Davis, Tracy C & Postlewait, Thomas
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I began this project wanting to explore the concept of transgression and how it functioned and related to this performer called Joey Hateley whose gender was difficult to decipher. The company name—TransAction—was for me principally about... more
I began this project wanting to explore the concept of transgression and how it functioned and related to this performer called Joey Hateley whose gender was difficult to decipher. The company name—TransAction—was for me principally about transgenderism and transgression within the space of theatre, and the focus of my research stemmed from a question hypothesized by Judith Butler in her highly influential text Gender Trouble: ‘what kind of [theatrical] performance will enact and reveal the performativity of gender itself in a way that destabilizes the naturalized categories of identity and desire [?]’ (Butler 1999: 177). I investigated the possibilities of theatrical impersonation and role-play in the transgression of gender norms and social boundaries. The connection between certain forms of theatrical performance and queer theories excited me, and I thought that what I had seen at The Drill Hall—Joey Hateley in a show about the mimicry and fluidity of gender behavior and appearance—called into question, or transgressed, hegemonic and heterosexist ideologies pertaining to identity and desire.
The focus changed, slightly, and despite originally setting out to measure and assess the degree of transgression, or the extent to which cultural boundaries had been violated and surpassed in specific instances of theatricality, I became instead more interested in some of the other words and ideas associated with ‘trans’. While transgressive acts in theatrical contexts—or what Jonathon Dollimore understands as ‘transgressive reinscriptions’—disrupt the dimorphic structure of gender, they might also equally reinforce the binary logic of that organizing principle (Dollimore 1991: 322-325). The notion of trans became more about transformation, transition, and transcendence. It felt more appropriate, more accurate even, to claim that Joey was not necessarily transgressing gender, but rather transforming—or expanding—the possibilities of gender as it is lived, constructed, displayed and perceived.
Joey, then, more than a transgressor, is seen in this dissertation as a theatrical transformer who transitions across, through, and in-between a multiplicity of constructed stage identities. The artistic projects by TransAction have opened up—for me and hopefully for many others—new perspectives and new understandings of what it means to live gender(s) and to do gender(s). In watching these exciting transformations—by analyzing this person’s shifting silhouettes—I also re-register my personal changes, consider my multiple others, and am in this sense enlightened, transformed, and yet still transforming. This focus in the work of TransAction, then, to recognize individual alterity, to question differentiation, to document potential social change, and to dream of transcendence is vital if, as Elizabeth Wilson writes, we are to ‘have an idea of how things could be different’ or better still for queer and/or marginalized identities:
In other words, transgression on its own leads eventually to entropy, unless we carry within us some idea of transformation. It is therefore not transgression that should be our watchword, but transformation (Wilson in Kemp & Squires., ed. 1997: 369-370).
The focus changed, slightly, and despite originally setting out to measure and assess the degree of transgression, or the extent to which cultural boundaries had been violated and surpassed in specific instances of theatricality, I became instead more interested in some of the other words and ideas associated with ‘trans’. While transgressive acts in theatrical contexts—or what Jonathon Dollimore understands as ‘transgressive reinscriptions’—disrupt the dimorphic structure of gender, they might also equally reinforce the binary logic of that organizing principle (Dollimore 1991: 322-325). The notion of trans became more about transformation, transition, and transcendence. It felt more appropriate, more accurate even, to claim that Joey was not necessarily transgressing gender, but rather transforming—or expanding—the possibilities of gender as it is lived, constructed, displayed and perceived.
Joey, then, more than a transgressor, is seen in this dissertation as a theatrical transformer who transitions across, through, and in-between a multiplicity of constructed stage identities. The artistic projects by TransAction have opened up—for me and hopefully for many others—new perspectives and new understandings of what it means to live gender(s) and to do gender(s). In watching these exciting transformations—by analyzing this person’s shifting silhouettes—I also re-register my personal changes, consider my multiple others, and am in this sense enlightened, transformed, and yet still transforming. This focus in the work of TransAction, then, to recognize individual alterity, to question differentiation, to document potential social change, and to dream of transcendence is vital if, as Elizabeth Wilson writes, we are to ‘have an idea of how things could be different’ or better still for queer and/or marginalized identities:
In other words, transgression on its own leads eventually to entropy, unless we carry within us some idea of transformation. It is therefore not transgression that should be our watchword, but transformation (Wilson in Kemp & Squires., ed. 1997: 369-370).
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