The Visceral - New Categories of Queer Performance

In her article, “Affect, Performance and Queer Subjectivities,” Lisa Blackman asserts that “individuation is always relational and therefore plural” (Blackman 2011,184). Paradoxically, individual identity “emerges through our relations with others” (Blackman 2011,184).  Blackman goes on to describe queer performance of trauma which “allow bodies to speak” in visceral performances which subvert the rational and reach audiences on an emotional level (Black well 2011, 186). In this way, performances of autobiographical events speak to individual queer identity through a shared, visceral community experience.

Tim Lawrence’s article, “Disco And The Queering Of The Dance Floor,” asserts that disco as it was practiced at places such as the Loft in New York in the early 1970’s was a democratic, inclusive queer performance. This began to break down when disco started to rationalize the practice, splitting into smaller, elite exclusive groups. In its original format, the music at the disco transported dancers into “bodies without organs,” sharing a communal experience, which transcended race, gender or sexuality as long as the music was pulsing. The “physical was prioritized over the rational,” and the effect was a complex performance of queer (Lawrence 2011, 239).

An additional example of the use of the body in queer performance is suggested by Candace Moore in her essay titled, “Resisting, Reiterating, and Dancing Through: The Swinging Closet Doors of Ellen DeGeneres's Televised Personalities.” In this essay, Moore says “Ellen performs her queerness through her daily dances—illustrating both her control over what is expressed and her pleasure in expressing it. Here Ellen presents her queerness, individuality, difference, otherness, in an expressive act that broadcasts her self-love, and as a part of a daily ritual that is ultimately not all about her. Her daily dance also becomes a boundary-crossing ritual shared with all, where she encourages others […] to join her” (Moore 2008, 30). Here, like the singular-plural practice of identity Blackman suggests, Ellen expresses her individual queer identity through a body performance shared with others.

Blackman states that “queer performance could therefore be enriched and extended by moving beyond seeing performativity as either the reproduction or contesting of norms” (Blackman 2011, 196). All three of these texts and examples suggest that visceral performances understood through the body, and the shared experiences they create shape do exactly this. Through the use of another text, yet to be determined—possibly Hannah Hart’s YouTube channel/videos or another—this paper will examine if the use of the visceral/body in queer performance can be seen as belonging to its own more nuanced and complex categories beyond just the binary of reproducing or contesting norms.

Works Cited:

Blackman, Lisa. "Affect, Performance And Queer Subjectivities." Cultural Studies 25, no. 2 (2011): 183-199. 

Lawrence, Tim. "Disco And The Queering Of The Dance Floor." Cultural Studies 25, no. 2 (2011): 230-243.

Moore, Candace. "Resisting, Reiterating, and Dancing Through: The Swinging Closet Doors of Ellen DeGeneres's Televised Personalities." In Televising queer women: a reader. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 18-31