(Dis)incubations: Performances of Color(s) asWithin/Without/Against Pubblico

Abstract

In this thesis, I use works by black mixed race/mulattx/afro-diasporic artists in order to posit that their performances of color(s)--ontologically black in color and off-color in their queerness--offer us (those of us interested in performance and all of us who live as social, socialized, and socializing beings in the world) opportunities to reconsider the frameworks we use as we move through the world. I aim to look beyond the surface of these performances--the simple "what happens and what does it mean"--and instead theorize what haptic qualities--what material excesses that allow for possibility--lie hidden in the works. In doing so, I am essentially asking: what sort of disruptive forces are made available by the contents of these performances? How do these forces reconfigure the societal concepts that construct our social categories (of race, of sexuality, of gender)? And in these reconfigurings, how are these performances evoking ontological blackness, queerness, and femininity? I take on these questions less in hopes of defining or universalizing any answers to them and more so in the spirit of letting them guide my excavation of the worldmaking potential of performances of color(s). That is to say, it is my wish that this project will reveal how elements of these performances work within (often constricting) social and material realities, without majoritarian power, against the limitations imposed by this world in order to provide the imaginative fodder for entirely new ones.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………… i

Foreword………………………………………………………………………………… iv

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………… 1

Purpose of Performance………………………………………………………… 3

Alternative Models for Blackness………………………………………………6

From Disidentifications to (Dis)incubations…………………………………… 10

If You Read Nothing Else Read This……………………………………………14

Section One: Theoretical Foundations…………………………………………………17

Performance as Beyond & Against………………………………………………19

Resistive Capacity of Performance(s) of Color…………………………………… 28

Section Two: Case Studies………………………………………………………………39

Preface: Vaginal Creme Davis………………………………………………… 41

Flowers for Maps: Tracing (Time) Travel……………………………………44

[Mythical Realities / Real Mythologies] & Strange Eggs………………………51

Mud-tying Genealogies…………………………………………………………53

Coda: Notes on Ana Mendieta, Beyoncé, and Ontological Femininity……………60

Appendix………………………………………………………………………………..64

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………. 84

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Black Studies Art Criticism Aesthetics
Parola chiave	black studies ontological queerness performance studies art blackness (dis)incubations Jose Munoz mixed race William Pope.L Natasha Trethewey ontological femininity Natasha Omise'eke Tinsley queer studies performance Mequitta Ahuja black queer studies black mixed race Vaginal Creme Davis Beyonce Jose Quiroga Ana Mendieta Felix Gonzalez-Torres mixedness ontology queerness Rizvana Bradley race Hortense Spillers Fred Moten Albert Chong ontological blackness poetry disidentifications femininity
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Scott, Tracy L, Emory University
Committee Members	Wakefield, Peter W, Emory University Carrion, Maria Mercedes, Emory University Demery, Jericho Brown, Emory University

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