Black Performance Theory

Catalog description

In his 1995 documentary "Black Is, Black Ain't", Marlon Riggs traces a black cultural tradition while simultaneously destabilizing the very notion of blackness itself. He testifies that: Black is black, and black is blue. Black is bright. Black is you. Black can do you in. In Riggs configuration, black is a color, black is a feeling, black is a sound, black is materiality, and black is a life sentence. In an effort to raise critical questions around blackness, performance, race, and feeling, this course follows in the tradition of Riggs work. In other words, this graduate level course examines the notion of blackness through theorizations of performance. It pursues the following questions: What is blackness? How is blackness embodied, felt, heard, represented, and seen through performance? How is black performance political? Discussions and written work will interrogate the slipperiness of, desire for, and policing of blackness in order to trouble conceptions of race as a biological essence. Organized by keywords in the field of Black Performance Theory - and exploring varying performance forms (the play, the dance, the film, the photograph, the performance of everyday life, the television program, the exhibit, and even the tweet) - This course foregrounds the micro-politics through which black racialized subjects are shaped in the realm of culture. Performances will be consulted each meeting which we will use to interpret and complicate the day's readings. In examining blackness through a number of performance mediums, we will consider the politics of black creative labor and the processes of racialization produced through black bodies.