Utopian Performatives Research Articles

Spaces of Play: The Spatial Dimensions of Underground Club Culture and Locating the Subjunctive

Normal 0 0 1 153 875 7 1 1074 11.1539 0 0 0 Normal 0 false false false EN-AU JA X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Table Normal; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:Times New Roman;} This article examines the interrelated concepts of space, play and performativity in relation to the underground club scene in the UK. Grounded in the discipline of performance studies, this article uses the lens of play to identify how the spatial characteristics of underground dance culture provide a fertile terrain for performative acts of collectivity and expression. Resonating with previous EDMC scholarship that invokes concepts of liminality and the social dimensions of “spontaneous communitas”, the physical and psychical dimensions of play will be considered. Applying Turner’s work on subjunctivity (1982) and Jill Dolan’s concept of “utopian performatives” (2005) in relation to the psytrance scene, the article positions the underground party as a playful arena, a spatial construct that offers a context for moments of individual and collective transformation that are expressed and experienced performatively.

On ‘Publics’ A feminist constellation of key words

The conjunction of the key words ‘publics’, ‘feelings’, ‘practice’, ‘utopian performatives’ and ‘performance’ drive most of my current work, from my own spectating habits and interests, to my blogg...

Utopian Performatives and the Social Imaginary: Toward a New Philosophy of Drama/Theater Education

Abstract Drama/theater education lives in the tension of being a discipline rooted in the fine arts and humanities that has been transplanted into the social science of education. This paper suggests that a more aesthetic and philosophical reflection on what drama/theater does and can do in educational settings frees us from the scientized and instrumental concerns of more traditional social science research approaches in education. In this regard, and in moving toward the articulation of a new philosophy for drama/theater education (and its sister field of applied drama/theater), the recent work of performance theorist Jill Dolan and philosopher Charles Taylor is presented. Dolan’s notion of the utopian performative suggests that in certain performance contexts, spectators experience fleeting yet powerful “glimpse[s] of utopia” based on feelings of deep empathy and “lucid intersubjective understanding.” Taylor’s philosophy of the social imaginary suggests that society itself is created and sustained by collective acts of the imagination that are constantly in flux and flow and are possible to harness in the cause of social justice and change. Drawing on the work of these thinkers, and selected others, a new philosophical way of seeing drama/theater education as the collective creation of socially imagined performative utopias is offered for further consideration and development.

Utopian Performatives and the Social Imaginary: Toward a New Philosophy of Drama/Theater Education

Utopian Performatives and the Social Imaginary: Toward a New Philosophy of Drama/Theater Education Monica Prendergast (bio) Prologue Raymond Williams—A Found Poem shadows of shadows fiction; acting; idle dreaming and vicarious spectacle; the simultaneous satisfaction of sloth and appetite; distraction from distraction by distraction a heavy (even gross) catalogue of our errors till the eyes tire millions of us watch [End Page 58] shadows of shadows (and find them substance); scenes situations actions exchanges crises slice of life drama now a voluntary habitual internal rhythm; flow of action and acting of representation and performance raised to a new convention . . . a basic need.1 Introduction Philosophy is not a theory but an activity. —Ludwig Wittgenstein My interest in aesthetic philosophy and performance theory has offered me the opportunity to engage with the recent work of political philosopher Charles Taylor and performance theorist Jill Dolan.2 As I read these studies, I see interesting and potentially useful contributions to be drawn from their philosophical investigations toward the beginning moments of a new philosophy of drama education that is rooted in the collective creation of socially imagined performative utopias. It is through this process that I arrive at the understanding that the very nature of the dramatic education process embodies and defines socially committed moral values of active and engaged democracy and the protection and implementation of universal human rights. Thus, this paper is organized into three sections. First, I will introduce Dolan’s philosophical insight that, under certain conditions, we can experience “glimpse[s] of utopia” in performance contexts.3 Second, I will broaden my viewpoint beyond the realm of performance and culture out into society itself with Taylor’s philosophical argument that we (that is, modern humanity) have socially imagined our way into the present and can shift those collective acts of imagination that underscore how we live with new imaginary acts that envision other ways to live in the world. Third, I will suggest how [End Page 59] these philosophical works can be adapted and seen as a fresh and welcome way to see, reflect upon, and assess what we are doing as drama educators and applied theater practitioners who practice “socially committed pedagogy.”4 I conclude by inviting drama education scholars to consider more deeply the aesthetics and poetics of what we do in an act of conscious resistance to the cult of scientism that still dominates how we teach, research, think, and live in the world. This process is supported by the inclusion of selected found poems created from the writings of drama/theater theorists and educational philosophers; it is hoped that these poems function effectively as indicators that it is possible to know the world and to demonstrate research and learning successfully in more aesthetic forms than are seen in standardized qualitative research writing.5 As an educational researcher rooted in the arts, I am interested in representative forms that are consonant and resonant with my research topics. Arts-based educational research offers such possibilities of rendering research into visual art, music, drama, or creative writing.6 My own interest has been in drawing on poetry in an attempt to more fully express the affective, embodied, transitory, and ephemeral nature of performance.7 I include some examples of my poetic inquiry practice within this essay as found poems created from theorists whose work engages dialogically and relationally with Dolan and Taylor and their notions of utopian performatives and the social imaginary. Defining Terms: Performative Utopias Baz Kershaw—A Found Poem spectacles of deconstruction in the performative society mediatization disperses performance through culture: the eye of the camera the ear of the microphone the body of the keyboard the extra finger of the mouse everything as performance (for someone else and crucially for ourselves) mediatization coupled to liberal democracy to late-capitalism the market at the heart of the social ubiquitous and spectacular: [End Page 60] politicians perform shares perform life-styles perform (the ghost in the global machine is a performer and we are that ghost) every vision of disaster every fantasy of civilization the spectacle of knowledge itself contained in the magic of the micro-chip shrinking the human to nothing dispersing the human everywhere...

Hopelessly Witty or Witless Hope: Notes from LTA Land

HI, MY NAME IS ERIN, and I'm on a contract. I have been trying, lately, to say that much possible because, like academic writing, being on a teaching contract is something many of us do but few of us like to talk about. sort of feels like a confession, which is bizarre, given that, at least in the case of the contract that I'm on, this line of work is pretty humane. Though, of course, there are some foibles. Earlier this year I was approached by a colleague about speaking on a Committee for Professional Concerns panel at accute. I imagined giving an incredibly well-wrought short talk, something to entertain the ears, elucidate the mind, and, ultimately, incite my listeners into some sort of action. And I'd be funny. Lots of witty turns of phrase. I envisioned what I would say while I was mired in grading. I thought about it while planning lectures. I saw myself writing it on Sunday evenings after I'd finished the week's lecture plans. I thought of the people I know who are either also doctorate holders in contract positions or facing a market that is as it's been since the last time it was bad and concentrated on how I would represent our experiences while somehow managing to walk the tightrope of accuracy without falling into pessimism or overt optimism. I even started doing some research. Even a cursory look at the Chronicle of Higher Education finds a wealth of insightful-yet-dreary reports on the rising numbers of sessional workers, adjunct professors, and limited-term faculty. The New Yorker featured a cover with a PHD-holder moving back into his childhood bedroom while his parents look on nervously (Barreca). And who can forget the Macleans article, It Hurts When You Call Me Professor, whose tag line reads They've got phds. They're paid like fast food And they're your teachers. I recall first reading that one while I was in graduate school, and I remember thinking: how upsetting. Why doesn't someone do something? I also thought, frankly, meh. For I've done most everything right. Service? Check. Finish within four years with sshrc funding? Check. Conference presentations and ongoing publications? Check. And I'm reasonably nice and suitably provocative. Surely, I thought in my secret little heart, I would be an exception. As I worked through this research I thought about how I'd relay it in a witty-yet-serious fashion. I could talk about alienation of labour or, more positively, offer some ideas for academic utopian performatives. But more so, I started to worry. After all, I'm on this panel because I've just completed my first term an Assistant Professor. And, despite the fact that my contract (which at the time of Congress had just been renewed) is for ten months at a time, it has been a really good year. My colleagues are welcoming; I'm not really what Macleans called a member of the invisible class of workers. My fellow department members recognize that I'm exploited and work to support me. Indeed, that my position exists at all is due to a decision on the department's part to push for an LTA hire rather than to parse out per-course contracts. Although there are always new situations to negotiate: students who ask if I can supervise them are unprepared for the reply that we'll have to wait and see if I'm here next year. But really, it's a pretty good gig. I'm constantly reminded--by myself, by my mentors, by friends--that I'm luckier than most of my peers. My inability to begin this paper brought me, somewhat reluctantly, to my first point about holding an LTA: teaching an over-load means at the very least sacrificing wit. What I mean here is that in a teaching appointment (meaning that, for example, since September 2009 I've taught seven classes and about three hundred students; in the 2010-11 year I'll teach the same numbers) one still manages to write a little, but the time needed to shape and style the argument is challenged. …

Cultivating the art of safe space

Performance-making and peace-building are processes predicated on the production of safe space. But what is ‘safe space’? In performance-making, what is it that makes space safe without losing the creative potential of tension? What role is there for risk? And, once achieved, how does safe space become meaningful beyond its immediate community of participants? This paper examines the value of the concept of ‘safe space’ in performance, suggesting that for applied theatre practitioners it is more than just a precursor for the art-making processes it supports. Here, safe space is considered as a processual act of ever-becoming: a space of messy negotiations that allow individual and group actions of representation to occur, as well as opportunities for ‘utopian performatives’. Contact Inc's Peace Project is profiled as a performance-based program that grounds these issues and offers insight into the ways in which ‘safe space’ might function beyond its conventional connotations of protection and guardedness to be mobilised in a broader grassroots agenda for social change.

Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice (review)

Reviewed by: Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice Ryan Claycomb (bio) Sherrill Grace and Jerry Wasserman, eds. Theatre and AutoBiography: Writing and Performing Lives in Theory and Practice. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2006. 352 pp. ISBN 0-88922-540-0, $24.95. Over the past decade or so, theatre and performance studies and auto/biography studies have inched toward one another, but only in the last few years have we seen concerted study and discussion at the confluence of these two concerns. In 2004, the University of British Columbia hosted a workshop on precisely this nexus, "Putting a Life on Stage: A Theatre and AutoBiography Exploratory Workshop." The result is this useful, though by no means comprehensive collection edited by Sherrill Grace and Jerry Wasserman, one that explores both the practical and theoretical dynamics for staging lived experience, and for writing lives conducted on or near the stage. While the origin of these essays as conference papers sometimes limits the scope and impact of many pieces in the collection, several will contribute meaningfully and lastingly to this growing area of inquiry. In her introduction to Theatre and AutoBiography, Sherrill Grace contends that there exists a "highly productive" relationship between these two fields of knowledge, and situates the intersection within current critical discussions of performativity, of the interplay between theories of life writing and the writing itself, of narrative, and of memory. Specifically, she argues persuasively and usefully for a notion of "performative autobiographics: the creation of identities that exist in performance, that challenge fixed notions of the self and of subjectivity, and that are new each time the story is performed" (18). While the volume is perhaps too disparate for the introduction to make much more substantitive claims than this, it is a useful summary of the critical conversation thus far. While the threads that Grace introduces are not all common to every one of the fifteen academic essays in the volume, notions of performance, self, and subjectivity are recurring themes, and find their most theoretically infused engagements in the first section, "Theorizing AutoBiographical Theatre." Particularly compelling in this section are Susan Bennett's "3-D A/B" and Ric Knowles's "Documemory, Autobiology and the Utopian Performative in Canadian Autobiographical Solo Performance," both of which examine, variously, the ontological and rhetorical status of the body on the truth claims of auto/biographical narratives. Bennett writes, "The body, above all else, [End Page 213] makes these performances both more and less reliable than their written equivalents, for it claims a special purchase on the real, incites evidence of the past and promises, for the audience, a three-dimensional text" (46). Meanwhile, Knowles, in discussing the work of performer Emily Taylor, argues that "the show turned on a confrontation between the discursive 'I' as social and grammatical 'subject' and the culturally and discursively produced and abjected body" (50). While neither essay comes to a consensus on the relationship of the autobiographical body to "the real," there is plenty to work with in these thoughtful additions to the field. The second section of the volume, "AutoBiographical Plays: Page, Stage or Real Life?," examines a range of auto/biographical texts in performance, covering issues of process and performance, the notion of dramatic portraiture, the autographic relationship of the playwright to the fictional play, and the implications of the self in performance for feminist work. Particularly useful in the section is Joanne Tompkins's essay, in which she examines the actor's and audience's engagements of Self and Other. She argues that in works by Joan MacLeod and by Guillermo Verdicchia and Marcus Youssef, "each encourages its audiences to read the fictional characters in their own context, but neither isolates that context from the 'real' life models which partly precipitated them" (124). It is in this section in particular that a reader will find the greatest evidence of the rich range of discussion on this critical confluence of theatre and auto/biography, and while the shorter nature of many of the arguments may render those discussions less than exhaustive, each essay in this section makes a contribution to the discourse. The third section, "Theatre Lives: From Autobiography to Biography," revolves...

Utopia in Performance

The essay describes ‘utopian performatives’, which are moments of performance in which utopia is ‘done’ in the intensity of exchange between performers and spectators and among the audience. As an example, the essay discusses the performance Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry Jam on Broadway, an evening of slam poetry presented by a multiracial cast for a young, unusually multiethnic audience. It describes a process of feeling together over obvious differences, inspired by an intensely present moment of theatre.

Choreographies of Resistance: Latina/o Queer Dance and the Utopian Performative

Choreographies of Resistance: Latina/o Queer Dance and the Utopian Performative

Dancing Other-Wise: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Utopia in Rae Kyung Lee and Dancers

The utopian potential of perfOlmance can be located in moments of communilas that bind performers to audiences and audience members to one another. But it can also be found in the daily mechanisms -the rhetoric and the rituals — that produce performance in specific communities. In the community I examine here, utopian performatives are practices of everyday life as much as, perhaps more than. final products. Moreover. the rhetoric and rituals that set these practices in motion within the community are metaphysical: non-hegemonic, non-doctrinal, but metaphysical and even mystical nevertheless. This essay explores the productive intersections of metaphysical and utopian performatives in the daily routines of an internationally renowned multi-ethnic urban contemporary dance company: Hae Kyung Lee and Dancers.

Death and Desire, Apocalypse and Utopia: Feminist Gestus and the Utopian Performative in the Plays of Naomi Wallace

In the final scene of Naomi Wallace's Depression-era play The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek (1998), the two youngest characters — Dalton Chance, the fifteen-year-old protagonist, and Pace Creagan, the seventeen-year-old young woman whose presence literally and figuratively haunts the play — engage in a highly erotic sex scene without touching. This scene, like the prologue, bookends the play in a kind of "no-space," which is neither the place of memory (the "when" of the majority of Trestle) nor the present moment, as indicated by Wallace's opaque stage direction: "{Dalton] is ill a place that is both the past and the present at the same time".

Choreographies of Resistance: Latinalo Queer Dance and the Utopian Performative

As a migrant to the United States from Puerto Rico in the early 1990s, I learned to articulate my sexuality and my political identity at the dance club. Within the erotic realm of clubs like Heaven, Carpe Diem, Club Marcella's, and The Avenue Pub, I embodied my position as a queer Latino. Dancing queerly with my friends — marking my own latinidad through rhythmic phrasings that allowed me to feel and to own the music, and approaching strangers bodily within the comfort of a shared social space — allowed me to experience communities of pleasure. The club, like the theatre, is one of the places where I renew myself, where I am able to witness, in almost religious reverence, the most immediate and affective manifestations of vibrant communities in motion.

"Finding Our Feet in the Shoes of (One An) Other": Multiple Character Solo Performers and Utopian Performatives

"Finding Our Feet in the Shoes of (One An) Other": Multiple Character Solo Performers and Utopian Performatives

"Finding Our Feet in the Shoes of (One An) Other": Multiple Character Solo Performers and Utopian Performatives

Impelled by my commitment to the progressive political potential of live interactions in theatre, I've begun to focus my research on the ways in which performance, as a practice, can offer glimpses of utopia. I see these moments in the theatre drawn in small gestures that f1in with how our lives might be different, were the objectives of social justice and freedom truly achieved.

Performance, Utopia, and the "Utopian Performative"

This essay is a rumination of sorts, the beginning of an inquiry into the ways in which performance might provide us with experiences of utopia. How can performance, in itself, be a utopian gesture? Why do people come together to watch other people labor on stage, when contemporary culture solicits their attention with myriad other forms of representation and opportunities for social gathering? Why do people continue to seek the liveness, the present-tenseness that performance and theatre offer? Is the desire to be there, in the moment, an expression of a utopian impulse? Certainly, people are drawn to theatre and performance by fashion and by taste, by the need to collect the cultural capital that theatre going provides. Live theatre remains a powerful site at which to establish and exchange notions of cultural taste, to set standards, and to model fashions, trends, and styles.