Blacktino Queer Performance - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0822360659 ISBN 13: 9780822360650

Verlag: Duke University Press, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Staging an important new conversation between performers and critics, Blacktino Queer Performance approaches the interrelations of blackness and Latinidad through a stimulating mix of theory and art. The collection contains nine performance scripts by established and emerging black and Latina/o queer playwrights and performance artists, each accompanied by an interview and critical essay conducted or written by leading scholars of black, Latina/o, and queer expressive practices. As the volume's framing device, "blacktino" grounds the specificities of black and brown social and political relations while allowing the contributors to maintain the goals of queer-of-color critique. Whether interrogating constructions of Latino masculinity, theorizing the black queer male experience, or examining black lesbian relationships, the contributors present blacktino queer performance as an artistic, critical, political, and collaborative practice. These scripts, interviews, and essays not only accentuate the value of blacktino as a reading device; they radiate the possibilities for thinking through the concepts of blacktino, queer, and performance across several disciplines. Blacktino Queer Performance reveals the inevitable flirtations, frictions, and seductions that mark the contours of any ethnoracial love affair.
Contributors. Jossiana Arroyo, Marlon M. Bailey, Pamela Booker, Sharon Bridgforth, Jennifer Devere Brody, Cedric Brown, Bernadette Marie Calafell, Javier Cardona, E. Patrick Johnson, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, John Keene, Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, D. Soyini Madison, Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., Andreea Micu, Charles I. Nero, Tavia Nyong'o, Paul Outlaw, Coya Paz, Charles Rice-GonzÁlez, Sandra L. Richards, Matt Richardson, RamÓn H. Rivera-Servera, Celiany Rivera-VelÁzquez, Tamara Roberts, Lisa B. Thompson, Beliza Torres NarvÁez, Patricia Ybarra, Vershawn Ashanti Young

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

E. Patrick Johnson is Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity, also published by Duke University Press.

Ramón H. Rivera-Servera is Associate Professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University and the author of Performing Queer Latinidad: Dance, Sexuality, Politics.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Blacktino Queer Performance

By E. Patrick Johnson, Ramón H. Rivera-Servera

Duke University Press

Copyright © 2016 Duke University Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8223-6065-0

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction: Ethnoracial Intimacies in Blacktino Queer Performance E. Patrick Johnson and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, 
Part I The love conjure/blues Text Installation Sharon Bridgforth, 
1. Reinventing the Black Southern Community in Sharon Bridgforth's The love conjure/blues Text Installation Matt Richardson, 
2. Interview with Sharon Bridgforth Sandra L. Richards, 
Part II Machos Directed/developed by Coya Paz; created by Teatro Luna, 
3. Voicing Masculinity Tamara Roberts, 
4. Interview with Coya Paz Patricia Ybarra, 
Part III Strange Fruit: A Performance about Identity Politics E. Patrick Johnson, 
5. Passing Strange: E. Patrick Johnson's Strange Fruit Jennifer DeVere Brody, 
6. Interview with E. Patrick Johnson Bernadette Marie Calafell, 
Part IV Ah mén Javier Cardona, translated by Andreea Micu and Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, 
7. Homosociality and Its Discontents: Puerto Rican Masculinities in Javier Cardona's Ah mén Celiany Rivera-Velázquez and Beliza Torres Narváez, 
8. Interview with Javier Cardona Jossianna Arroyo, translated by Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, 
Part V Dancin' the Down Low Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., 
9. Queering Black Identity and Desire: Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr.'s Dancin' the Down Low Lisa B. Thompson, 
10. Interview with Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr. John Keene, 
Part VI Cuban Hustle Cedric Brown, 
11. Love and Money: Performing Black Queer Diasporic Desire in Cuban Hustle Marlon M. Bailey, 
12. Interview with Cedric Brown D. Soyini Madison, 
Part VII Seens from the Unexpectedness of Love Pamela Booker, 
13. "Public Intimacy": Women-Loving-Women as Dramaturgical Transgressions Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, 
14. Interview with Pamela Booker Tavia Nyong'o, 
Part VIII Berserker Paul Outlaw, 
15. What's Nat Turner Doing Up in Here with All These Queers? Paul Outlaw's Berserker; A Black Gay Meditation on Interracial Desire and Disappearing Blackness Charles I. Nero, 
16. Interview with Paul Outlaw Vershawn Ashanti Young, 
Part IX I Just Love Andy Gibb: A Play in One Act Charles Rice-González, 
17. Learning to Unlove Andy Gibb: Race, Beauty, and the Erotics of Puerto Rican Black Queer Pedagogy Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes, 
18. Interview with Charles Rice-González Ramón H. Rivera-Servera, 
Contributors, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Reinventing the Black Southern Community in Sharon Bridgforth's The love conjure/blues Text Installation

Matt Richardson

and do the jernt be packed!
mens womens some that is both some that is neither/be
rolling all up and between the sounds
— love conjure/blues

The work of performance artist/writer Sharon Bridgforth depicts the early twentieth-century rural southern black community from the crossroads of poetry, theater, and fiction to creatively imagine the interstices or "between the sounds" of fixed gender and sexual norms. In Bridgforth's work generally and in The love conjure/blues Text Installation in particular, the South as a space where multiple sexualities and genders are central to black culture is the guiding force for the collective to heal from the trauma of the past. Of interest here is Bridgforth's use of the dramatic technique of the jazz aesthetic in her writing. The jazz aesthetic, according to early jazz aesthetic pioneer Aishah Rahman, is characterized by the acknowledgment of multiple states of reality. The jazz aesthetic in drama is open to other expressive and artistic genres including dance, film/video, poetry, drama, and fiction simultaneously. Bridgforth's two published books — a collection of short stories entitled the bull-jean stories (1996) and a novel, love conjure/blues (1999) — as well as her written and directed (what she called "conducted") plays and performances fulfill jazz aesthetic criteria for incorporating multiple genres. The love conjure/blues Text Installation, which is the focus of this essay, is an example of Bridgforth's adroit application of the jazz aesthetic, taking its promise of multiplicity into new dimensions by exploring the fluidity of queer gender identities in a black rural setting. Performance becomes a staged enactment of unfinished stories and accompanying movements, bringing these individual movements to a shared experience. To move with the intent of integrating "lost" bodies from the collective story is a communal act of healing.

Trained in the television and film industry, Bridgforth was founder, writer, and artistic director of the root wy'mn theatre company from 1993 to 1998. She was the anchor artist for the writing and performance collective known as the Austin Project, which was started in 2002 in Austin, Texas. Bridgforth's second published book, love conjure/blues, touches on the stories of multiple members of a single community, poignantly moving through their desires and personal histories. love conjure/blues lives both as a novel (written in poetic verse) and as a text installation performance piece which, while staying true to the written text, includes filmed portions. The love conjure/blues Text Installation traveled to select U.S. cities from 2007 to 2009 and included live performances of sections of the novel as well as video footage.

My interpretation of this work is based on my interview with Bridgforth in 2009, my ethnographic experience as a member of the Austin Project from 2007 to 2009 with Bridgforth as the anchor artist for the project, my experience as an extra in the short film version of love conjure/blues in 2007, my performance as a cast member of delta dandi in 2009, and my experience as an extra in the Austin premiere of ring/shout in 2010. Performance scholar D. Soyini Madison describes ethnography as an embodied practice. She states that "something happens differently when your body must move and adjust to the rhythms, structures, rules, dangers, joys and secrets of a unique location." As Madison argues, something happens differently to the researcher when one is moving through the performance with "embodied attention" that structures and informs his/her interpretation and analysis. From my position as an actor inside The love conjure/blues Text Installation, I am able to offer a unique perspective on the rhythms and rules governing Bridgforth's work.

The love conjure/blues Text Installation is a one-person stage performance of a "lost" African American rural past, written in a mixture of performance, poetry, and prose. This mixture assists in giving each text a nonrealist feel and opens the space for an imagined queer black southern community. Bridgforth's work opens a space at the crossroads of various genres and in doing so allows multiple truths at once. This mixing of genres occurs not only because of Bridgforth's training as a filmmaker and dramaturge, but also because Bridgforth's writing process often includes watching actors perform the work or her reading/performing the characters before the writing is organized, compiled, and published. Embodied performance has been part of her creative process to ensure that the work looks and sounds as well as reads according to her standards before it appears in a published book (and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Duke University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2016
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0822360659
• ISBN 13: 9780822360650
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 584
• Herausgeber: Johnson E. Patrick, Rivera-Servera Ramón H.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Mare Nostrum Group B.V.; gpsr@mare-nostrum.co.uk; ; Doelen 72; Breda; 4831 GR; Niederlande