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ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Queer Legacies: Tracing the Roots of Contemporary Transgender Performance

Savard, Nicolas Shannon
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1626384633865101

Abstract Details

2021, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Theatre.
While the past decade has seen a rapid increase in media visibility for transgender celebrities, it has not necessarily led to greater inclusion of transgender people within the United States' major performing arts institutions. The resulting increased awareness among the general public has reinforced the prevailing cultural narrative that the transgender community is a newly emerging population. The theatre has contributed to this perception, framing trans narratives as novel and “trending,” which perpetuates what ethnographer Andre Calvacante calls the ideology of transgender impossibility. This dissertation challenges the theatre industry's ideology of transgender impossibility by tracing the artistic and political origins of contemporary transgender performance and by illuminating the ways in which such an ideology obscures the history and distinct aesthetics of trans artists. Using interviews and what LGBTQ theatre historian Sean F. Edgecomb terms lateral historiography, this project locates transgender performance and aesthetic practices within communities practicing queer solo performance, the theatrical jazz aesthetic, and spoken word poetry. Building upon these varied queer legacies, transgender performers have developed a particular set of aesthetic practices and dramaturgical strategies based in embodied experience, queer time/transtemporality, disidentification, and community-building. The exploration of trans aesthetics here examines performance strategies which trouble the actor-spectator relationship through the lenses of Rebecca Schneider's explicit body performance, Jack Halberstam's transgender gaze, and accountable audience participation. The project closes with an illustration of how the ideology of transgender impossibility—as a function of the cis white gaze—operates within theatrical spaces, perpetuating a cycle of marginalization and delegitimization of trans aesthetics, histories, voices, and experiences.
Beth Kattelman (Advisor)
Nadine George-Graves (Committee Member)
Guisela Latorre (Committee Member)
463 p.
Fine Arts; Gender Studies; Glbt Studies; Performing Arts; Theater; Theater History; Womens Studies
transgender performance; trans; LGBTQ theatre; queer dramaturgy; solo performance; theatre historiography; queer cultural production; transgender history; WOW Cafe; queer theatre; jazz aesthetic; spoken word poetry; QTPOC

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Savard, N. S. (2021). Queer Legacies: Tracing the Roots of Contemporary Transgender Performance [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1626384633865101

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Savard, Nicolas. Queer Legacies: Tracing the Roots of Contemporary Transgender Performance. 2021. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1626384633865101.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Savard, Nicolas. "Queer Legacies: Tracing the Roots of Contemporary Transgender Performance." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2021. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1626384633865101

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1626384633865101
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© 2021, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.