Performing Theory-embodied Writing

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Performing theory/embodied writingD. Soyini Madison a

a Associate Professor of Performance Studies in the Department of Communication Studies, and

Associate Director of the Institute of African-American Research, University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill

To cite this Article Madison, D. Soyini'Performing theory/embodied writing', Text and Performance Quarterly, 19: 2, 107 124

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Text an d Performance Quarterly19 (1999): 107-124

T E XT AND PE RFORMANCEQUART E RL YFormerly Literature in Performance, Founded 1980

VOLUME 19 APRIL 1999 NUMBER 2

Performing Theory/Embodied Writ ingD. Soyini Madison

This essay performatively expresses specific theoretical ruminations on class, language, and race.This w riting is a performance, w hile it is or is not necessarilyfor the "stage." The performance seeks a

felt-sensing meeting between theory, writing, and performing. The performer claims an uneasypossession of performance as a means of both subjectivity and freedom. Theory becomes another way toknow p erformance better; and performance becomes the desired illuminator of theory. From theburlesque to the sublime, the performer conjures o ur different encounters with her theoretical fathers:Karl M arx, F erdinand de Saussure, Jacques Derrida, and Frantz Fa non. Needing u seful theoryfromthe "high" ground of scholarship to the "low " grou nd of ancient re/tellings-for useful purposes, theperformer must first rem ember where theories begin. Keywo r d s : performative writ ing, perfor-ma nce theory, M arx, Saussure, Derrida, Fanon

PROLOGUEEmbodied Writing(The performer sits under a spotlight surrounded by books on performance. She touches, smells,and tastes some of the books. She holds one of the books up to herear. She notices you are there.She looks up to speak.)

IPerformance has become too popular. It seems that everyone I know and don'tknow is thinking, speaking, and writing in the language ofperform ance , or trying to.Performance is everywhere these days. Perhaps I should celebrate: intellectuals-farand wide-are considering the sexy and stately implications ofperformance. While Ihave found the insights of thinkers beyond the spheres of theater and performancestudies to be helpful and inspiring-their work frequently guiding my own-recently,I have experienced momentary pangs, uneasy feelings, of wanting to claim turf, ofunhapp ily wincing, when I hear the word performance slip so easily throug h the lips of"progressives" who still, dee p down , primarily regard performance as "pretendin g."Mimesis rules! The others, a substantial few, who know and do more of perfor-D. Soyini Madison is an Associate Professor of Performa nce Studies in the Departm ent of Comm unication Studies,an d Associate Director of the Institute of African-Am erican Research, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Sheis the EditorofT he W oman T hat I Am: The Literature and Culture of Contemporary Wom en of Color(St. Martin's Press 1994), and is currently a Fulbright Fellow in Ghana.


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108TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999m anee , are m ore helpful. But too m any of them see performance as all of everydaylife o r only everyd ay life. So, I wo rry (Coco Fusco worries too)1 and I won der abouttheir singleness of vision for quo tidian locations and for art. Ca n w e see the stage inthe dark?

IIProvoked by suppressed resentment and my own silent turf war, I imagine anoblique metaphor-a personification-where Performance becomes a subject and anobject, bo th a pe rpetrator and a victim, wh ere performance performs like a prom iscu-ous lover. Enticing this one and that one, wanting everyone to love her and wan tingto love everyone in return. She seeks and she is sought. Performance is everything,yet she becomes the one thing. Indiscriminate in the pleasure she gets and gives,

there is a natural striving for her, and through all her encounters and travels, thereare those who speak of he r very well and the re are others wh o live cautiously insideher presence. I know some who do both. Now, I will admit, within my ownmetaphor, I am guilty of gluttony. I have taken Performance for myself (sometimesshe was given to me w ith mo re love than I deserved). Like a possessive devote e (orlover) I want to hold on to her, not wanting her to be with anyone but me and mykind; because we've known her for a longer timewho she is and how to treat her.I've begun to feel protective of her. Lately, more than ever, I've found myselfbristling at those who are no t ready or willing to put in the time w ith Perform ance: tohonor properly, to learn sufficiently, to work skillfully, and to believe heartily in herpossibilities.I l l

All right, I 've become a bit intense here. Yes, this comparison has gone afield.Bear with m e. Wh at I wan t to say is: I love performance mo st when I enter into it,when it calls me forward shamelessly, across those hard edged maps into spaceswhere I must go. Terrains that are foreign, scary, uninhabitable, but necessary. Imust go to them to know myself mo re, to know you, mo re. I enter performance as awitness and a doer. Performa nce is ha rd w ork. W e see the familiar for the very firsttime and after that we can no longer speak or reason abo ut what we though t we knewin the exact same way, lest we forget the performance. Yes, I claim performanceromanticism; it is overblown and embarrassing. But, it is true. I am a performanceessentialistvulgar peformacism.Performance helps m e see. It illumines like good theo ry. It orders the world and itlets the world loose. It is a top spun out of control that spins its way back to itsbeginning. Like good theory, performance is a blur of me aning, language, and a bitof pain. Whirling past, faster than I can catch up. Testing me, often refuting me,pulling away and m oving toward m e. I 'm almost there with it. I hold on. I keep m yhands on the performance and my eyes on the theory. I am playful, but I am notplaying. I do no t apprecia te carelessness. I pay atten tion. I do no t let go or look away,because I hav e learned that all the mean ing, language, and bit of pain will come intoclarity and use like a liberation song. I need this clarity for the ones I love. Now, Ienter a truth, a piece of the world, discovered. What is here is not an answer or aresolve but something more. It is a "realizing." 2 Whether settled or unsettled,


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109TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISONfinished or just beg inning , this realizing is a truth. Perform ance helps m e live a truthwhile theory helps me nam e itor ma ybe it is the other way around . M y m ind andbody are locked together in a nice little divine kind of unity: the theory knows andfeels, and the performance feels and unlearn s. I know I am a un/learn ing b od y in theprocess of feeling. You to o.The theory that gets in my h ead and sticks-the good parts or the parts relevant towhat I must become and d o in my life-performs. That this theory performs me is anexistential fact. That I choose to perform it is my craft. I perform theory throughtime, throu gh (un)consciousness, nervousness, 3 and effort. This theory/performancecoup ling is no t an easy assignment. Performance thrills m e, theo ry does not. I wouldsurely lose myself without perform ance , bu t I can not live well withou t theo ry.

IVTheory endures an ancient schizophrenia. Somewhere-for Theory-betweenbeing loved and hated, revered and scorned, there is the splitting up of variousintrigues and struggles, pretensions, and honest pleasures. Yo u've kno wn The ory tobe both a mean-spirited gatekeeper and a warm welcome call to those on anotherside of the wall. Inside the wall, where language is seldom free, where w ords rarelymatch your first intuition, and where voices hardly speak your name or your oldneighb orhoo d, you know th at once you are inside, you must choose. Theo ry? H owmuch theory? Why? OK! You keep trying on the language, again and again,listening, until some parts of it begin to fit your tongue. Some words need morepractice. Practice. Check the spelling. The word isn't in the American HeritageDictionary. Practice. Certain voices, in time, begin to feel familiar. It's late, after 4a.m., you w on't sleep tonight. REA D. Seminar in the mornin g. Prepare. REA D.In the morning seminar, on this day, finally, the voice that grows familiar isreaching tow ard your n am e, your old neigh borho od. It is a long stretch, but there ismo tion, and you hea r something you can use and carry with you, back ho m e.You sense that theory is m ore tha n adoration or disdain. It is more than languag e,gatekeepers, belonging, respect, or isolation. It is all and nothing more thanrecognition. You think you know something, but theory leads you to know it again.

You were always aware of power, beauty, pain, language, race, and yourself. Buttheory circles you back to all of them, including yourself. Breaking the parts open,piece by piece, theory d em ands that you take no tice -pa y closer attention. You seeagain and greet anew. Things are more complicated, because things are more.Whether you agree with theory or not (even if you argue with it) it makes you feeland see differently. You speak differently and m ore . Th e recognition is no t unrecog-nized.Tired and sleepy, now , you go outside and sit against anothe r side of the wall. Youhear the voices and sounds from your old neighborhood. It is at this moment thatyou remem ber wh ere theories com e from.Is inside th e wall, high? Is outside the wall, low? 4 You can not sleep. You recognizetheo ry is contingent o n location. The re is flesh5 and b on e here on this side of the wallthat speaks for its own life, not by bre akin g parts op en, piece by p iece, but by sealingthem together with fire and b lood. H ere, the words live un der yo ur tongue. T heoryin this terrain is you rs, it is all you rs, because now you rem em be r how it was given toyou, sometimes with affection and sometimes forced down your throat with shouts


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110TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999or a switch. This theory makes bod y con tact. Bodies that most often look like yours.You realize you are part of two locations and more: both sides of the wall and thein-betweens. Theories come from everywhere, and you decide to go back across,inside the wall, to the seminar . . . to the books . . . to recognize again and m ore.

VYou are not a lone. I cross inside and outside and to the in-betweens of the wall too.But when I think back on the very first moments of my theoretical realizing, on theinside, those moments of recognition that have enlarged me to see further out, fourmen in particular-theoretical "fathers"6-com e to mind. I t seems so long ago when Ifirst me t them ; yet, mee ting them is a continuous occurrence, even w hen they areliterally absent. These fathers are long on insight, but they have also troubled me.

Th ey ha ve co me to occupy the inside, the outside, and the in-between. I recognizethem: Kail M arx, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacq ues Derrida, and Frantz Fanon . I willrecognize them again in playfulness and dialogue, but I can only do this withintegrity and freedom through performance. Performance will relocate them in timeand space: to know again and meet anew. This relocation is a second meeting orperhaps a third or a fourth. I meet them as the not-not-me. 7 For the sake ofperforming theory and embodied writing, I beg here for a space of imagination, forjoy and purpose.Performing Theory

(Three areas of a perform ance space are lit: up center, down right, and center left. At centerstage is a large ladder, next to it is a flip cha rt. Dow n right is an old black rotary telephonesitting on a stool, center lefiis a small desk with an a ntique lamp, books, pens, a nd a writingpad. There is a screen hanging upstage of the desk)Scene OneKARL MARX"Th e Telephon e Conversation" *(The time is between time and timelessness)

(Theperformer enters the space. Theperformer "performs" an indistinguishably old woman, inmanner, voice and gesture. She walks to the telephone, picks it up, sits on the stool and carefullybalances the phone on her lap. Before shepicks up the receiver, she looks down at the phone andbecomes amused. She laughs quietly with her hand down on the receiver. She picks up thereceiver and dials all eigh teen digits of the long distance number and the saving co de. In goodhumor and precision, she mumbles inaudibly each number as she dials.)O ne , zero, one , zero, eight, one , one, eight, zero, four, th ree, four, n ine , six, two,two, zero , one. {A pause, she enjoys humm ing a tune until the other party picks up thetelephone) Hello K arl, Karl is that you? H ow are you? Yea, yea its m e! I 'm so hap pyto hear your voice too. It's been so long. I miss you my friend! I miss you so very,very much . {A pause) O h, yes I really do . I saw som ething today that rem inded me ofyou, and I rushed ho m e right away to call you. I do miss our times together. W e'vegot to do better with keeping u p! It's been too long, too long. {A pause) O h m y, has itbee n tha t long? {Pau se, hesitation, and concern) H ow is the sk in p ro b lem ? 8 {A pause) O hdear, I was afraid o f t h a t . . . bless your heart. I 'll be prayingtor yo u-o h sorry. W hat I


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I l lTEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISONm ean to say is, I'll be thinking about you . How is M r. Engels? I read his letter to Jo e inthe newspaper.9 {Laughs) H e's still trying to convince those vulgar M arxists that youaren't an economic determinist! {A pause} Yes, Yes, You're right Karl. I tell thosepeople that even YO U don 't recognize what some of them are calling Marxism thesedays! 1848,10 those were the days . . . what prom ise, what hope , what tragedy. Andthen there was 1968, those were the d a y s . . . what promise, what hope , what tragedy.O h, K arl, guess wh at I did? {Pause) N o, no , I'm still smoking. I know, I know . Myfriend, {Amused) with your bad habits, you should not lecture me.11 Yes, yes, let m etell you wh at I did . . . I took a trip to Philadelphia! Yes, I finally went to Philly!{Pause) I know I said I'd nev er step foot in that city . . . Constitution, William Pen n,brotherly love ... too many dreams turned sour, too many visions made into amockery! Th e ghosts of that city should be w eeping! Weep ing I tell you! {Pause) uhhuh, uh huh, I know Karl, you've always said my boycott didn't make sense. Irem em ber ho w yo u'd say with a smirk: "Wh at does it ma tter that one wom an refusesto go within one h und red miles of Indep ende nce Ha ll?" But, I knew you found itcharm ing. I knew yo u unde rstood on principle. I will not rem ind you of you r uniqu eand various contradictions. I even promised myself before I picked up the phonethat we would no t end u p fussing with each other. {Pause and shakes her head) Uh huh,I thoug ht you 'd be relieved . Besides, let's wait until you 're feeling bette r before I starton you about your women problems.12 My love, {Cavalierly) I shall speak on it nofurther. {Pause) Yes sir, {Amused andsarcastic) I shall stay on the subject of Ph ilad elp hia -the city of brotherly love. {Changes, her mood, excited.) W ell, I tell you, w hen I got therethe city was all lit up with Christmas lights. Huh? What? {Bewildered) Christmas?{Pause) What is Christmas?! Karl, you remember Christmas! Christmas ... thatholiday for Christians and most everybody else. {Pause) Christians?! Opium for themasses! Remember?! Oh Karl, you've got to get out into the world more. You'vebeen cooped up too long with those books. {Pause) Your magnum opus? But youcompleted Capitalover a hundred years ago. One magnum opus in a lifetime isenoug h! Give it a rest and get out m ore ; mingle with the masses. H ave a worker o verfor dinner! {Pause) Sorry, I know you don't l ike for m e to joke like t h a t . . . H m m . . .where w as I? Christmas season in Philadelphia! Karl, You rem em ber Christmas, theseason where capitalism is not just an ec onom y bu t a culture! H ah , that would makea nice bumper sticker: "Capitalism, a culture where everything is subordinated toconsumption, by Karl Marx." Mmmm, there might be a nice profit in bumperstickers ... {Amused) All right! All right! When I was in Philly, I walked along theriver bank everyday. Oh, the art! There were statues-sculptures placed along thebank -big ge r than life an d m ore rea l. Each sculpture told a story, Karl, of revolution,of alienation, of consciousness. You would h ave loved it. I will take you there whenyou are feeling better. W hat? {Pause) N o, I d on 't think th e artists were leftists. {Pause)W hy? Because I could actually understand the art and it truly moved m e. Rem em -ber that D adaist poet? O h, wh at is his name ? Tzara!13 Yes, that's it! He said, "Theodd thing about revolution is that the further left people go politically, the morebourgeois they like their art!" Oh , but the art, Karl, there in P hi la de lp hi a. .. that artwas socialist realism at its very best! No , no, no, no t simply pragmatic bu t imaginaryand beautiful. Yea, Yea. One statue was of a man laying on a woman's lap. Awom an, Karl, a wom an. H er lap so small, holding the body of a m an three times h ersize; but, it was her lap, the strength of her knees, her legs, her arms, holding him


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112TEXT AND PERFORMA NCE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999close that kep t him from falling. He r lap kept his work w eary , sick bo dy from fallingto the ground. H e was a dying man, bu t in her lap there was hop e. (Pause) How do Iknow? Wh at do you m ean ho w do I know? It was all there in his eyes. In his eyes . . .you were there. Karl, you were there in his eyes. (Pause) I know, because in his eyeswas history. The seeing eyes of the struggles and yearnings of hum an beings to owntheir own labor and their own bodies. Th e m an laying in the w om an's lap had y oureyes telling us that history is neither straight progressions nor random acts, but it isalways, always a dialectic among dialectics. It is always the work, the hope, forChan ge! Do you rem em ber our man tra in the old days? (Nods into telephone) Yes, weused to say it all comes down to the material interests of the d om inan t classes? H ah !A lot has ch anged in almost two centuries. Ha s that changed too? They say the w orldis m ore comp licated no w. The y say there is no such thing as the State anym ore andthat we live in a global econom y. You kno w w hat I tell 'em , Karl? I tell em they n eedag oo d dose of Marxism 101!! (Grumbles) No such thing as the State, rubbish!!Rem em ber w hat you told m e? It was about 1881,1 believe, we were having ourafternoon chat over pickles and sweet bread at Oscar's Pub. Yea, yea, down thecorne r from East 43rd street. (Pause) Th at's the o ne, the best pickles in town! Garlic,lots of garlic ... (Pause) He's doing very well. His daughter married a real prole-tariata university professorlots of ideas , no money! H e teaches economics, how 'sthat for irony . (Realizes she has gotten off the subject) O h yes, yes, m y point is . . . you saidit! After all these years, I can still reme mber . . . (Recites the words as if reading from abook) "Economic relations and modes of production shape, but do not purelydeterm ine existence or else every struggle would be the sa m e." 141 got a me mo ry likean e lephan t! Karl, it is art that gives us ho pe and possibility. Every time I b ite dow non one of Oscar's pickles, even today, at noon , in the city, wh en the children play themusic loud enou gh to mak e my eyebrows hu rt, and every time I go to Philly and seethat man lying in the woman's tiny lap, at first, I get a little mad, but then, I thinkabout why we make art. "The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the rulingideas"15 . . . "the class that is the do minant m aterial force is, at the same time, thedom inan t intellectual force."16 Your w ords, m y friend, are m ore true to me now thanever, but there is something abo ut the way Oscar seasons those pickles, even after allthese years, with just the right herbs an d garlic. The re is something a bout the way thebeat of that music makes me tap, tap, tap my feet, hah!; and, something about thatm an's eyes being you r eyes, all of it keeps m e believing. It remind s m e an d keep s m ebelieving. I don 't get m ad so much , because I rem em ber to believe in the miracle ofconsciousness.

All right, all right, I'm getting a little optimistic, a little sentimental. I've seen youstop breathing at such a combination! Shall I be more severe? Will that make youhappy? No, I will not, because I know you too well. Human consciousness, 17 inthought and in memory, is making you smile, even in the pain. I can't imagine thepain. Still, with these m an y m iles between us, I can feel your smile. To day , I saw apainting, (Pause) no , no , it was no t in Philadelphia. It was here in Chicag o. (Pause) Ofcourse! Chicago will always be my home. It is the lake, the parks, and theneighborhoods. No other city in the world has this lake front! (A pause) Today,walking hom e from the Un iversity, I saw a painting on the side of a building. It was apainting of a group of workers-men, women, and children-they were all standingtogether with one han d reach ing out from the w all. Th ey w ere in a field or a factory, I


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113TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISONcouldn't tell which, ma ybe they were on a farm, uh . . . in a diamond mine. No, theywere in a large house w ith bars and no doors. I 'm just not sure. The y all had theirarms outstretched as though they were reaching out from the flat surface of the wall.Th ey w ere reaching for us to come into the painting. No , they w ere reaching for us tocarry them away from the painting. No , they were reaching for . . . I 'm just not sure.Th ey all ha d the same longing . Th eir faces were familiar to m e. Ju st ben eath themu ral, the artist wrote d own these w ords. (She takes apiece of p aper from her pocket.) H emu st have rea d all you r stuff on alienation. I wrote it down so I could read it to youjus t the way h e wrote i t . (She begins reading slowly from the paper.) " T h e alienation of theworker from the product he makes means not only that his labor becomes anobjecttaking on its own existencebut that it exists outside of himalien tohimand that it stands opposed to him. The life which he has given to the object isnow against him as an alien and hostile force."18 How's that for depressing, but youmust admit that 's a pretty smart kid! What? No! No! Those are YOUR words??!Th at little plagiarist! Karl, I mu st be slipping because that on e sure got past m e. Well,old boy, you 're a pretty smart kid yourself. You rest well and power to the people.(Hesitates) Karl, not so much arsenic. They tell me that green tea with a little bit ofhoney is better for the pain. Take care. I will see you soon, I promise. (Pause)Good-bye my f r i end . (The performer puts down the phone and moves down center stage.)

Scene TwoFERDINAND DE SAUSSURE and JAC QU ES DERR IDA"The Audition"(The time is now)

(The performer stands downstage of the ladder and speaks to the audience.She is now a womanin her early 50s.)I just got over my mid-life crises, and I was finally happy. I no longer dyed mygray and I stopped changing my h air style every hour. I gained weight and I d idn'tpan ic, at least no t too much . So, in celebration of m y new freedom, I decided I woulddo something I always wanted to do but never dared to try-audition for a chorusline! My friend Linda told m e abou t a com mu nity theater comp any on the north sidethat was auditioning that day. I was in luck! I felt confident, even though I neverdanced on stage before, and the last dance class I took ... mmm ... I was aboutseven years old, it did n't m atter, because I was in charge of my life and re ady for newadventures. W hen I walked in the audition hall, I was told by the stage man ager thatI would be auditioning for two acts: a back-up dancer for Act I and II. To mysurprise, the acts were to be choreographed by different directors. For Act I thedirector was Ferdinand de Saussure, the famous structuralist, and for Act II thedirector was Jac qu es D errida, the famous post-structuralist. W ha t an interestingaudi t ion th is would be . (The performer moves further down stage and peers out into theaudience to listenfor instructions from the director. She spots him and listens intently for a briefmoment before she speaks) M ay I just say M r. Saussure, I am so pleased to m eet you. Iam a great admirer of your work ... my, my, I didn't know you were into dancingtoo? I must say before w e begin tha t I think yo ur c once pt of la langu e and la paro le isj us t f asc ina ting, jus t b r i ll i an t a n d . . . (Interrupted by "Saussure," she abrup tly stops to listento his instructions. She assumes a m ore serious demeanor) Yes , I 'm r eady to dance . (Shelistens and m oves awkw ardly-but without exagg eration-around the spaceas she tries to m ark


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114TEXT AND PERFOR MAN CE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999and make sense ofSaussure's directions) Yes, stay within this line? H ere , right he re? T hisline connects to the opposite angle there? This angle links back to that curve that isconjoined in the opposite direction to this line? This is the dance pattern. Yes, Iabsolutely will stay within th e lines. Yes, I will make eve ry effort to a ccentuate theconnections. Mr. Saussure, I can do this . . . I teach Performance Studies. I can doth is . . . y e s, I c a n . . . I t h i n k . . . {Mocks a warm-up exercise. She stops and looks up at Mr.Saussure. She is delighted by his presence)

The scr ip t? ( Very excited, shepicks up the script from a step on the ladder) Y o u m e a n t h i sis actually a speaking part!! (As she silently reads the script, her excitement turns todisappointment} This is wha t you wan t me to say? You wan t me to dance to this? (Shepauses and takes a deep breath. Determined to repress her frustration, in earnest she perform sthe script in a semi-mechanical voice and m ovement. She is conscious of staying within the linesand kicking each leg on all the "kick, kicks. ) "W e are to be ana lyt ical , no t evaluat iveKICK, KICK." Yes, Mr. Saussure, I will make it faster. How fast? All right. [She ismore expressive and faster, but go es over the "line. ') "We are to be analyt ical notevaluative. KICK, K IC K " (She stops and addresses Saussure). N o, I didn 't realize I hadgone over the line. Yes, I will do better. One foot directly in front of the other. Iunderstand. (She performs with more determination) "We are to be analytical notevaluative. KICK, KICK." (Looks up) Was that O.K.? Not so good? Oh, I see. Mr.Saussure, I feel com pelled to say something. (Theperformer stands and looks directly outand over toward the audience section to speak to Saussure. She is speaking honestly andadmiringly, bu t b eing overwhelmed by his presence, in her respect and idolizfltion of Saussu re,her manner and speechare awkw ard and pedantic) I have s tud ied your work fo r manyyears. You r conc eptualization of the signifier a nd the signified is the foundation ofmeaning and language. Signifier as inscription and signified as concept-no relation,arbitrary-but together they make the sign, that is brilliant, pure brilliance! Signifieris the symbol; signified is the thing. WOW! You said it all with your idea ofsignification! You are the man! Look how far we've come! (Teasing) And I 'm notsignifyin! (Under her breath) Oh , its a black thing you wouldn't understand . . .(reluctant) n o t a m u se d ? (Embarrassed) Back to work. (With precision, she walks the"lines" like a robot. She tries to contain her discomfort as she continues to read the scriptmoving within the imaginary lines and kicking each leg on the kick, kick) "It is theunderlying rules of cultural texts and practices which interest structuralists. KICK,KICK. It is structure which makes meaning possible. KICK, KICK. The task ofstructuralism, therefore, is to make explicit the rules and co nve ntion s-the stru ctu re-which govern the production of meaning. KICK KICK." (She stops abruptly) M r.Saussaure, I am sorry, but this is not wh at I had in mind. I do n't think I can . . . Y es,of cours e . I wil l con t inue . (Ordered by Saussure to continue, she begins again determined todo better. W ith more energy and verve she walks proudly, speaks assertively, and kicksconfidently) "Language is a system-KICK, KICK-a pattern of binary oppositions-KICK, KICK-structuralists try to uncover the grammar, syntax or patterns ofparticular human systems of meaning-KICK, KICK-whether they be kinship,narratives, totems, images or myths-KICK, KICK." (Shestops again and turns to theother audience members.) M ayb e this isn't quite so bad . I think I 'm beginn ing to enjoyit. (Turning to Saussure) W hen do we get to the parole and langue? What? O h, yes,sorry, I will just stay w ithin the lines, within the lines! (She discovers she is now a t thesection of the script on langue and parole. She is overjoyed and lets out a oyful cheer.) O h Y es ! !


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115TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISONHere we go!! There is langue and parole, structure and performance. It is thehomogeneity of the structure-KICK, KICK-which makes the heterogeneity of theperformance possible-KICK, KICK-YEAH!" {She is very happy andpleasedwithherself She bows several times with great histrionics) T H A N K Y O U E V E R Y O N E A N DT H A N K Y O U C LA U D E LEV I-STR A U SS!19 {She feels grand andcontinues tobow tothe audience. She turns to Saussure).So, I got the part! {She is stunned and upset.She stops tofocus on Saussure) NO!What do you mean N O?! Wait a minute, w ait just a minute. Istayed within yo ur structure, paying attention only to the lines, the combinations, theattachments, and the opposites! I know this stuff! In the beginning was the word andthe word created the text-BINA RIES , BINAR IES, BINARIES! And furthermore, Inever, never, never, NEVER got D-O-G {spelling the letters) confused with thefour-legged animal that wags its tail and goes ruff, ruff-ARBITRARY, ARBI-TRARY, ARBITRARY. Not only that [She isgetting more upset) I not once, not once,paid any attention to history or the author's intent, or my own need to break out ofthis frigging ST RUC TUR E, STR UCT URE , STRUC TUR E!! I know the mantra ofstructuralism: 'the scientific enterprise to unveil the rules, codes, systems of culturalpractices!' I can play that part! I am sufficiently repressed! So, I ask you Mr.Saussure, Whydidn't I get the part? W hat?! Roland Barthes!20 W hat does he have todo with this! Youdidn't tell me HE was here! {She takes a deep breath and pauses. Shethen gains her composure. She speaks to Saussure with direction and self-possession) Mr.Saussure, not to worry, not to worry at all, I am ready with great PLEASU RE to meetMr. Derrida. {The performer walks to theladder. She stands downstage ofa large childlikedrawing on the stage floor. She picks up the drawing and tapes it to the ladder. The ladder isnow in fall view ofthe audience. It is a crayon drawing ofthe Tower of Babel, and writtenacross the image is themisspelling: "towr ofbable." The performer stands downstage oftheladder. Speaking out and above the audience she addressesjacques Derrida)

Hello Mr. Derrida, I am here to audition for act two in the chorus line. {Startled)Excuse me?There is no act two? But, the stage man ager and Mr. Saussure said that. . . Oh, I see.U h mm. {Gently) If there is no act two, then what am I auditioning for?You want me to erupt the essence of the dance? {Gently) Youm ean disrupt don't you?{Nods slowly) You mean erupt. Ooooh-Kaaaeeee . . . b u t . . . (With Caution) Can yougive me a little help here? {Looks around in the space) Who am I? What is mymotivat ion? Which dance? [At the bottom ofthe Tower of Babel is a scroll; the performermoves toward it) This is for me? {The performer picks up thescroll and moves dowstage)O p e n it and read it? {The performer unwraps the scrolland a huge sheet ofpaper rolls out.She reads the words that are written in bold disjointed letters. The performer stops and starts,struggling to read and make sense of what it says.) Signifiers do not produce {Pause)signifieds. The y produ ce m ore {Pause) signifiers. But Mr.Derrida, aren't I suppose todance? {Suddenly music comes up. It sounds like Jazz- it is aintly heard, then itgets louder. Itis Miles Davis' "Bitches' Brew." The music plays) ... But, Mr.Derrida, this is not dancemusic . . . well, I can't get an identifiable beat {She quickly apologizes sensing she mayhaveoffended Mr. Derrida) Oh, I didn't mea n . . . yes, I know . . . Miles is br i l l i an t . . .no offense. But what about the dance? I need the steps! I need a script! I need acharacter! I need a beat! {Annoyed,but trying very hard toconceal it) No, Mr. Saussuredid not give me the part. I wasn 't able to stay within the lines. {Pacing back and forth infrustration) Look, I really do want to work with you Mr. Derrida. I am one of yourstrongest defenders. All the attacks on deconstruction and post-modernism, do you


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116TEXT AND PERFORMAN CE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999kno w what I tell your critics? I tell them to actually RE AD you! (Pauses briefly to listento Derrida 'sresponse. Shehesitates) W el l . . . u m m m . . . m any of them say tha t they haveread you. But as for ME . . . listen, I believe in citation21 AND the order of thesupplement!

22(Starts to get excited) I KNOW you are trying to open more voices,more alternatives, and more experiences beyond those of master narratives! IK N O W you w ant us to break op en exclusive hierarchies! I am with you on all that!Prisoner of language23 doesn't bo ther m e in the least! I GE T it! I FEEL you! (Calmsdown and asks the question sincerely.) But, M r. Derrida, I really would app reciate a littlemo re direction here? (A member of the audience comes forward, across his back in large boldletters is a sign: "deus ex machina. "He gives the performer an oversized book, almost too heto handle, the performer looks at deus ex machina in bewilderment. Deus ex leaves the stagW hat do I do with this? (A bellowing voice with a French accent booms over the stage. In atone that is a combination of camp and authority, the voice speaks loudly)

" D i f f e r a n c e "(Theperformer looks at the book and realizes it is a grotesquely oversized dictionary) I knowhat Differance m ean s; I don 't have to look it up in a dictionary. Is Differance evenIN a dictionary?! (Exasperated) Mr. Derrida, I came here to fulfill a dream. All Iwanted to do was audition for a chorus line and have a little fun for a change....Ca n't we be critics and have fun too? I wan t to be relevant, AN D I want to play!(Sheslowlyputs downthe book. She straightens up and arches her back) You want ERUPT! Hah!I'll dance it.... I 'll dance erupt for you! (With abandon,determination, and joy theperformer dances her ideas ofDifferance to the music ofMiles Davis. Through improvisationmovement, which is neither comic nor burlesque, and without regard fo r technique, beat,appearances, the performer "dances" her version ofDifferance with honestpleasure. Whendance ends,the performer moves to a flip chart or chalkboard and writes Differance in boldletters. She draws two arrows pointing out from the word: one pointing to the word "differ,"the other pointing to the word "defer. "After the performer has w ritten all three words in boldon the board or chart, with good humor and playfulness, she "teaches" the meaning ofDifferance by performing in "Sesame Street" fashion. The Sesame Streettheme music is nowheard in thebackground) Differance, m ean ing to differ an d defer (pointing to the writtenwords).Differ means DIFFERENT. We understand language because words aredifferent from one ano ther. A language, boys and girls, is no t one w ord or two words,for example (Her voice takes ona variety of ranges, accents, and expressions) : be m e, be mbe m e, be m e, be m e, be m e. Now , can we understand that? Of course we can not! Alanguage is no t a few different words like: kn ock /clock /rock /flock/b oo m/b oy /beast/m e/yo u/n o/y es. You see, boys and girls, the more D IFFEREN T words there are in alanguage, then the m ore rich and w ondrous and exciting and perfect that languageis. In o ther words, my little friends, the bigger ou r language the bigger ou r mea nings.And, the bigger our meanings, die bigger and truer our experiences and realitiesbecome. (Moving closer to the audience) Now, so that I know you understand, repeatafter me: The more different words ... (audience repeats) in a language . . . (audiencerepeats) the bigger . . . (audience repeats) and more true . . (audience repeats) our worlbecomes (audience repeats). Very good! very good! But we have not completed ourlesson yet! Differ or different is just the first pa rt of Differance. Now we a re rea dy tolearn the second part. Are we all ready to learn m ore? Very good! Th e second part,


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117TEXT AND PERFORMAN CE QUARTERLY MAD ISONboys and girls is {pause) Defer. W hen we say 'defer', we are saying that meanings arenev er static and that they must always defer to other m eaning s. Defer m ean s to yieldto , submit to, to succumb to, or refer to another. Defer is the indefinite referral ofsignifier to signifier, or w ord to word, for exa mple , lets take this dictionary so kindlypr ov ide d by D e us E x . [The performer opens the large book and pulls out a small cardattached to a red ribbon. She begins to read it.) Blackthe color of coal (Attached to the firstcard is a series of cards all strung, one after the other,on a b right red string. Theperformer readsfrom each card.She is no longer performing "Sesame Street" and the theme song has stopped.The performer is reading each card, without parody or melodrama, in a straightforwardmanner) Black-opposite of white. Black-without light. Black-dirty. Black-angry.Black-threatening. Black-deadly. Black-Negro. Black-to boycott. Black-to ex-clude. Black-television reception. Black-showing no loss and usually a profit. [Theperformer has come to the last card.She sees that at the end of the string are numerous otherstrings, countless strings. They are cumbersome ye t spectacular. She drops the cards and stringsto the floor as she notices ano ther card between thepages of the book. She takes the card from thepages of the book and reads it.) Black Body-a theoretical surface or body capable ofcompletely absorbing all the radiation falling on it. Th e energy rad iated pe r secon dby each unit area of a perfect black bod y is prop ortional solely to the fourth pow er ofits absolute temperature. (Performer looks out at Mr. Derrida) Diferrance-to defer andto differ. D o I get the part?

Scene IIIFRANTZ FANON"An Angry Love Letter to Frantz Fanon"(The time is April 1998)

(Theperform er m oves to the table dow nstage. She sits dow n and turns on the lamp at the table,music begins playing. The m usic is Aw adag in Pratt, "Live From South Africa: Preludes,Fugu es & Intermezzi. "She p icks up a letter, and brieflyreads it silently. She ponders a mom entand then signs the letter) "Love and S t rength , " _ (The performer picks up the letter andbegins reading it aloud.) De ar Frantz, I write to you now , thirty years after I first metyou, becau se I finally hea r the voices of patience, and I think I finally hea r you too, atleast parts of you. It has been a long time, but I couldn't write to you a momentsooner. It has taken this long for me to understand my feelings of love and myfeelings of anger. I remember that day so clearly when I first met you. It was thesum mer of 1968 on the IC train. I was leaving South Shore an d going to the L oop .241rem em ber the dress I w or e- it was green, a micro min i skirt, with small white polkadotsbut I can't rem em ber why I was going downtow n. The re was hardly any one onthe train that morning , it was quiet and peaceful, an d I sat alone. I open ed the book ; Istarted read ing; and I fell in love. 'Wretch ed of the Ea rth,' my god , something deeplywanting in me had finally found a place to be clear and to be understood. A blackman writing about colonialism and race with such brave eloquence and fury-notharangues of honkey vengeance or Negro victimization or black romanticism-butan intellectual and a theorist-like Che , Nkrum a, Lum um ba, and Fidel-w hose wordscast revolution a nd m ad e it ha pp en . It was 1968, and the last vestiges of the colonialworld were crumbling. The east was now battling what seemed to be a far greaterchallenge: the end of colonialism and the dawn of a troubled freedom. For me , youwere the carrier of the word and logic. Every revolutionary worth their salt carried


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118TEXT AND PERFORMANC E QUARTERLY APRIL 1999Fanon in their back pocket. That summer, I read your books like they were mylifeline, not once, but again and again, devouring them like a starving child. Youwere m y fantasy. W e m oved between Algeria and Paris together. Holding hands andwhispering under the moon. You were my armor against loneliness, and my refugeagainst men who could never be as smart or as revolutionary as you. It was thesum mer of 1968, and I craved for your life. How did I love thee? Let me count eachrevolutionary way:

(On the screen is a projection of a white woma n holding a young boy. Their eyes are lookingout, and the boy is pointing. An Algerian woman peers behind them from her veil. We see hersilhouette) I loved you beca use I could n o longer believe the simple act of seeing was(Pause) simple. Th e dialectic of the Look: "M am a, see the Negro! I'm frightened!"25Th e colonizer Looks at the d ark bod y. The Look is intractable, alive, in motion. T heLook is hate, is fear, is desire. The Look penetrates dark skin and enters the bloodstream and flows through the dark bod y. It feeds every cell. Th e da rk body becom eshost for the Look. It is now contained inside that body like a cancer. The bodyabsorbs the L ook in an uneasy , unrelenting ha rdnes s. It is trained that way from somany Looks in its lifetime. Th e dark b ody sees itself by the Loo k- to be h ated, to befeared, to be desired. The dark bo dy sees itself through the Look of the colonizer, butthen yo u said stop. You told us that Looking is so much m ore than seeing a distortionof yourself. Looking is seeing an Otherthe scopic drivethe dark body must alsoLook at/into the C olonizer. The da rk body sees the Colonizer an d Looks: I Love thecolonizer; I desire the Colonizer; I want die C olonizer to love and d esire me ; I fearthe colonizer; I want to be the Colonizer; I hate die Colonizer; I want to Kill theColonizer. The blood flowing through dark bodies contains, absorbs, yet fights inmotions that are infinite and detailed.

I loved you b ecause y ou believed in arm ed struggle. A theorist for the rev olutionwho believed in taking freedom, not in protest but in battle. An eye for an eye,because all levels of listening had failed; and words were mute from accusatoryscreams. You m ad e it so -th e psychic lea p- the mind that dictates killing as nob le fora cause worthy of no com prom ise. You sat with the tortured and the torturers, spoonfeeding fragments of their sha ttered m adn ess in the clinics of fragile refuge. Yo u triedto heal them . The progressive, innovative doctor from M artinique transgressing thepractice of psychiatry and the idea of madness and medicine. The clinic is a socialworld. Decolonize the m ind -b oth for the colonized and the co lonizer-bu t you couldnot heal them and then send them out into the same sick w orld -yo u quit the clinic toconfront a nation whose only antidote was violence. "By any means necessary." 26Death was necessary and you didn't back down. "Take back your life," you said."Take back your mind," you said. "Take back your manhood; take back yournatio n." It was 1 968,1 was riding the IC train, and you had theorized "b lack p ow er"before Stokley27 walked through Richm ond. W hy did you hav e to leave us so soon?

I loved you in the summer of 1968 because you made me think, like no onebefore, about rootedness and loss, about the sameness between fear and desire,about what an emancipated black masculinity might be, and about the decoloniza-tion of the mind. But now, it is 1998 and I am mad as hell with you. My anger istesting my love, a love that is clearly a mixture of nostalgia an d appreciation, but isnonetheless very precarious these days. How dost thou anger me? Let me count


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119TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISONevery feminist way. I am angry with you for theoretical matricide. 28 Neither blackwomen nor white women in your theory of race can THINK. Women are bodieswithout brains. They covet, they lust, they betray, but they d o no t reason. W hile youare contemplative of the dark m ale body , m arking him as complexly em asculated asa consequence of white power, you are then disdainful of the dark female body,marking her as wantonly sexual at the service of white power. Dark men are thevictims, some with the will to resist. Dark women are the betrayers, all with thedesire to comply. For you, black wom en b ear ch ildre n-a particular race loyalty isrequired. A particularity that absolves black m en. You m arried a white wom an andmade children with her. Are your mulatto children more authentically black thanthe mulatto children of a black mother married to a white man? When we look intothe eyes of mixed race children, do we judg e their blackness based on wheth er theirmo ther was white or black? White m other O K, black mother n ot O K? You cast theblack woman as betrayer-as desiring the white man, desiring him to desire her,desiring to be w hite. W hile we are to believe that black ma le sexual acts with whitewo men a re an initiation, a black male rite and right of passage into man hoo d?! Youwant us to believe that white women suffer from neurotic negrophobia, sexualfrustration, and indulge in fantasies of rape by black men. Do I take you out ofcontext? No , I don't think so! Is your thinking on gender m ore complicated? N o, Idon 't think so. W ho is the mothe r of your children? Why don 't you know h er better?W hy d on 't you know me better? I'm very upset with you, Frantz. You did no t knowMayotte Capecia.29 You did not know the life surrounding he r, her rem em brance s,her history, her dream s, because for you, Frantz, m em ory, history, and dream wereencumbrances in a revolution, in what you called "the knowledge of the practice ofaction."30 Frantz, did you ever come to realize that we live inside history for theseminal purpose of remembering it?! Don't we dream for the seminal purpose ofmaking the possibilities of history more universally wonderful?! I am very angrywith you Fran tz, but, fool that I am . . . after all these years . . . I still love you. Yourplea, "O my body, make me always a man who questions!" 31 how can I stay angrywith you? Y our w ords, like the cries of Iacchus,32 are written across my he art: "In theworld through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself."33 So young, you leftbefore time and experience could grip you with ha rde r questions about M ayotte andblack mothers. You left before you could create yourself again under the light ofwom en's bodies where m ind an d matter did matter so mu ch m ore than the gaze of ayoung Martiniquecan psychiatrist could discover before death. Time is moresublime than the blessed, and you did not have time enough to decipher the nuancesreplete in the culture of wom en and, perha ps, your own. Angry at you and at deathcoming too soon, (A ma le performer, quietly and without notice, sits upstage in semi-darkness) I still remain forever in love with you. You gave me-us-more than youtook away. You gave us the day-to-day standing in the face of torture. [Theperformerstops reading the letter. She sits a t the desk. A man seated upstage barely visible in the light isheard reading the w ords of Fanon) "You must therefore weigh as heavily as you canupo n the b od y of you r torturer in or der tha t his soul, lost in som e byway , may finditself once m ore . . . An d then there is that overwhelming silen ce-b ut of course, thebody cries out-that silence that overwhelms the torturer." 34


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120TEXT AND PERFORM ANCE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999

EPILOGUEEmbodied Writing(The performer has returned to the first space of theprologue. She sits und er the spotlight, again,surrounded by boo ks on performance. She looks up and speaks to you.)

Each o ne of them he lped m e see my w ay to the edge of m any rivers of knowingand n ot knowing. Th ey go back and forth, so do I. An d in their guidance, I laugh andthink and I realize. These fathers helped me see the river in the darkness, and theyhav e helpe d lead m e to it. But, they can no t make m e get in the water. I can not enterthe river. I can not get my feet wet. I dare not swim in the river. Can I bear to hearthe sounds when water crashes against rock? To swim and to hear I need themothers. Mothers who pounded bone and chain for their breath and mine. I needthe Oth er fathers who are more ancient and more M y own.

IIThe women sit by the river with the men. Dark wet skin shining like brokencrystals under moon light and ancient hopes. They are old black men and w om en, asold as the door of no return.35 They are my being. I fight to remem ber them and tolove them decently. They are always reminding m e, com m anding m e, always, to getIN the water and swim: "Woman," they say, "You must go beyond realization,deeper, into the currents of action." They say, "Seeing is not enough, you musthe ar. " I Know that I can not hea r the sounds below the rivers at a distance. I know Imu st get in the water and swim. I must remem ber the swimming lessons they taughtm e. I learned how to swim upstream , against enorm ous currents, with m y m usclesand m y grit long before I even learned how to see the river with ope n eyes.

HIThe stories the old folks told us-the stories we tell each otherpress against hardsurfaces for us to touch and h old. Wh en the storms com e in num bers so great that wecannot grasp breath and there is now here safe just to lay our hea ds -the inside peaceof an untrou bled life-w e m ust rem em ber that strength will com e after the storm andthe story. Th e generations of stories they told us- to heal and tea ch -m ak e order ofworlds too messy and too endless for our own recent paths to name. Remnants oflife, yet, whole an d com pletely lived, given to us for safekeeping. W e kee p the circlemoving, we must, because our lives depend on it. My parents and theirs and theirswere a sw ord and an a rmor. Th ey inhe rited a killing field of love and pro tection for

their children. H ow can we simply rem ain o n the edge of rivers, pon derin g. The oldAfricans have told us, again and again, that they wait, below water, with theirprog eny ; and, they h op e for us to listen and walk into the d epths of water.In their memory, we imagine ourselves past the everyday fog of uncertainhistories. We inve nt ourselves upon their laboring lives, but th en w e must seek. Th ehistories of our collective mothers and fathers are a tight-rope path to our collectivepresen t. W e balanc e and k eep ou rselves from falling.


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121TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISON

IVToo m uch w ork to be do ne, too m any distractions. My knees and arms get weak. Iam in the river feeling tired and forgetful, bu t I m ad e it in and I am still he re . I am not

on the edge anym ore. I hea r voices rising up from ben eath, they say: "Re ach for thestories, rem em ber the m , or make them up , but do n't fall and kee p swim ming." Mymothers a nd sisters chronicle the sub stance: the lessons of m othe ring and daughter-ing and good work and loneliness and how they loved their me n and ho w they savedthem . M y fathers and broth ers carved p rotection in their flesh a nd he ld their wom enwith freedom and chants of a new day. I am now swimming at top speed, but thewater thickens just as the elders foretold, an d I slow dow n.Th e accusations come echo ing from ivory walls:Scholar, hah ! She is noth ing but a thoughtless rom antic!She is an essentialist in the reverie of a false past!She is a foundationalist, a biological determ inist!I thoug ht she was a critic! W here is the am biguity? W here is the theory?Ug h! Identity Politics! Nostalgia!She is an absolutist! Shoot her!!All this time, we though t she was a post-structuralist!Impostor! Impostor!Shoot her! Now!!

My h ead splits. I repress rage. My screams are muffled in deep unruly w hispers.Then it happens-memory-I remember I am in the river and I can swim. Irem em ber I can walk the tight rope an d no t fall. I make a new story for this occasion.I repeat the old ones-not in my head but in my heart. The stories save me frommyself and from them . I recreate the scream s. I revision the blindness.(The performer begins to stack the books, very carefully, on top of oneanother. She makes threestacks and places them right next to each other. All three stacks are exactly the same height. Thespines of the books ace the audience and each stack is level with the next. Theperformer gets thetelephone from the Karl Marx scene and places it in front of the first stack. She gets the scriptfrom Ferdinand de Saussure and places it in front of the second stack. She places the dictionaryfrom Jacques Derrida on top of the Saussure script. She goes to the d esk and folds the letter toFran tz Fanon and puts it in an envelope. She then places the letter in front of the third stack.She then goes back to the desk and getsa candle out of the drawer. She places the candle on top ofthe letter and lights it. She sits on the stack of books. Lo oking up from the "props" she has laidbefore the books, she then looks up for a mom ent at you. She speaks.)

I remember I can walk the tight rope and not fall. I make a new story for thisoccasion. I repeat the old onesnot in my head b ut in my h eart. Th e stories save mefrom myself and from the tower. I recreate the screams. I revision the blindness.Now , sit close and listen to the story.I rem em bered the story in the river while I was swimm ing.Shh! What I say is Tr ue . All of it is true. I hav e im agined it.The n am es mo st of all are true.I learned the na mes in the tower without sleep.Listen and know the nam es, and rem em ber the story. He re a re the beginnings.Beginnings are important.Each word m akes the story older and mo re new.Som e of us have forgotten the beginnings and h ow to change them ,


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122TEXT AND PERFORM ANCE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999and no w the re is craziness in our people .Th ey see the tower from the river.The river points in all directions.Th e story will save us, but we must m ake m ore beginnings.He re it is. An other beginning.I will perform it for you .{slow ade to black. The only light isfrom the candle)I will perform it for youIt goes like this . . .{Performer blows out candle)

Notes1 In the spring of 1998, the performance artist, Coco Fusco spoke at Duke University. Her presentation brilliantlydescribed th e significance of performance as an art form and comm unicative mo del for change. Fusco also shared aprovocative video of spectator responses to "Th e Ca ge" a performance in collaboration with Guillermo G mez-Pea.Fusco was concerned that so many performance studies scholars are focused on the performances in everyday life thattoo few are pay ing attention to the w orks of performance artists, particularly artists of color. In Lets Get It On, edited byCatherine Ugwo, Fusco states: "Although no thorough survey of performance art of the past decade can reasonablyoverlook the contributions of artists of color, there is no consensus as to the significance of our increased visibility. O urpresence has bee n read as a sign of the milieu's 'new ' cultural diversity, but our entry and the po stmo dern debates thatencircle us have also been associated with the dism antling of hierarchical categories that set 'high art' performancesapart form other performative practices of vernacular cultures wh ich-fo r somesignals the end of performance as ana r t form." (158)2The essay by Don Geiger on "Poetic Realizing as Knowing" informs my conceptualization of "realizing." "Anexperience requires not only consciousness or awareness but also "awareness of awareness." " . . . for a person to have

an experience h e (sic) must also be aware that he is having i t . . . " an experience is our realization of it." QuarterlyJournal of Speech (312).3In Delia Pollock's imp ortant essay "Performing W riting" she introduces "six excursions into performing writing";one of them is nervousness. Pollock states: "performative writing is nervous. It anxiously crossed various stories,theories, texts, intertexts, and sph eres of practice, unable to settle into a clear, linear course, neither w illing nor able tostop moving, restless, transient and transitive, traversing special and tem poral bo rders , linked as it is in what M ichaelTaussig calls "a chain of narratives sensuously feeding back into the reality thus (dis)enchained." (90)4In "Th e H ighs and Lows of Black Feminist Criticism" Barba ra Christian discusses the characteristics of what shecalls "high thought language" and "low thought language." Christian states: "I'd grown up with a sharp divisionbetween the "high" thought, language, behavior expected in school and in church, and the "low" thought, languagethat persisted at hom e and in the yard s and the streets . . . It is often in the poem , the story, the play, rather than inWe stern philosophical theorizing, that feminist thought/feeling evolves, challenges and renews itself." (576)5 Th eo rie s of the flesh privilege agency and interrogate notions of the "lethargic masse s" or "voiceless victims." Thequestion, "Where do theories come from? is answered by honoring the extraordinary in the ordinary indigenousanalysis, expressions and meditations of what bell hooks refers to as "home place ." From "T hat W as My O ccup ation"in Text and Performan ce Quarterly (214).6I use this term to m ark m y first theoretical thinking, in the language of the academ y, represented by four m en. AlsoI juxtapose the idea of "theoretical fathers" with those of indigenous mothers at the end of the writing.7Richard Schechner's conceptthat in performance we are doubly not ourselves, and in that doubling we arepositively more of who we are.8Karl M arx was born in 1818 and died in 1883. H e was plagued m uch of his life with skin sores called carbuniclesthat would break out over his entire body. He w as in poor health and agonized over these skin eruptions.9Th e reference he re is to the famous letter Friedrich Engels wrote to Jos eph Bloch in defense of Karl Marx to theyoung Marxist enthusiast who reduced Marx's more complex ideas to economic determinism. In the letter Engelswrites: 'Therefore if somebody twists this into saying that the economic factor is the only determining one, he istransforming that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, absurd ph rase. " From Selected Letters (75-6).10In 1848 Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto, and students and workers united in a revolution thatspread through Europe.11 Marx smoked also, had an affair, and took arsenic for his painful skin disease.12Marx had an affair with his comrade and servant Helene Demuth. She bore a child named Freddy named afterEngels, who accepted paternity. Marx neve r acknowledged the child.13 Tristan Tzara was the famous Dadaist poet a nd performer. On July 23, 1918 Tzara read the first Da da manifesto:"Let us destroy let us be good let us create a new force of gravity NO = YES Dada means nothing" . . . The bourgeoissalad in the eternal basin is insipid and I hate go od sense." (73). From Performance Art by RoseLee Goldberg.


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123TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY MADISON

14From Letters (75-6).15 F r o m Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Philosophy (78).16Ibid.17Consciousness here is not referring (in the Freud ian sense) to the smaller realm that is in contrast to the vast realm

of the unconsciousness. Here I refer to the "m utual self-awareness of a grou p" as defined b y R aym ond Williams, as inclass consciousness and the awareness of alienation as opposed to false consciousness. Keywords (321).18F r o m Selected Writings. . . ( 1 6 9 - 1 7 0 )19 Refers to Claude Levi-Strauss' idea that langue is cultureits general rules and law, and parole is the specificidiosyncrasies of each culture. Individual cultural myths are parole, while all encompassinga universal underlyingstructureis langue.20 Roland Barth is mo re interested in conn otation a nd po pular culture; he posits that all signs constitute endless andmultiple signification.21Refers to Derrida's concept of citation as repetition, that which is always already said and done before, yet eachtime governe d b y specific participants, time an d sp ace.22Derrida discusses the "strange economy of the supplement" meaning the unstable and slippery interplay andtensions between opposites and binary oppositions. Derrida states: "the indefinite process of the supplementary hasalways already infiltrated p resence, always already inscribed there the space of repetition and the splitting of the self

from pure self-presence. From Of Grammatology (163).23"Prisoner of Language" referring to criticisms that language is overdetermined in post-structuralist theories andthat for Derrida life and experience is all constituted by language as language presup poses existence.24 Dow ntown Chicag o, south of Randolp h Street, is traditionally referred to as the Lo op, because it is shape d like aloop.25 The famous quote in Black Skin White Masks by Fan on of the little white boy poin ting to a black man in ho rror andbeing afraid: "M ama, see the Negro ! I'm frightened!" (p 112-114).26"By any means necessary" was a 60's appropriation from Malcolm X that has resurfaced again in hip hop. Theperformer uses the Malcolm X quote as a trope in conjoining her history and coming to consciousness with Fanon'sideology.27 Fanon was theorizing "Black Pow er" in terms of colonial revolution and th e liberation of the black bod y before thephrase was bo m out of civil rights protest and later defined m ore fully in the boo k Black Power by Stokely Carmichaeland Charles Hamilton.28 bell hooks writes of Fano n: "In retrospect I see in his work a profound lack of recognition of the presence of themothering body, of the female body that thinks. It is the symbolic matricide enacted in his work that necessarilysevered the connection the m om ent I em barked on a critical jou rney w ith feminism that began with the recovery of themother 's body (81 ). In Facts of Blackness edited by Alan R ead.29 Mayotte Capecia, her autobiography Je SuisMartiniquaise is condem ned by Fano n as committing "racial suicide."Lola Young's important essay, "Missing Persons: Fantasizing black women in Black Skin, White Mash, describesFanon's harsh condemnation of Capecia: "Fanon is keen to develop a sense of Capecia's unconscious, even withoutaccess to her dreams . . . Fanon only refers to black women's experiences in terms which mark her as the betrayer"

(92). I n Facts of Blackness.30"Knowledge of the practice of action"Homi Bhabha describes it in the following: But the continuance of thestruggle, the day-to-day, the contingency of historical temporality and causality produce truths that are only partial,limited . . . It is this historical temporality that I would call the emergency of the (insurgent) everyday, and Fanonassociates it with political subjects who are som eho w ou tside the 'official' discourses of the nationalist strugg le. W hat isparticularly salient about the temporality of everyday is that it represents the agency of insurgency and constitutes acounter-force to historical exam plarity of the day-to day in wh at Fanon calls the 'kno wledge of the practice of action'.

3 1 F r o m Black Skin, White Masks.32Iacchus, the god who guided the initiated in the mysteries of Eleusis (son of Hermes and killed by Demeter).Iacchus was the ritual cry uttered by the faithful. Ou ches, whose nam e recalls Bacchus, one of Dionysus n ames, may beconsidered to be the go-between of the goddesses of Eleusis and D ionysus.3 3 From Black Skin, While Masks.3 4 F r o m Wretched of the Earth.35I am referring here to Elmira Castle, the slave castle in Cape Coast, Ghana, West Africa, where the slaves werecaptured and held th ere in the dung eon until they were led out from the do or of no return , overlooking the ocean anddirectly routed onto the ships where they would cross the Atlantic to No rth and S outh Am erica.

Works CitedBhabha, Hom i K. "Day b y Day . . . With Frantz Fanon." The Fact of Blackness: FrantzFanonand VisualRepresentation. Ed. Alan R ead. Seattle: Bay Press, 1996. 186-20 3.Christian, Barbara. "The Highs and Lows of Black Feminist Thought." The Woman That I Am: TheLiterature an d Culture of Contemporary Women of Color. Ed. D . Soyini Madison. N ew Yo rk: St. Ma rtin'sPress, 1994. 573 -78 .


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124TEXT AND PERFORMANCE QUARTERLY APRIL 1999Derrida, Jacques . Of Gramm atology. Baltimore: Jo hn Hopk ins UP, 1976.Fanon, Frantz. Wretched of the Earth.New Y ork: Grove Press, Inc. 1963.Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, WhiteMasks. New York: Grov e Press, Inc., 1967.Fusco, Coc o. "Performing and the powe r of the popu lar." Let's Get It On: The Politics ofBlack Performance.Ed. C athrine U gwu. Seattle: Bay Press. 1995. 158-75.Geiger, Don. "Poetic Realizing As Knowing." QuarterlyJournal of Speech. 59 . 3 (1973): 311-18.Goldberg, RoseLee. Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present. New York: Abram s, Inc., 1988.hooks, bell. "Feminism as a persistent critique of history: What's love got to do with it?" The Fact ofBlackness: Frantz Fanon and VisualRepresentation. Ed. Alan Read . Seattle: Bay Press, 1996. 76- 85.Kipnis, Laura. Ecstasy Unlimited: On Sex, C apital,Gender, and A esthetics. Minneapo lis: U of Minnesota P,

1993.Madison, Soyini, D. "That Was My Occupation: Oral Narrative, Performance, and Black FeministThought." Textand Performance Quarterly. 13 (1993): 213 -32 .Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. SelectedLetters. Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1977.Marx, Karl. Selected Wrtitings in Sociology an d Social Philosophy. Eds. T.B. Bottomore & M. R ubel; Trans.T.B. Bottomore. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.Pollock, Delia. "Performing Writing." The ends of performance. Eds. Peggy Phelan and Jill L ane. NewYork: New York U P 1998. 73-10 3.Williams, Raymond. Keyword s: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. New York: Oxford UP , 1983.Young, Lola. "Missing persons: Fantasizing Black Women in Black Skin, White Masks." The Fact ofBlackness: FrantzFanon an d Visual Representation. Ed. Alan Read. Seattle: Bay Press, 1996. 86-97 .

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Performing Theory-embodied Writing