., 200
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Fine, Michelle, 328 Gates, Jr., Henry Louis, The Signifying

Fischer-Lichte, Erika, Monkey and, 454
keynote address of, 37 Gay culture
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 173 The Cleveland Bar Scene in the Forties, 14
Flashdance, 56 Latino clubs and, 15
The Flute Player, Jocelyn Glatzer film, 48 salvation and, 15
For Colored Girls, 459-460 Gee, Spoonie, 298
Forrest, Edwin, 67 Geertz, Clifford, 106, 339
Forrest, Leon, 340, 489, 493 Being Here writing and, 364
Divine Days and, 366-382, 497 “Blurred Genres” essay, 355
“Nature Boy” and, 505 cultural performance and, 358
Forrest, Marianne, 382 ethnography and, 351-352
Forten, Sarah, 114-118 looking at the world directly and, 362
Forum Theatre, 424, 442 rhetorical nature of ethnography, 363
Foster, Abby Kelley, 113 ritual performance and, 467
Foster, Susan Genealogies
ambulatory scholarship and, 279 disciplinary genealogies and, 73-76
performative writing and, 287 performance studies and, 73-86
Foucault, Michel, 106 “Generative autobiography”, 175, 182-183
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of The Genius of Universal Emancipation, 112
the Prison, 465 Gentile, John, 172, 202
four principles of discourse and, 162 The Geography of Identity, 52
genealogy and, 76 Gere, Richard Owen, 442
power producing knowledge and, 364 Gerima, Haile, 242
Fourier, Charles, 218-219 Gun Club, Los Angeles band, 11
Fraden, Rena, 320-321 The Germs, 20, Los Angeles band, 11
Frankfurt School, introduction to, 11 Get Up, Stand Up, 271
Fraser, Nancy, “subaltern Ghana’s Slave Castle-Dungeons, excerpts
counterpublics” and, 360 from, 489-505
Free Southern Theater, 441-443 Gilman, Rebecca, Boy Gets Girl and, 518
Freedman, Gerald, 236 Gilman, Sander, 74
Freire, Paolo, 255, 267 Gingrich, Newt, 478-479
pedagogy and, 278 Gingrich-Philbrook, Craig, 160-166, 180-186
Friday, 303 gay identity and, 272
Fritzsche, Peter Giovanni, Nikki, 458
historical narratives and, 68 Girl Friday, excerpts from, 205, 208-212, 222
From Ritual to Theatre, 339 Giroux, Henry
Frye, Northrop, 196 border pedagogy and, 375-376
Fugitive Slave Law, 118 literacy and, 516
Fuller, Margaret, 119-120 performative pedagogy and, 254-255
Funky Four, rap artists, 298 status quo and, 255
Glass, Philip, 245
G Glassberg, David, 429
Gacy, John Wayne, 466 Glatzer, Jocelyn, The Flute Player and, 48
Galati, Frank, 149, 228-230, 234-236 Global Compact Performance Model, 39
adaptations and, 243 accountability in the arts and, 43
agreement between the audience and Global Reporting Initiative, 4, 42
performer, 172 performativity and, 40
Dubliners story and, 244 Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), performance
on Breen’s productions, 241 measures and, 39
Gallagher, Catherine, 69 Globalization, 33-45
Galloway, Terry, 177 International Monetary Fund (IMF)
Gambaro, Griselda, 286-287 and, 37-38
Garza, Juan Raul, 465, 473-476 performativity and, 38-39
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perversities and ambiguities, 40-41 aesthetics and, 47

theory and, 34-35 ballet and, 50-51
Goad, Benjamin, execution of, 472 Khmer Rouge and, 47-48
Godard, Jean-Luc, 149, 215 loss of a commitment and, 369
Goffman, Erving, 339, 361 Navajo folk art and, 57-58
“On Fieldwork” essay, 352 social work of aesthetics and, 7
presentation of self and, 47 The Social Lives of Things, 56-57
Goldbard, Arlene, 431 Themes and Arguments, 419-425
Goldberg, David Theo, 74 Hamilton, Jane, 188
Goldman, Derek, 340 Haraway, Donna, 62
Gonzalez, Levi, 394 Harper’s Magazine, execution article, 482
Gonzalez-Torres, Felix, 12, 18 Harris, Julie, 173, 197
Goodman Theatre, 231 Harris, Wilson, 306
Goody, Jack, 221 Harrison, Paul Carter, 450
Gordon, Deborah A., 344 Hartigan, Patti, 516
Gorgias, 192 Hartnett, Stephen, 309, 321
Gould, Stephen Jay, 189 Hassabi, Maria, 394
Government Performance and Results Act Hatch, James, criticizing racial and cultural
(1994), 34 exclusions, 509
Graff, Gerald, 74-79 Hathale, Roger, 60
teaching conflicts and, 516 Havelock, Eric, 221
Graham, Gary, 479 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 149, 218-223
Grandin, Temple, 201 Headley, Bonnie, 478
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 298 Heart Broken in Half, dialogic
The Grapes of Wrath, 230-232, 244 performance and, 340
Gray, Spalding, 160-161, 165-166 Hebdige, Dick, Subculture: The Meanings of
Greenblatt, Stephen, 69 Style, 512
Gregory, Andre, 231 Hedda Gabler, 124
Grew, Mary, 110 Helms, Jesse, 477-478
Grimke, Sarah, 117-118 Hemings, Sally, 327
Grimké, Sarah Moore, 114 Hemingway, Ernest, 188
Grossberg, Lawrence, 254 Henderson, Bruce, 148-149
Grotowski, Jerzy, 233 Henson, Hans, 376
Grumet, Madeline, 306 Herskovit, Melville, 389
Gubaidulina, Sofiya, 243 Heston, Charlton, 235
Guernica, 428 Heston, Lilla, 190-191
Guillermoprieto, Alma Heuretics: The Logic of Invention, 217
Samba and, 392 Hicks, Craig, 460
utopianism and, 393 Hide-Out Club, 14
Guillory, John, 74 High Performance Computing Act (1992), 34
effects of school culture and, 80 Hine, Darlene Clark, “culture of
“pedagogic imaginary” and, 146 dissemblance” and, 375
Guinier, Lani, 427-431 Hip-hop recordings, 297-301
Gura, Tim, 198 “HIV Education: Performing Personal
Narratives”, 184
H HIV/AIDS, Angels in America and, 271
Hacking, Ian, 189 Hodson, Millicent, 388
Haddon, Mark, 189, 201 Hoegh, Leo, 131
Haines, Harry, 484 Holbrook, Hal, 171
Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, 88 Holiday, Billie, 377
Hall, Stuart Holmes, Sherlock, 189
Marx’s notes on method and, 2 Holocaust, performativity and, 49
method and, 1 Holt, Claire, 386
Hamera, Judith Homer, poetry and, 193
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Hooks, Bell, 452 Island Possessed, 389-392

Hope, pedagogy and, 328-332 It Takes a Nation of Millions to
Horace, Ars Poetica and, 198 Hold Us Back, 299
The House on Walker River, 434
House Arrest, 327 J
House of Incest, 174 Jackson, J. B., vernacular landscapes and, 53
Hughes, Holly, 170 Jackson, Jesse, 451
Hughes, Langston, 452 Jackson, Mahalia, 450, 489, 493-494
Human Rights, staging fieldwork and, 397-415 Jackson, Michael, bodily experience and,
Humor, jokes and, 283 353-354
Hunt, James, 477-478 Jackson, Shannon, 68
Hunt, Richard, 489 Derridean critique and, 79
Hurston, Zora Neale, 423, 454-458 fieldwork on theatrical auditions and, 342
Hyde, Lewis, trickster characters in mythology Lines of Activity and, 420
and, 282-283 performance genealogies and, 70
Hymes, Dell, 34, 200, 361 PMC’s and, 77-78
unmarked performance and, 301 “professing performance” and, 76-80
Hyphenation, community-based professionalization and, 76
performance, 434 rhetorical speech and oral poetics and, 75
“the cultural matrix” and, 70
I “two institutional narratives” and, 145
Identity, equivocal gift of the sign and, 280-282 James, Clifford, participant-observation
Identity construction, autobiographical fieldwork and, 352
performance and, 172-186 James, Henry, 190
Identity politics, 508-510 James, William, I/me dialogues of, 238
Imagining Medea, 321 Jason’s Lyric, 303
IMAKHUS, One Africa founders, 495 Jay, Gregory, teaching conflicts and, 516
Impersonation, readers and, 196 Jay, Karla, gay and lesbian studies, 14
Improvisation, context and, 288 Jefferson, Thomas, 327
Impure Acts, 333 Jennings, Peter, World Trade Center
In the Heart of America, 518 attacks, 22-24, 27
Incarcerated Women Jim Crow laws, 119
children and, 310 Johnson, E. Patrick, 484
Native American inmates and, 312 issues of community and, 424
people of color and, 312-313 performativity and, 422
performance and creative writing, 309-324 Joker System, 284
spending on prisons and, 312 Jokes, identity and difference and, 283
statistics and, 309 Jones, Joni L., 178-180, 263, 461
“What I Want My Words To Do To You”, Jones, Joubert Antoine, 369-370
320-321 Jones, LeRoi, 298
women and artistic texts and, 316 Jones, Rhodessa, 460
Incarceration Nation, 309, 321 Jordan, Michael, 489
Indigenous theatre, 326-327 Joseph Jefferson Awards and Citations, 227
Infectious Rhythm: Metaphors of Contagion and Joseph, Miranda, power of performance and, 10
the Spread of African Culture, 393 Journal of Narrative and Life History, 153
Informaci—n, 286-287 Joyce, James, 244
International Monetary Fund (IMF), global The Juggling Act, WNYC radio, 43
economic performance and, 37-38 Julien, Isaac, 12
Interpretation Juvenile Death Penalty, 479
definition of, 207
from elocution to expression, 194-202 K
Ion, Plato and, 193 Kaprow, Allan, 440
Iran, juvenile death penalty and, 479 Kaufman, Moises, The Laramie Project, 342
Is It A Human Being or A Girl?, 397 Keck, Michael, 439
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Keillor, Garrison, 154 Lethal injections, botching of, 480

Kelsey, John, 14 Lethal Theatre: Performance, Punishment, and
Kenneth Burke, equipment for living and, 272 the Death Penalty, 340
Kesselman, Wendy, My Sister in This House, 518 Letters of the Republic, 80
Khmer Rouge, 47-50 Levine, Lawrence, 453
Kight, Tom, 483 rhetoric of highbrow culture and, 513
Killer BS, 213-217 Lewis, Ferdinand, 434-435
Kin(a)esthetics, 279 Lexicon Devil: The Fast Times and Short Life of
value of play and metaxis, 290 Darby Crash and the Germs, 19
King, Jason, 461 The Liberator, 119
Kittridge, William, dominant racism and, 116
mythology and, 325 Literacy, invention of, 221
Kjos, Jennifer, 394 Literature, performance beyond literature and,
Koch, Frederick, 80 143-149
Kosinski, Alex, 483 Literature as Experience, 237
Kramnick, Jonathan Brody, 144 Literature classroom, Strange Case of the Body
Kravanh, Daran, 48 and, 188-203
Kravel, Pich Tum, 48 Loesch, Katharine, 234
Kristeva, Julia, 87-88 Lookingglass, 230-234, 247
Kroft, Steve, 320 Lord, Albert, 221
KRS-One, 297-299 Lord, Elaine, 312
Kwaku, Nana Okofu Iture, 495 Lord of the Rings, 147
Kwame Nkrumah monument, 400 Los Angeles Poverty Department
(LAPD), 437
L Lott, Eric, 119
La Paza, Latino gay clubs, 15 Lšvborg, Ejlert, 124
Laban, Rudolf, choreutics and, 279-280 Lovelace, Alice, conflict resolution and, 436
Labov, William, 153 Luce, William, 172
Labovian model, experience and, 154 Lyotard, Jean-Fran ois
Lacan, Jacques, 238 computers and, 41-42
Lacy, Suzanne, 433-434, 440 postmodern condition and, 36
Lalvani, Suren, 66
Lamm, Elyse, 173 M
Lancaster, Roger, destiny of real-life experience MacDonald, Jeanette, 14
and, 367 MacKay, Carol H., 171
Landry, Donna, The Spivak Reader and, 368 Maclay, Joanna Hawkins, 228
Langellier, Kristin M., 148 Maclean, Gerald, The Spivak Reader, 368
family stories and, 421 Madhubuti, Haki, 458
Lappin, Harley, 481 Madison, D. Soyini, 261-263
The Laramie Project, 342 “African American Literature and
Lasko, Jim, 246 Performance”, 265
Lavender Culture, 14 cafeteria worker’s strike and, 270
Lawrence, Clarissa C., 110 Critical Ethnography and, 343
Le Goff, Jacques, 106 excerpts from Scene One, 408-409
LeCompte, Elizabeth, 143, 147 excerpts from Scene Three, 411-413
Lee, Charlotte, 198 Is It A Human Being or A Girl?, 397
Lee-Brown, Elizabeth, 173 movement formation and, 403-404
Lefebvre, Henri, The Production of Space, 371 multivocalic work and, 342
The Legend of Maya Deren, 388 on Dwight Conquergood and ethnography,
Lerman, Liz, 437, 443 347-350
Lerner, Andrea, 394 performance event and, 405-416
Leslie Irene Coger Award, 149 performance purposes and, 399-401
Lespier, Alvan Colon, 438 performance questions and, 398-399
Lesser, Anton, 235 performance scripts and, 401-402
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rehearsals and, 402-405 narrative performance and, 156

staging fieldwork and, 397-398 Paradigms 4, 5, 6 . . . , 37-38
subjugated knowledge and, 449 performance and, 3
symbolic reality and, 404-405 performance stratum and, 35-36
thematic conceptualizations and, 403 research paradox of, 35
Trokosi and, 341 sociopolitical phenomena and, 419-420
Makarova, Natalia, 56 three research paradigms and, 35-40
Making It in the “Free World”, 321 McLaren, Peter, 256, 267
Malcolm X, 303 McLuhan,, 222
Malinowski, Bronislaw, ethographic fieldwork McLuhan, Marshall, 221
and, 353 McMillan, Terry, 455-456
Managing Performance in the Public Sector, 41 McVeigh, Timothy, 465-466, 473, 476-478, 483
“Manifesto for the Humanities in a Mda, Zakes, 440
Technological Age”, 74 Mead, George Herbert, 327
Marcus, George, 11, 341-342 Mead, Margaret, 386, 389
normativity of performance and, 35 Measuring and Improving Infrastructure
technology and, 41-42 Performance, 34
Margolin, Deb, 521 The Member of the Wedding, 197
Martin, Annette, performance elements and, 275 Memory, performing memory in Ghana’s slave
Martin, Randy, improvisation and, 288 castle-dungeons, 489-505
Marx, Groucho, 283 “Memory, Remembering, and the Histories of
Marx, Karl, 57 Change”, 69-70
Mather, Cotton, 468 Menace II Society, 303
Matthews, Brander, 80 The Menstrual Show, 271
Mattison, Reverend H., 107-108 Merced, Jorge, 438
Mauss, Marcel, “Techniques of the Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 157
Body”, 385-386 Merrill, Lisa, 484
McBride, Dwight, 484 erotic relationships and, 420
McBurney, James, 200, 237 performance history and, 65-72
McCarthy, Cameron, 306 politics of location and, 66-67
McCarthy, Michael, 173 Mesmer, Franz Anton, 210-213, 215, 219-220
McCarty, Kevin, 12-13 Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in
autobiography and, 14 France, 213
Parlor Room and, 17 Metahistory, 368
photograph by, 16 Metamorphoses, 230-233, 245
potentiality of utopian performativity, 15 Metaxis, kin(a)esthetic value of play and, 290
source material for, 18 Meteor in the Madhouse, 382
visual arts and, 10 Method, Marx’s notes on method and, 2
McClaurin, Irma, 344 Meyer, Fernanda, 395
McConachie, Bruce, 263-264 Meyette, Theresa, 312
McDonald, Christie, Brown University “Brown Skin People” poem, 317-319
conference, 29 “Darkland” essay, 322
McElroy, Njoki, 149, 228, 234, 241, 448 “Darkland” poem, 311
one-dimensional characters and, 243 Mickee Faust Club, 270
voices of students and, 242 Mid-nineteenth Century American Women’s
McKenna, Mark, responsibilty to Performance criticism, 106-123
audience and, 436 Midsummer Night’s Dream, 234
McKenzie, Jon Miller, Arthur, 147
anachronisms and, 147 Miller, Lynn C., 148, 173
clarifications and, 36-37 Miller, Tim, 170
cultural performance and, 42-43 Mimesis and Alterity, 474
economic globalization, 3 Minh-ha, Trinh, 89
efficacy in dominant paradigms and, 268-269 fieldwork and, 353
global networks and, 4 Woman, Native, Other and, 344
mechanistic standards and, 3 Minoritarian subjects, utopia and, 10
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Index 539

Minstrel shows, 119-120 Neal, Larry, 430, 459

“Minstrelsy and Mental Metempsychosis”, 69 Neal, Mark Anthony, 452
Mishler, Elliot, 154 Neiman, Catrina, 388
Misrecognition, 91-92 Nelson, Alicia, 59
Modern Language Association, 76 Nero, Charles, 461
Momaday, N. Scott, 224 Nerve Bible, 224
Moore, Thomas, utopia and, 11 Ness, Sally Ann, 390-391, 395
Morgan, John, execution of, 467-468 A New Framework for Building Participation in
Morrison, Toni, 306, 447-448 the Arts, 44
Beloved and, 496, 504 New York Chatham Street Chapel society, 109
Moses, Bill, 327 New York Daily Tribune, seamstresses and, 217
Mother Courage, 428 New York Freeman, Lillian Parker
“Mothers Who Think” project, 43 Thomas and, 120
Motion, performance and, 280-293 New York Times
The Motion of Light in Water, 13 McVeigh execution and, 483
Mouffe, Chantal, goals of radical Portraits of Grief article, 29
democracy and, 344 New York Tribune, Jim Crow and, 119
Movement Vocabulary of Sex and Labor, Newspaper headlines, World Trade Center
385-395 attacks and, 25
Muhammad, Khalid Abdul, 372 Nicholas Nickleby, 232, 242
Mules and Men, 453-454 Nigeria, juvenile death penalty and, 479
Multiparadigmatic performances, The Shell Nin, Anais, 173-177
Report and, 38 Nochlin, Linda, 429
Mulvey, Laura, narrative cinema and, 287 Nora, Pierre, 106
Mu–oz, José Esteban, 461 NORAD, 132, 135
Disidentifications and, 422 North American Phalanx, 219
immanent hope and, 6 The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, 245
motility of performance thinking and, 5 Nuclear war
perfomative seeing, 7 CONELRAD and, 132-135
productive nostalgia and, 6-7 RAND Corporation and, 127
signification of queerness, 5 Nureyev, Rudolph, 56
utopian performatives and, 5 Nursing Mother, 271
Music of the Common Tongue, 300
My Sister in This House, 518 O
Oakes, James, 67
N O’Brien, Patricia, 321
Naficy, Hamid, refugees and, 50 Ochs, Elinor, 157
Narrative Performance Odyssey, 232
breakthroughs into, 153-157 The Odyssey, 232
constraint and, 159 Ohmann, Richard, 77
embodying and, 157-159 O’Keeffe, Georgia, 171
family storytelling and, 165 On Becoming Japerican, 271
ordering and, 162-167 On the Road, 516
politicizing and, 164-167 One Africa founders, 495
shifting contexts in, 151-167 One-person performances, oral culture
situating and, 159-162 of, 169-170
storytelling and, 154-155 O’Neal, John, 441-443
National Communication Association (NCA), Ong, Walter, 221-223
76, 144, 175, 195 Operation Alert, 129, 131
National Damage Assessment Center, 133 Operation Get-Together, 134
Navajo folk art Operation Iraqi Freedom, 27
commodity situation of, 61 grandiose terms of, 29
sandpainting and, 60 Oral Interpretation, 207
Navajo Folk Art: The People Speak, 57-58 presentation of, 208-210
NCA’s Interpretation Division, 201 Oral Interpretation, 198
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Orality-literacy theory, 223 Pedagogy of the Oppressed and, 305

Oresteia, Aeschylus and, 434 Pelias, Ronald, 200
Organization for Economic Co-operation and classroom performances and, 269
Development (OECD), 38 The People Speak, 59
The Origins of Literary Studies in America, 79 A People’s History of the United States, 433
Osofisan, Femi, Farewell to a Cannibal and, 379 Peppers, Wallace Ray, 448
Ostler, James, 60 Perfomative seeing, 7
Ostling, Daniel, 245 Perform or Else (2001), 147
Out All Night and Lost My Shoes, 177 Perform or Else, 34
Performance classrooms, two classrooms
P and, 206-207
Pakistan, juvenile death penalty and, 479 Performance composition, sewing your
The Pale of Words, 146 own and, 224
Panther, 302 Performance Ethnography, 339-345
Paper Tangos, 392 Performance historians, 66
Park-Fuller, Linda, 170, 184-185 Performance history, 65-72
classroom performances and, 269 defining and, 106
A Clean Breast of It, 271 elusiveness of, 67-68, 67
Playback Theatre and, 270 Performance paradigm
social justice work and, 310 “limitations of literacy” and, 359
three categories of behavior and, 266-267 planes of analyses and, 361
Parker, Charlie, 298 Performance pedagogy, hope and critical
Parks, Rosa, 496 imagination and, 331-332
Parks, Suzan Lori, 460 Performance studies
Parlor Club, 16 activist cirriculum and, 261-275
Parlor Room, picture of, 17 ambulant pedagogy and, 278-279
Parris-Bailey, Linda, 437 autobiographical performance and, 169-186
Parry, Milman, 192 ballet and, 50-51
Participatory performance action inquiry, black performance studies, 446-461
334-335 course objectives and, 264
Passover, 288-289 dialogical performance and, 371
Pastore, Ann, incarcerated women and, 309 environmental performance, 38
Paterson Strike Pageant of 1913, 429 ethics for, 328-332
Patraka, Vivian, Holocaust and, 49 ethics of performance pedagogy, 325-335
Paul, Susan, 114, 116 fieldwork in the classroom and, 261-275
Pavis, Patrice, 240 genealogies of, 73-86
Peabody, Sophia, 220 globalization and, 33-45
Pease, Elizabeth, 117 human rights performances and, 397-415
Peck, Sabrina, 439 incarcarated women and, 309-322
Pedagogy mythology of “antidiscipline”, 217-218
ambling and, 292-293 Performance and Pedagogy and, 253-260
ambulant pedagogy and, 278-293 performance texts and, 287
critical performance pedagogy, 258 performing memory in Ghana’s Slave
critical performance pedagogy, 333-334 Castle-Dungeons, 489
interactionist turn and, 258 Polemics and Potential of, 508-522
Intersections in (Between) the Educative and reading cultural phenomena and, 278-279
the performative, 296 rise of personal narrative in, 152
performative performance studies, 332-333 social collaboration of meaning making, 300
playing in/as pedagogy, 289-292 staging the arguments in, 515-518
politics and ethics of performance, 325-335 utopian theatre and, 518-522
radical democratic pedagogy, 335 Performance Studies international
real space and, 287 conference, 33
writing as performative lesson and, 287-289 Performance Studies international (PSi), 511
Pedagogy of hope, 328-332 Performance Studies Learning Objectives, 274
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Index 541

Performance Studies Toolbox, 272-275 Plato

Performance Studies: An Introduction, 368 performer’s potential to create
Performance theory, commodity situations communitas, 419
and, 57 Phaedrus and, 193
Performance: A Critical Introduction, 368 The Player’s Passion, 240
Performative performance studies, 332-333 Pole, Rupert, 175-177
Performative utterances, definition of, 6 Political correctness, conservative rhetoric
Performativity and, 516
ambulatory approaches and, 279 Politics
definition of, 4 community-based performances, 427-444
Female Slave Refugees as Speakers, 118-119 critical performance pedagogy, 333-334
Holocaust and, 49 ethics of performance pedagogy, 325-335
perversities and ambiguities, 40-41 ethnography and adaptation, 366-382
satisficial rituals, 39 identity politics and, 508-510
The Performing Arts in a New Era, 44 participatory performance action inquiry,
Performing Theory, 217-220 334-335
Perry, Ernest, “30 years” refrain and, 379 radical democratic pedagogy, 335
Perryville State Prison, 258 rethinking ethnography and, 351-364
Personal Narrative Performance Themes and Arguments, 419-425
breakthroughs into, 153-157 Politics of location, 66-67
constraint and, 159 Pollock, Della
embodying and, 157-159 capital and, 87-88
family storytelling and, 165 coal miners’ narratives and, 342
functions of, 154 cultural performances and, 369
ordering and, 162-167 ethical engagement the students, 93
performativity and, 155-156 importance of listening and, 70
politicizing and, 164-167 listening out loud practice and, 91
shifting contexts in, 151-167 mutual remembering and, 88
situating and, 159-162 narrative performance and, 157
storytelling and, 154-155 normative identity practices and, 265-266
Peterson, Eric, 148 oral histories and, 88-89
family stories and, 421 oral histories of integration and, 68
Peterson, Michael, 160 oral history as performance and, 69
Pettitt, Peggy, 439 performative writing and, 287
Phaedrus, 193 production of history and, 420
Phelan, Peggy reflexivityand re-creativity, 92
death penalty and, 484 TV talk shows and, 90
disappearance and, 6, 10 Pomo Afro Homo, 460
nonreproductive capacity of performance, 520 Porgy and Bess, 493
Unmarked and, 421 Porter, Anthony, 474
Phelps, William Lyon, 81 Porterfield, Donna, 441
Phoenix Five, civil defense and, 128-129 Portnoy, Michael, 394
Phon, Chen, 48 Positionality and the Ethnographic Gaze, 402
Picquet, Louisa, 107-108 Postmodern anthropology, 353
Pierson, Jack, empty stages of, 18 Poststructuralism, dance and, 391-392
Pignataro, Giacomo, performance Pot, Pol, 48-50
indicators and, 43 Potentialities, definition of, 5, 11
Pin peat musical ensemble, 50 Potentiality, 10
Pinar, William, 306 Powers, Hiram, 118-119
Pineau, Elyse, 170-177, 253 The Practice of Everyday Life, 62, 357
assigning grades and, 268 Pran, Dith, 48
class syllabus and, 265 Presence
definitional heritage of performativity and, 254 deconstruction and, 285
links between teaching and performance, 305 disembodied spaces and, 285
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Priestley, John, 210 Rhetoric, Aristotle, 194

Prince-Hughes, Dawn, 191-192 Rhetorical reflexivity, 362-364
“Professional managerial class” (PMC), 77-78 Rice, T. D., 119
Promises in Pink, 270-271 Richards, Sandra, 379, 458, 484
Propaganda, truth functions and, 282 evanescence of theatre and, 514-515
Protect and Survive series, 136-137 performance meditation and, 424
Public Enemy, 299-300 “the politics of citation” and, 491
Punk, utopian function of, 12 Rickert, William, 189
Punk queerness, Vaginal Davis and, 17 Ricoeur, Paul
Puritan executions, 468 leakage of speaking and, 355
Putting your Body on the Line, 271 temporal flow and, 355
Riggs, Marlon, Black is . . . Black Ain’t, 422
Q Roach, Joseph, 118, 240, 371
Quakers, activism and, 117 architecture of theatre buildings and, 514
Quaque, Philip, 490-503 Cities of the Dead and, 474
Quarterly Journal of Speech Critical Theory and Performance and, 511
critique of, 364 fundamental nature of theatrical
textualism and, 359 performance, 510
Queerness Roadside Theater, 441-442
as “a stage” and, 10 “Roam corporeal chronotopes, 55
signification of, 5 Robb, Margaret, 80
Quirk, Denise, 484 Robinson, Maude, 496
Roche-Rabell, Arnaldo, 306
R Roddenberry, Gene, 125
Race, critical race theory, 333-334 Rodgers, Esther, 470-473
Racial performativity, 446 execution of, 469
Radical History Review (1976), 69 Rogers, Catherine, 171
Radical humanism, 518-522 Rolland, Romain, 438
Radway, Janice, mass culture aesthetics and, 47 Román, David, 461
Rain Man, 191 “Fresh Print” series, 484
Rakim, 297-299 Rosaldo, Renato, 352
RAND Corporation, 44 borderlands and, 358
nuclear war and, 127 geopolitics and, 356
Rap music, as everyday speech and, 301-302 Rosalynde, 233
Rappaport, Roy, ritual performance and, 467 Rosenak, Chuck, 57
Rarig, Frank, 195 Rosenak, Jan, 57
Rauch, Bill, 431-433 Rosenbaum, Yankel, 342
Rayner, Alice, rude mechanicals and, 78 Rosenberg, Bruce, 374
Reading in Detail, 29 Rosenberg, Ethel, 478
Readings, Bill, 77 Rosewood, 303
Reagan, Ronald, 482 Royal Shakespeare Company, 232-234
Reagon, Bernice Johnson, 432 “Rude Mechanicals and the Specters
Rector, Rickey Ray, execution of, 477 of Marx”, 78
Red Fox/Second Hangin’, 441 Rukeyser, Muriel, 434
Red Summer, 437
Redfield, Robert, 389 S
“Refreshment”, 180 Salon, “Mothers Who Think” project, 43
Rein, Lynn Miller, 200 Sam, Sam-Ang, pin peat ensemble and, 50
Reinelt, Janelle, 484, 511 Samba: Resistance in Motion, 392-393
Renato Rosaldo, culture’s richest Sanchez, Sonia, 458
meanings and, 370 Sanchez, Toby , 439-440
Repetition, 4 Sandahl, Carrie, 188
Retrouvailles (reunion), 159 Sandoval, Chéla, sanctioned femininity and, 281
Rhapsode, 192-193 Sandpainting, 60
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Sarat, Austin, 465 Sexton, Anne, 173

Satisficial rituals, 39 Sexuality
Satisficing, 38-39 historians and, 67
Saudi Arabia, juvenile death penalty and, 479 movement vocabulary of, 385-386
Savigliano, Marta, 367, 391 Seymour Sarason, teachers as conduits and, 304
passion and, 395 Shaheen, Jeanne, 477
Savran, David, 147 Shakespeare Behind Bars, 320
Scarry, Elaine, 114 Shakur, Tupac, 302
artifacrs and, 61 Shange, Ntozake, For Colored Girls, 459-460
Schechner, Richard, 34 Shannon, Patrick, perfomative
analogy and, 218 pedagogy and, 255
collaboration and, 339 Shapiro, Sophiline Cheam, 49
community-based performance and, 435 Shaw, Peggy, 521
contrast and, 218 The Shell Report, multiparadigmatic
kidnapping of Pentheus and, 241 performances, 38
pedagogy in American universities and, 145 Shepard, Matthew, Fires in the Mirror, 342
performance as “restored behavior”, 419 Sheridan, Thomas, 145
Performance Studies: An Introduction, 368 Sherman, Stuart, 286
performative dialectics and, 92-93 Shields, Carol, 188
repetition and, 4 Shipyard Project, 444
“restored behavior” and, 340, 513 Short, Ron, 441
textbook of, 188 Short Story Playhouse, 235
textual performances and, 240 Shostakovich, Dmitri, 243
transformation of texts and, 511 Shrimp, 17
Schechter, Joel, Durov’s Pig and, 423 The Signifying Monkey, 454
Schneider, Rebecca Signs, postmodernism and, 281
Abu Ghraib and, 30 Silko, Leslie Marmon, storytelling and, 170
banality of detail and, 27-28 Sills, Paul, 241
double articulation and, 22-24 Silver Lake Loun, Latino gay club, 15
essay as performance, 4 “The Silvery Veil”, 222
replay as real and, 21 Simon, Herbert, performativity and, 38-39
“Yesterday” and, 4-5 Simon, Roger, 253
Scholes, Robert, 146 Simpson, Barry, 59
Schor, Naomi Sitting Bull, 327
banal details and, 29 Slavery
Brown University conference, 29 Black Antislavery Critics, 114-117
stray details and, 28 census and, 111-112
Schramm, Penninah, 202 census labels and, 111-112
Schutzman, Mady, 257 criticism of women and, 112-121
classroom as stage and, 278 Female Slave Refugees as Speakers, 118-119
identity and equivocal gift of the sign, 280-282 White Antislavery Critics, 112-114
playing in/as pedagogy, 289-292 women as anti-slavery critics and, 108-111
politics of ambling and, 292-293 Slavitt, David, 245
presence and its trace, 284-287 Smalls, Christopher, 300
The Trickster and The Joke(R), 282-284 Smith, Anna Deavere, 154, 327, 342, 370, 490
writing as performative lesson and, 287-289 On the Road and, 516-517
Schuyler, George, 460 utopian theatre and, 521
Schwartzman, Helen, 484 Smith, Bessie, 377
Schwimmer, David, 149, 227, 233 Smith, David Lionel, 375
Scott, James C., 454, 457 Smith, Sidonie, 152
Scott, Joan, 62 The Social Destiny of Man, 218
The Seagull, 246-247 Socrates
Secret in the Wings, 245 Ion and, 193-194
Senghor, Léopold, 450 performance and, 194
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Songs of the Gorilla Nation, 191 Stucky, Nathan, 257

The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 19 changing society and, 263-269
Souls of Black Folk, 458 disciplining classroom performances, 266-267
South of the Mountain, 441 pedagogy of performance and, 262
Spaceland, 12, 20 performance as subject and method, 265-266
stage of, 16 performance studies toolbox and, 272-275
Spear, J. M., 206 racial pedagogy and, 267-269
Speck, Richard, 466 teaching beyong the classroom, 269-272
Spectacular Suffering: Theatre, Fascism, Subculture: The Meanings of Style, 512
and the Holocaust, 49 Sugar Hill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight” and, 298
Speer, Jean Haskell, 200 Swamp Gravy, 442
Spicer, Jimmy, 298 Swimming to Cambodia, 160
Spillers, Hortense, 450, 461
The Spivak Reader, 368 T
Spivak, Gayatri, sanctioned femininity and, 281 Taft-Kaufman, Jill, 146, 201
Spufford, Francis, 191 Tallcott, Rollo, 195-199
St. Mark’s Bath, 13 Tango, dance ethnography and, 391-392
Stabile, Carol, “culture wars” and, 516 Tango and the Political Economy of Passion,
Staged personal narrative, autobiographical 367, 391
performance and, 177-178 Taussig, Michael
Stages acting and, 280
empty stages and, 18 Mimesis and Alterity and, 474
utopian performative and, 11 Taylor, Diana
Star Trek The Archive and the Repertoire, 420
scripts and, 126 archives of human experience and, 520
Trekfest and, 125 “the DNA of performance”, 423
Stebbins, Elizabeth, 80 performatico and, 37
Stebbins, Genevieve, 145 Topics in Latin American Performance, 268
Steelbound, 431, 437 written texts and, 68
Steele, Kameron, 245 Taylor, Frederick, performance
Stein, Gertrude, 173 management and, 34
question mark and, 26 Taylor, Jacqueline, 148, 178
repetition and, 5 Taylor, Julie, Paper Tangos and, 392
Steppenwolf Theatre, 244 Teachers as Cultural Workers, 255
Stevens, Thomas Wood, 80 Teaching Against the Grain, 253
Stewart, W. Miller Maria, 109 Teaching Performance Studies, 275
Stone, Fredric, 245 “Techniques of the Body”, 385-386
Stories of a Strange Land and Fragments from Tedlock, Dennis, ethnography of communication
the Notes of a Traveller, 498 (EOC), 301
Storytelling, 421 Temporal disorganization,
community-based performance and, utopia and, 5
439-443 Terkel, Studs, 231
family storytelling, 165 Terre Haute Federal Prison, execution scenarios
Leslie Marmon Silko, 170 and, 481
Verbal Art as Performance, 3 Terry, Jennifer, 69
Storytelling in Daily Life: Performing Tesman, Jörgen, 124
Narrative, 148 Text
Storytelling performance, 154-155 becoming like an actor and, 286
Strange Case of the Body, 188-203 casting text as a kin(a)esthetic
from elocution to expression, 194-202 performer, 288
the art of losing and, 202-203 decentering texts and, 305
Strauss, Claude Levi, shamans and, 281 definition of, 151
Strine, Mary, 146, 484 hip-hop recordings and, 297-301
interest in literature and, 369 performance texts and, 287
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Index 545

performative space and, 288 fieldwork data and, 362

Roland Barthes and, 224 interplay of performance codes and, 360-361
transformation of texts and, 511 performance as making and, 46
Text and Performance Quarterly, Michael ritual performance and, 467
Bowman and, 149 Twain, Mark, 171
Textual Paradigm, vs performance Tyler, Anne, 244
paradigm, 362 Tyler, Stephen, fieldwork and, 353
Textualism, speech and, 359-360
Textualization, 154 U
Theatre Communications Group, 517 Ulmer, Gregory, 149, 217
Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), 310, 442 United Nations
Their Eyes Were Watching God, 454-455 Alliance for a Corporate-Free UN, 40
Theory Global Compact Performance Model, 39
“detour through theory”, 2 United States, juvenile death penalty and, 479
detour through theory, 2 The University in Ruins, 77
Killer Bs and, 213-215 Unmarked, 421
orality-literacy theory, 223 Unstoried: Teaching Literature in the Age of
Performing Theory, 217-220 Performance Studies, 143
Thinking in Pictures, 201 Urban Bush Women, 433
Thomas, Lillian Parker, 120 USS Abraham Lincoln, George W. Bush and, 27
Thompson, Thomas, 498 Utopia
Through the Door of No Return, 490 Minoritarian subjects and, 10
Through the Looking Glass, 231 Thomas Moore and, 11
Thyestes, 233 Utopian performatives, 9-20
Tiffany, Esther B., 120 Utopian theatre, 518-522
TOCSIN B, 136
civil defense exercise, 129, 131 V
Tomlin, Lily, 170 Vaginal Davis, punk queerness and, 17
Torres, Gerald, 427-431 Valdez, Luis, 430
Touchstone Theater, 431 Valentine, Kristin, 257-258
Trade Castles and Forts of West Africa, 503 Van Gennep, Arnold, 93, 435
Transitive pedagogy, 257 “Venus Hottentot”, 196
Trekfest 2004, 125 Verbal Art as Performance, storytelling and, 3
Trickster characters, 282-284 Verfremdungseffekt, 138-139
Trinh, T. Minh-ha, 353 Vicinus, Martha, historians of sexuality and, 67
displaced people and, 357 Viswesreran, Kamala, 368
self-reflexive awareness and, 364 factual quality of fiction and, 368
Trojan Women, 245 Fictions of Feminist Ethnography, 344
Trokosi, 341-342 Voices Made Flesh: Performing Women’s
human rights activists and, 398 Autobiography, 148, 171
Tropicana, Carmelita, 12
Trounstine, Jean, 320 W
Troxovi, religious practitioners and, 398 Wade, Jeremy, 394
Tuan, Yi-Fu, 52 Walcott, Derek, 494
Tubman, Harriet, 496 Walcott, Rinaldo, 446
Tucker, Karla Faye, 474, 478 Waletsky, Joshua, 153
Turner, Victor, 34, 93 Walker River Paiute Tribe, 434
collaboration and, 339 “Walking in the City”, 52
“communitas” in social drama, 521-522 Walking on Our Knees, 270
communitas and, 47 Wallace, Naomi, In the Heart of America, 518
community-based performance and, 435 Walsh, Catherine, 268
cultural performances and, 449 Walter, Cornelia Wells, 119-120
embodied experience and, 359 War of the Worlds, 138
ethnography for performance and, 358 Ward, Douglas Turner, 503
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Warner, Michael, 79-80 incarcerated women and creative writing,

Washington Post, prison costs and, 312 309-324
Waters, Malcolm, mercantilism and, 44 Women Writing Culture, 344
Watson, Julia, 152 Women’s Performance Criticism, 106-123
The Way to Rainy Mountain, 224 Wood, Jennifer, 322
“We Are”, poem and, 460 Woolbert, Charles Henry, 198
Weft, definition of, 207 Wooster Group, 147, 286
The Weirdos, 19 World Trade Center attacks, 4-5, 21-22
Weismantel, Mary, 484 first day of teaching after, 292
Weld, Angelina Emily Grimké, 116 life in America after, 328
Wells, Orson, War of the Worlds, 138 newspaper headlines and, 25
Wendell, Barrett, 81 Peter Jennings and, 22-27
We’re Desperate: The Punk Rock Photography World Trade Organization,
of Jim Jocoy, 19 Bill Clinton and, 42
West, Mark, 504 Worthen, W. B., 239
“What to Do When Nuclear Wright, Frances, 112
War Breaks Out”, 69 Wright, Francis, 109
“What I Want My Words The Writing of History, 368
To Do To You”, 320 Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of
White and Black Theatre Critics, 119-120 Ethnography, 341-342
White Antislavery Critics, 112-114 Wynter, Sylvia, 503-504
White, Hayden, 368
White, Marvin K., 460 X
Whitley, John, 465 X, Los Angeles band, 11
Whitteker, Byng, 129
Wild Card, 428 Y
Wilde, Oscar, 170 Yaeger, Patricia, The Geography of
The Soul of Man Under Socialism, 19 Identity, 52
Wilkerson, Margaret, changing demography of “Yesterday”, World Trade Center
American theatre, 509 attacks and, 4-5
Willard, Samuel, 468 Yesterday and Today Records, 11
Williams, David A., 195 Yoruba belief systems, 492
Williams, Emlyn, 172 Young, Allen, gay and lesbian studies, 14
Williams, Patricia, racism and, 103 Young, DeDonna, 310
Williams, Raymond, fundamental nature of Youngblood, Shay, 460
theatrical performance, 510
Wilson, August, identity politics and, 516 Z
Winn, James Anderson, 146 Zemel, Danny, 443
Winnicott, D. W., 93 Zettler, Kit, 436
Wise, J. Macgregor, theory and, 1-2 Zimmerman, Mary, 149, 228-235
Wiseman, Jr., William, evolution of storytelling and, 244
lethal injection bill, 482 hybrid language and, 245
WNYC, The Juggling Act, 43 image of student painters and, 246
Wolfe, George C., 460 Zinn, Howard, A People’s History of the
Women United States, 433
as anti-slavery critics and, 108-111 Zollar, J. W. J., 433
criticism of anti-slavery action and, 112-121 Zwerling, Louis, 388-390
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About the Editors

D. Soyini Madison is Associate Professor in for Mandela, the Land, and the People. She is
the Department of Communication Studies currently working on an ethnographic perfor­
in the area of Performance Studies at the mance entitled Water Rites based on local
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. human rights activism in the global South
She received her PhD from Northwestern and the struggle against the privatization of
University in 1989 under the direction of waters.
Dwight Conquergood. She is author of Critical
Judith Hamera received her BA (1980) in Mass
Ethnography: Methods, Ethics, and Perfor­
Communication from Wayne State University
mance (2005) and editor of The Woman That I
and her MA (1982) and PhD (1987) in
am: The Literature and Culture of Contempo­
Interpretation and Performance Studies respec­
rary Women of Color (1994). Madison’s sev­
tively from Northwestern University. She is cur­
eral publications in journals and edited volumes
rently Professor and Head of the Department of
focus on black diaspora performances and the
Performance Studies at Texas A&M University.
intersections between the global political econ­
She has served as editor of Text and Perfor­
omy and human rights. She is recipient of sev­
mance Quarterly, the journal of the National
eral university teaching awards including the
Communication Association Division of Perfor­
Tanner Award for “outstanding and inspira­
mance Studies. She is the author of Dancing
tional” teaching.
Communities: Performance, Culture, and
Madison lived in Ghana, West Africa as a Community in a Global City (forthcoming) and
Senior Fulbright Scholar conducting field editor of Opening Acts: Performance in/as
research on women’s human rights, traditional Communication and Cultural Studies (2005).
religion, and globality from 1998 to 2001. She Her essays have appeared in Cultural Studies,
received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship TDR: The Drama Review, Modern Drama,
in Belagio, Italy in 2004 for her current book Text and Performance Quarterly, Theatre
project, “The White Girl Upstairs”: Ethno­ Topics, and Women and Language. She is the
graphy, Performance, and Human Rights, recipient of the National Communication
based on her field research in Ghana. Madison Association’s Lilla Heston Award for
has also adapted and directed ethnographic Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and
and oral historical materials for I Have My Performance Studies, and was named President’s
Story to Tell, a performance reflecting the Distinguished Professor at California State
labor struggles of UNC service workers, and University, Los Angeles, in 2004.

547
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About the Contributors

Bryant Keith Alexander is Professor of the De la Torre Bueno Prize for the best book
Communication Studies and is currently on dance in that year, and Infectious Rhythm:
the acting chair of the Department of Liberal Metaphors of Contagion and the Spread of
Studies at California State University, Los African Culture (1998). Her research concerns
Angeles. His research in performance, cul­ African diasporic expressive culture, and the
tural, and pedagogical studies appears in a conjunction of medical anthropology and
wide variety of journals and books. He is performance analysis. From 2001 to 2005
a contributing author to the Handbook of she served as the Chair of the Department of
Qualitative Research (3rd ed.), and is the Performance Studies at NYU. Browning is a
coeditor of Performance Theories in member of the governing boards of the Society
Education: Power, Pedagogy, and the Politics of Dance History Scholars and the Congress on
of Identity. He is currently finalizing a book- Research in Dance. She is also a member of the
length project entitled Contesting Perfor­ editorial collective of the journal Women &
mances: Ethnographic Explorations of Performance.
Culture, Subjectivity, and Social Relations.
Gay Gibson Cima is Professor of English and
Michael S. Bowman teaches performance stud­ Director of the Humanities Initiative at
ies at Louisiana State University, where he is Georgetown University. Her book manuscript,
Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Early American Women Critics: Performance,
Studies in the Department of Communication Politics, Religion, Race, is under contract with
Studies. He serves as the current editor of Text Cambridge University Press. She has published
and Performance Quarterly, the National widely on feminist performance history, dra­
Communication Association journal of perfor­ maturgy, and criticism in a number of critical
mance studies. anthologies and journals. Her book Performing
Women: Female Characters, Male Playwrights,
Ruth Laurion Bowman is an Associate and the Modern Stage was published in 1993.
Professor of Communication Studies at She is Secretary of the American Society for
Louisiana State University, where she teaches Theatre Research and a member of the
courses in performance studies and is the pro­ American Council of Learned Societies
ducing director of the HopKins Black Box, Conference of Administrative Officers.
an experimental lab theatre. Her essays have
appeared in Text and Performance Quarterly, Jan Cohen-Cruz is a scholar/practitioner of
Theatre Topics, and various collections. activist and community-based performance.
An Associate Professor in the NYU Tisch
Barbara Browning is the author of Samba: School of the Arts Drama Department, she
Resistance in Motion (1995), which received coordinates a minor in applied theatre,
549
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550 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

guiding young artists who facilitate cultural Theory and recently joined TDR as a consulting
projects in city neighborhoods. She coedited editor. A book on nuclear civil defense practices
Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, Activism in Canada, Britain, and the United States. is
and edited Radical Street Performance: An in process. This study explores the staging of
International Anthology. Her book on com­ preparations for catastrophe by various popula­
munity-based performance in the United tions within governmental, scientific, engineer­
States, Local Acts, was published in March, ing, and social communities as they coordinate
2005. Another edited text with Mady civil defense exercises affecting neighborhoods,
Schutzman, A Boal Companion, should be cities, and nations on local and international
available in late 2005. scales.
Dwight Conquergood was former chair of Norman K. Denzin is Distinguished Professor
the Department of Performance Studies at of Communications, College of Communica­
Northwestern University where he served as tions Scholar, and Research Professor
Director of Graduate Studies and Interim of Communications, Sociology, and Humani­
Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary ties at the University of Illinois, Urbana-
Research in the Arts. He was also a member of Champaign. He is the author, editor, or
the Research Faculty for the Center for Urban coeditor of numerous books including Per­
Affairs and Policy Research. He served as formance Ethnography: Critical Pedagogy and
site consultant for the International Rescue the Politics of Culture, Screening Race:
Committee and other human rights organiza­ Hollywood and a Cinema of Racial Violence;
tions. Professor Conquergood conducted sev­ Performing Ethnography; and 9/11 in
eral workshops for public defenders and American Culture. He is past editor of The
consulted pro bono on capital cases involving Sociological Quarterly, coeditor of The
indigent, minority, and immigrant defendants. Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd ed.),
He taught at the Bryan R. Shechmeister Death coeditor of Qualitative Inquiry, editor of
Penalty College, School of Law, Santa Clara Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies,
University. His research interests were in cul­ and series editor of Studies in Symbolic
tural studies and performance ethnography. Interaction.
He conducted ethnographic fieldwork in
refugee camps in Thailand, the Gaza Strip, and Greg Dimitriadis is Associate Professor in the
with street gangs in Chicago. In addition to Graduate School of Education and Adjunct
numerous publications in journals and edited Professor of American Studies at the
volumes, he coproduced two award-winning University at Buffalo, SUNY. He is author,
documentaries based on his ethnographic field­ coauthor, or coeditor of nine books, including
work: Between Two Worlds: The Hmong Performing Identity/Performing Culture: Hip
Shaman in America (1985), and The Heart Hop as Text, Pedagogy, and Lived Practice.
Broken in Half (1990). Before his death in
Jill Dolan holds the Zachary T. Scott Chair in
November 2004, he was completing a book
Drama in the Department of Theatre and
on performance ethnography grounded in his
Dance at the University of Texas at Austin.
long-term transnational field research with
She is the author the The Feminist Spectator as
refugees and new immigrants in Chicago.
Critic (1989), Presence and Desire: Essays on
Tracy C. Davis is Barber Professor of the Gender, Sexuality, Performance (1993),
Performing Arts at Northwestern University. Geographies of Learning: Theory and
She is general editor of the Cambridge Univer­ Practice, Activism and Performance (2001),
sity Press series Theatre and Performance and Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at
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About the Contributors 551

the Theatre (2005). Her research projects Literature and Performance, an award-
include a critical memoir on lesbian feminism winning professional theatre company that
in the United States and a critical history of has produced over 50 productions in 13 years.
queer theatre since the 1960s. She coedits, with He has also directed Off-Broadway and at
David Roman, the Triangulations: Lesbian/ numerous other venues including the
Gay/QueerDrama/Theatre/Performance series Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, and he has
at the University of Michigan Press. She is the had more than a dozen of his own plays
past president of the Women and Theatre and adaptations produced professionally.
Program of the Association for Theatre in Current projects include his adaptation of
Higher Education (ATHE), and a past presi­ Studs Terkel’s Will the Circle Be Unbroken:
dent of ATHE itself. She is former Executive Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith
Director of the Center for Lesbian and Gay (Steppenwolf); his jazz musical My Swan: the
Studies at the Graduate Center of the City Passions of F. Scott Fitzgerald (New York),
University of New York. Her articles have and Hymn to Elsewhere, an original piece
been published in Theatre Journal, The Drama inspired by the life and work of Salman
Review, Modern Drama, and Theatre Topics, Rushdie and the iconography of The Wizard
among other publications. She heads the of Oz.
Performance as Public Practice MA/PhD
Bruce Henderson is Professor of Speech
Program at UT-Austin.
Communication at Ithaca College, where he
Paul Edwards is Director of Undergraduate also served as department chair for five years
Studies in the Department of Performance and is currently coordinator of Health Com­
Studies at Northwestern University and the munication. He is co-author with Carol
recipient of the 2002 NU Alumni Excellence in Simpson Stern of Performance: Texts and
Teaching Award. He has directed more than Contexts and also serves as an Associate
40 original stage adaptations of fiction for Editor of Text and Performance Quarterly. He
campus and professional settings. His adapta­ has written about modern poetry, children’s
tion of John Barth’s The End of the Road literature, queer theory, and disability studies.
received a 1993 Joseph Jefferson Citation (for
Shannon Jackson is Professor of Rhetoric and
non-Equity production); his adaptation of
of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at
Geoff Ryman’s Was received a Joseph
the University of California, Berkeley. She is
Jefferson Award (for Equity production) and
head graduate advisor of the doctoral program
an After Dark Award. From the National
in Performance Studies, core faculty of the
Communication Association he has received
Art Research Center, and affiliated faculty
two awards: the Leslie Irene Coger Award,
in the Department of Women’s and Gender
honoring lifetime achievement in perfor­
Studies. She has published Lines of Activity:
mance, and the Lilla A. Heston Award for out­
Performance, Historiography, Hull-House
standing scholarship in performance studies.
Domesticity (2000), Professing Performance:
His essays and monographs have appeared in
Theatre in the Academy from Philology
such publications as Shakespeare Quarterly,
to Performativity (2004), and dozens of arti­
Text and Performance Quarterly, and Theatre
cles in edited collections and journals of
Annual.
theatre, performance, and cultural studies.
Derek Goldman is an Assistant Professor Jackson has received publication awards
of Theatre and Performance Studies at from the American Studies Association, the
Georgetown University and is Founding American Society for Theatre Research, and
Artistic Director of the StreetSigns Center for the Association for Theatre in Higher Education,
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552 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Peterson. She is a former editor of Text and
Advanced Study, the Townsend Center for the Performance Quarterly.
Humanities, and the Spencer Foundation.
Jon McKenzie is Assistant Professor of English
E. Patrick Johnson is Associate Professor and at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,
Director of Graduate Studies in the Depart­ where he teaches courses in performance stud­
ments of Performance Studies and African ies and civil disobedience. His works include
American Studies at Northwestern University. Perform or Else: From Discipline to
He is author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance (2001), the essays “Democracy’s
Performance and the Politics of Authenticity Performance,” “Laurie Anderson for Dum­
and coeditor (with Mae G. Henderson) of mies,” and “Towards a Sociopoetics of
Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology. He Interface Design: etoy, etoys, and TOYWAR,”
is currently working on a book manuscript and a 1996 broadcast commemoration of
entitled, Sweet Tea: An Oral History of Black the 1986 shuttle disaster titled “CINC: A
Gay Men of the South. Challenger Radio Drama.” Jon’s texts have
been translated into Croatian, French,
Joni L. Jones/Olorisa Omi Osun Olomo is an
German, Japanese, Polish, and Portuguese. He
Associate Professor of Performance Studies in
has also worked in the new media industry as
the Department of Theatre and Dance, and
a writer and information architect.
Associate Director of the Center for African
and African-American Studies at the Lisa Merrill is Professor in the Department
University of Texas at Austin. She is an of Speech Communication, Rhetoric, and
artist/scholar who is currently engaged in per­ Performance Studies at Hofstra University.
formance ethnography around the Yoruba Merrill is a gender and performance historian
deity Osun, and is writing a collaborative and specialist in American studies. Her
ethnography on the use of a jazz aesthetic research focuses on nineteenth century theatri­
in theatre. While on a Fulbright Fellowship cal and everyday performances of nationality,
in Nigeria (1997–98), Dr. Jones taught at race, gender, and sexuality and their recep­
Obafemi Awolowo University and contributed tion. Merrill is a recipient of a National
theatre for social change workshops to the Endowment for the Humanities senior scholar
Forum on Governance and Democracy in Ile- award, the Lilla Heston Prize for Outstanding
Ife. Her articles on performance and identity Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance
have appeared in Text and Performance Studies, and visiting fellowships and profes­
Quarterly, The Drama Review, Theatre sorships at Cambridge University, England;
Topics, and Black Theatre News. Her perfor­ La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia;
mance ethnography includes Searching for and Northwestern University, United States.
Osun, sista docta, and Broken Circles: A Her most recent book, When Romeo Was a
Journey Through Africa and the Self. Woman: Charlotte Cushman and Her Circle
of Female Spectators was awarded the Joe
Kristin M. Langellier is Mark and Marcia
A. Callaway Prize for Best Book in Theatre
Bailey Professor at the University of Maine
or Drama by an American author.
where she teaches communication, perfor­
mance studies, and women’s studies. Her Lynn C. Miller is Professor of Theatre and
research interests are narrative performance, Dance in the Performance as Public Practice
family storytelling, and Franco American cul­ program at the University of Texas at Austin.
tural identity. Her numerous publications Miller is the coeditor of Voices Made Flesh:
include Storytelling in Daily Life: Performing Performing Women’s Autobiography (2003)
Narrative (2004), coauthored with Eric E. and author of the novels The Fool’s Journey
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About the Contributors 553

(2002) and Death of a Department Chair (in Sandra L. Richards’s teaching interests center
press, 2006). Miller has adapted the works of on American drama, African-American and
many contemporary writers for the stage and African theatres, and black feminist theories.
has toured performances of Edith Wharton, She has taught dramatic literature and directed
Gertrude Stein, and Katherine Anne Porter. African-American, Caribbean, and African
Miller teaches courses in adaptation of plays at Stanford University, San Francisco
literature for stage and screen, performing State University, Northwestern University, and
autobiography, performance art, and perfor­ the University of Benin (Nigeria), where she
mance and culture. Currently, she’s writing a was a Fulbright lecturer from 1983 to 1985.
libretto for her play (coauthored with Laura She has published articles on such African-
Furman), Passenger on the Ship of Fools, American playwrights as Amiri Baraka, Ntozake
which has been performed in Saratoga Springs Shange, August Wilson, and on Nigerian
and at Louisiana State University. dramatists Wole Soyinka, Bode Sowande, and
Zulu Sofola in Theatre Journal, New Theatre
José Esteban Muñoz is Chair of the
Quarterly, and in the collections Critical
Department of Performance Studies, Tisch
Theory and Performance and Performance
School of the Arts, New York University. He
and Performativity. Her full-length study,
is author of Disidentifications: Queers of
Ancient Songs Set Ablaze: The Theatre of Femi
Color and the Performance of Politics (1999)
Osofisan, was selected by Choice as one of the
and the coeditor of several volumes including
outstanding academic publications of 1997.
Pop-Out: Queer Warhol and Everynight Life:
Other collections in which her work has
Music and Dance in Latin/o America. He is
appeared include Horror and Human Tragedy
completing two manuscripts, Feeling Brown:
Revisted, African Drama and Performance,
Ethnicity, Affect and Performance and
and The African Diaspora: African Origins
Cruising Utopia.
and New World Self-Fashioning. From 1998 to
Eric E. Peterson is Professor at the University 2001, Richards served as the Chair of the
of Maine where he teaches in the Department African American Studies Department, and
of Communication and Journalism. His from 2001 to 2004, she held the Leon Forrest
research and teaching interests are in narrative Professorship of African American Studies,
performance, media consumption, nonverbal both at Northwestern University. Currently,
communication, and communication diversity she is researching issues of cultural tourism to
and identity. He is coauthor with Kristin slave sites throughout the Black Atlantic.
M. Langellier of Storytelling in Daily Life:
Performing Narrative (2004) and coeditor of Rebecca Schneider is Associate Professor and
Public Broadcasting and the Public Interest Head of the MA and PhD programs in Theatre
(2003). and Performance Studies at Brown University.
She is the author of The Explicit Body in
Della Pollock is Professor of Communication Performance as well as numerous essays, most
Studies in the areas of performance and cultural recently “Solo Solo Solo” in After Criticism:
studies at the University of North Carolina New Responses to Art and Performance. She is
at Chapel Hill. She is the author of Telling a contributing editor to TDR and coeditor,
Bodies Performing Birth (1999) and editor with Gabrielle Cody, of Re:Direction: A
of Exceptional Spaces: Essays in Performance Theoretical and Practical Guide on twentieth
and History (1998) and Remembering: Oral century directing theory and practice.
History Performance (2005). She coedits the
journal Cultural Studies with Lawrence Mady Schutzman is a writer, scholar, and
Grossberg. theatre artist. She is author of The Real Thing:
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554 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF PERFORMANCE STUDIES

Performance, Hysteria, and Advertising and studies, women’s studies, and gender and com­
coeditor with Jan Cohen-Cruz of two antholo­ munication at DePaul University. She is the
gies on the work of Augusto Boal. Her perfor­ author of Grace Paley: Illuminating the Dark
mative essays have been published in journals Lives, and of chapters in Queer Words, Queer
ranging from The Drama Review to The Images and Readings in Cultural Contexts.
Journal of Medical Humanities. Schutzman’s Her essays have been published in Text and
current research focuses on humor as resis­ Performance Quarterly, Southern Speech
tance and divinatory practices. She teaches Communication Journal, and Women’s Studies
and serves as Assistant Dean of the School of in Communication. Her coedited volume (with
Critical Studies at California Institute of the Lynn C. Miller and M. Heather Carver), Voices
Arts. Made Flesh: Staging Women’s Autobiography
contains fourteen scripts and essays on
Nathan Stucky is the Chair of the Department women’s autobiographical performance.
of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois
University at Carbondale where he writes and Kristin Bervig Valentine is Professor Emeritus
directs performances and teaches courses in per­ of Communication and Women’s Studies at
formance studies. He is coeditor of Teaching Arizona State University. Her research within
Performance Studies, and he formerly edited communication is focused on performance
Theatre Annual: A Journal of Performance studies and ethnography. For more than 30
Studies. His essays have appeared in Cultural years she has been a volunteer teacher for
Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, Text and incarcerated women and continues to work for
Performance Quarterly, Communication alternatives to prisons. Valentine has published
Education, Journal of Pragmatics, and The earlier information about her work with incar­
Journal of Language and Social Psychology. cerated women in Women’s Studies in Commu­
nication, 21 (1998) and will contribute to a
Jacqueline Taylor is the Director of the DePaul white paper on incarcerated persons to be
Humanities Center and teaches performance published by NCA in 2006.
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