Posts Tagged Performance

By Suzanna Bobadilla • 9 years ago

The Feministing Five: Darkmatter

Janani Balasubramanian and Alok Vaid-Menon make up the incredible trans South Asian art and activist collaboration Darkmatter. Masterfully using humor, language, and rhythm, Darkmatter pushes their audience to reflect and take action on racial justice, anti-colonialism, and gender and sexuality politics. Their spoken performances share stories from their childhoods to conversations during their young adult lives, and they invite you to find the poetry in your own world, relationships, and journey toward social justice.

Excitingly, Darkmatter’s brilliance can also be found within their written poetry, prose, interviews, and tweets (seriously, follow them now). Like their individual work, which has been featured in outlets such as Black Girl Dangerous, Racialicious, The New York Times, and Upworthy, Darkmatter’s ...

Janani Balasubramanian and Alok Vaid-Menon make up the incredible trans South Asian art and activist collaboration Darkmatter. Masterfully using humor, language, and rhythm, Darkmatter pushes their audience to reflect and ...
By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Quick hit: And the Oscar for best performance of gender goes to…

As you’re probably aware, the 84th annual Academy Awards are being handed out this weekend. Jill Dolan, a professor of English and Theater, culture blogger and all-around bad ass public intellectual, has a fascinating post about the performance of gender in this year’s crop of Oscar-nominated movies. From Albert Nobbs to Margaret Thatcher, this year’s nominated movies present us with a range of highly skilled performances not just of characters, but of gender.

Close’s performance of Albert’s masculinity in Nobbs is different from Janet McTeer’s as Hubert Page, the housepainter whom Albert learns is also a woman living as a man. Page’s masculinity is terse, marked by his solitary work. Page takes up space differently than Albert, moving ...

As you’re probably aware, the 84th annual Academy Awards are being handed out this weekend. Jill Dolan, a professor of English and Theater, culture blogger and all-around bad ass public intellectual, has a fascinating post about ...
By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

The Feministing Five: Justin Vivian Bond

Justin Vivian Bond is a cabaret artist and author who has performed all over the world. Bond’s new album is called “Dendrophile,” and v is currently on tour performing songs from it on the East Coast. Bond’s first book, Tango, which will be published later this year through the Feminist Press, chronicles the experience of growing up queer in suburban America in the 1970s.

In the short memoir, Bond, who is trans and uses the prefix “Mx” (pronounced “mix”),writes about the sexual relationship Bond had with a neighbor, a boy v hated but was attracted to all the same. The story begins with the news that the boy, now a man, has been arrested under the code name “Tango” ...

Justin Vivian Bond is a cabaret artist and author who has performed all over the world. Bond’s new album is called “Dendrophile,” and v is currently on tour performing songs from it on the East Coast. ...
By Courtney • 12 years ago

So you think you can perform gender?

There’s no question that So You Think You Can Dance? has bandied about its share of unexamined racist and ableist stereotypes and sometimes objectified and oversexualized women in bizarre ways, but I also think it’s one of the most experimental mainstream shows on television when it comes to gender and expression. It feels as if both men and women get a very wide range of options, thanks in large part to such talented, innovative choreography, when relating to and performing their masculinity and femininity. A recent number, performed by the two top contenders for this season’s crown–Sasha and Melanie–is a prime example. Check it:

How fierce was that? I hope a million little girls and boys are watching this show ...

There’s no question that So You Think You Can Dance? has bandied about its share of unexamined racist and ableist stereotypes and sometimes objectified and oversexualized women in bizarre ways, but I also think it’s one ...
By Courtney • 12 years ago

So you think you can perform gender?

There’s no question that So You Think You Can Dance? has bandied about its share of unexamined racist and ableist stereotypes and sometimes objectified and oversexualized women in bizarre ways, but I also think it’s one of the most experimental mainstream shows on television when it comes to gender and expression. It feels as if both men and women get a very wide range of options, thanks in large part to such talented, innovative choreography, when relating to and performing their masculinity and femininity. A recent number, performed by the two top contenders for this season’s crown–Sasha and Melanie–is a prime example. Check it:

How fierce was that? I hope a million little girls and boys are watching this show ...

There’s no question that So You Think You Can Dance? has bandied about its share of unexamined racist and ableist stereotypes and sometimes objectified and oversexualized women in bizarre ways, but I also think it’s one ...
By Courtney • 12 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: MEAN Little deaf Queer

In Terry Galloway’s funny, fast-moving, family-oriented memoir, MEAN Little deaf Queer, the reader gets the sense that there couldn’t possibly be anyone more entertaining to have a beer with than Galloway. She’s a storyteller of the most exquisite variety–focusing on all the right, telling details, taking you into literal and emotional worlds that feel both familiar and fascinating at the same time, and proving inexhaustible in the creative opportunities she sees in her own trials and tribulations.

Essentially, this memoir (rumor has it she’s working on a sequel) takes you through her early life growing up deaf and randy and rebellious, becoming a guerilla theater star in Austin, and on through to that land called Adulthood. Galloway writes so beautifully ...

In Terry Galloway’s funny, fast-moving, family-oriented memoir, MEAN Little deaf Queer, the reader gets the sense that there couldn’t possibly be anyone more entertaining to have a beer with than Galloway. She’s a storyteller of the ...
By Lori Adelman • 14 years ago

Erykah Badu’s New Video for “Window Seat”: Feminist Art or Shameless Publicity Stunt? (NSFW)

This weekend, the blogosphere was taken by storm when Erykah Badu released a music video for “Window Seat,” the first single off her brand new album. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already, although please be warned that this is most definitely Not Safe For Work.
In the video, Badu is seen stripping down from a hoodie and pants to her birthday suit on a public street. I won’t spoil the rest of the video for you, but let’s just say the ending definitely caught me off guard. A surprise “plot twist” turns this video into something much deeper than your average music video “striptease”.
Or does it?
The video was meant to be a statement against “groupthink” ...

This weekend, the blogosphere was taken by storm when Erykah Badu released a music video for “Window Seat,” the first single off her brand new album. Definitely check it out if you haven’t already, although please ...

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