Feminist performance art

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According to scholar Virginia Mackenny, performance art is a great tool to mold and remold gender because performance art, in most instances, includes a direct subversion to everyday conventions. MacKenny also writes that feminist performance Art had a large presence “in the late '60s and early '70s in America when, in the climate of protest constituted by the civil rights movement and second wave feminism." There are several movements that fall under the category of feminist performance art, including Feminist Postmodernism, which took place during 1960-1970 and focused on the exploitation of women's bodies as a means for profit. Similarly, the Chicanx movement emerged in East Los Angeles during the 1970s, and focused on the Vietnam war, which was considered a post-apartheid movement.^[1]

Feminist performance art History[]

Performance art on theatre started in Greek and Rome, and later in England. Performers in the Roman Imperial age were referred as 'mimes', as a way regarding to their gender - by 'mime actors' and 'mime actresses'.^[2] Within the Roman theatre, male has dominated the major number among the performers, stated in "The History of the Theatre" written bu Brockett and Hildy.^[2]

Feminist postmodernism[]

As Forte writes in her analysis of feminist performance art in the 1960s and 1970s, “Within this movement, women's performance emerges as a specific strategy that allies postmodernism and feminism … women used performance as a deconstructive strategy to demonstrate the objectification of women and its results”.^[3] Another strategy that was commonly used by feminist performance artists during the postmodernist movement was “removing of the mask,” which was utilized to demonstrate the consequences of female representations in the media, on the psyche of women. MacKenny also writes about the removing of the mask within Feminist Postmodernism. She writes, “This 'masquerade' or 'masking' occurs when women play with their assigned gender roles in multiple, often contradictory ways - adopting, adapting, overlaying and subverting the hegemonic discourse in the process.”

Chicano movement[]

During the late 1960s and early 1970s in East Los Angeles, American citizens of Mexican decent protested against the Vietnam War and the disproportionate deaths of Chicanos in it. At that time, 22% of deaths on the front lines of the Vietnam war were Chicanos, while the percentage of the population was only 5%. This was due to the poor education system that did not prepare students for college, leaving them with few options but enlistment. The protests include the Blowouts or student walkouts, and the Chicano Moratorium. The art group Asco (art collective), based in East LA commented on the impacts of the war on queer and brown identities, as well as the tragedies that occurred in the protests discussed above due to police brutality. The group created impromptu street performances in the form or processions on Whittier Boulevard. The processions took the same route as the Chicano Moratorium and also referenced traditional Mexican and Catholic processions of the Christmas posada. Some of their most famous performances experiment with gender roles, for example, one male identifying artist attended a club wearing “booty shorts, pink platforms, and a shirt that said ‘just turned 21.’”^[4] The group continued to make performance and visual art that engaged with concepts related to queer and ethnic identity in East LA. During this period, East LA was ghettoized through a border of highways and dilapidated conditions.

Post-apartheid movement[]

MacKenny writes about two of the major players in the Post-apartheid performance art movement in South Africa. She first writes about Carol Anne Gainer and her performance entitled 'Exposed.' MacKenny explains that Gainer disrupts and subverts the binary as she performs as both the model and artist in this performance, which works to blur the "distinction between artist/art, artist/model, constructor/constructed, finder/found, mind/body, subject/object." The second artist which Mackenny writes about is a mixed race artist who performs a piece called 'Span.' MacKenny asserts that the artist Tracey Rose, alludes to Western societies exploitation of people of colour in scientific study and analysis, and the "dissection and embalming of body parts of native 'others' (the most pertinent to the South African context being Saartje Baartman, a young Khoisan woman displayed as the "Venus Hottentot" for her unique genitalia and steatopygia, or enlarged buttocks)," through her own display of her body.^[1] Her performance exposes her naked body and is contrasted against images of "scientific" exploitation, which both highlights the dichotomy between these subjects and engages with Mackenny's definition of post-apartheid performance art and its political aim to blur and disrupt binary structures.

Anti-war performance art movement[]

The sociologist Rachel V Kutz-Flamenbaum writes about two major players in the anti-war performance art movement during the George W Bush administration. Code Pink, and Raging Grannies challenge and subvert gender norms in their performances, and thus, use very similar tactics and strategies. For instance, in Code Pink, Kutz-Flamenbaum asserts that, "the emphasis on women’s role as pacifist caregivers presents a nonthreatening image of women activists."

The perpetuated concept of women as non threatening, relies on the audiences association of pink as a non threatening and feminized colour. Kutz-Flamenbaum argues that "Code Pink’s use of civil disobedience and aggressive trailing of public officials confound and challenge normative gender expectations of women as passive, polite, and well-behaved."(95)^[5] Kutz-Flamenbaum claims that Raging Grannies similarly use this tactic in the description of their mission statement. Kutz-Flamenbaum explains that their mission statement "illustrates the way Raging Grannies use norm- embracing stereotypes of 'little old ladies' and 'grannies' to challenge the gendered assumptions of their audiences." Their conscious performance as non-threatening and nurturing women, strategically and tactfully confront issues related to war and challenge the participation of the George W Bush administration in the war.

References[]