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Community, Confrontation, and the Subjectless Performative in Explicit Body Performance: Models of Audience Engagement
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Community, Confrontation, and the Subjectless Performative in Explicit Body Performance: Models of Audience Engagement

Erin Rachel Kaplan
05/01/2020

Abstract

explicit body performance Queer & Feminist Theatre and Performance Performance Studies queer theory Feminist Theory

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2408548911/60F112B523F047E7PQ/1

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This study, “Community, Confrontation, and the Subjectless Performative in Explicit Body Performance: Models of Audience Engagement,” examines the strategies used by Explicit Body Performers in their attempts to critically engage their audiences. I argue that there are three general models of engagement for these performers: a communitarian one which is exemplified in my study by Sex Workers’ Arts Shows, a confrontational one often used by performance artist, Xandra Ibarra, and a third more elusive model that I am calling the subjectless performative embodied by Young Jean Lee’s Untitled Feminist Show. Using critical feminist and queer theory, as well as my own experiences as an audience member, performance reviews, interviews with performers, and interdisciplinary theoretical works I evaluate the efficacy of these strategies based on the stated goals of the performers. This research contributes to debates about embodied performance, offering an intervention of queer and non-binary performance into the pantheon of feminist performance theory. By positing a subjectless performative, I make the argument that Untitled Feminist Show sets an example for a rejection of the here-and-now of gender binarism positing a feminist, queer, and gender-fluid future that rewrites and reprograms our understanding of what performance can do. Open Access

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