Conscious Gender Performance: Reappropriating Women's Bodies Through Performance Open Access

Abstract

Critics and theorists alike have raised several problems regarding female self-representation in the theater, which feminist artists have tried to address using strategies of body art, female language, performance art, cross-dressing, and Brechtian alienation. Following in this legacy, I created an interpretation of Franca Rame's A Woman Alone that aimed to address the treatment of women's bodies onstage, and as signifiers of violence, through the experimentation and use of these different techniques in performance. I found that the most valuable tools in doing so were a multi-media approach, the incorporation of explicit language and imagery, and a conscious gender performance. These methods, in conjunction with acts of replaying traditionally oppressive tactics on the female body in celebration of her gender and sexuality, can reclaim these bodies from meanings and significations that have historically been dictated by an outside, male gaze.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

PREFACE..........................................................................................................................1

1. ORIGINS OF FEMINIST PERFORMANCE ART.......................................................................3

Experimental Self-Portraiture

Feminist Performance Art

Gender Performance

The Trap of Gender Binaries and Theatrical Realism

2. RAME AND KAHLO: OVERCOMING TRAUMA THROUGH SELF-REPRESENTATION.....................11

Rame's Body of Work

A Woman Alone

Frida Kahlo and the Re-performance of Trauma

3. IMAGINING VIOLENCE AS AN ACT OF RECLAMATION.........................................................22

Questioning Traditional Feminist Performance Theory as a Definitive Method

The Parallel Lives of Rame and Kahlo

4. DEVELOPMENT OF PERFORMANCE AND MULTI-MEDIA AS A RESTORATION OF MEANING........27

Contextualizing performance through Lo Stupro

Paralyzing Reverence for the Text: Too Much of a Good Thing

Inclusion of Kahlo

Incorporating Schneider and the Legacy of Explicit Feminist Performance

Rap: The Final Feminist Frontier and a Model for Feminist Performance Art

Looking Forward: Internalizing and Applying the Process in my Professional Life

APPENDIX A: REHEARSAL JOURNAL...................................................................................42

APPENDIX B: ANNOTATED SCRIPT.....................................................................................53

APPENDIX C: CUE LIST WITH IMAGES AND LYRICS..............................................................73

BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................................87

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Theater Studies
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Gender Studies Theater Women's Studies
Keyword	Gender Frida Kahlo Franca Rame Self-representation Performance Art Multimedia Violence Feminism Theater A Woman Alone Reappropriation Sexuality
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Murphy, Vinnie, Emory University
Committee Members	Gonzalez, Elva, Emory University Paulsen, Lisa, Emory University Evenden, Michael, Emory University

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