The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance ed. by Tiina Rosenberg, Sandra D'Urso, Anna Renée Winget (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance ed. by Tiina Rosenberg, Sandra D'Urso, Anna Renée Winget Joshua Bastian Cole The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance. Edited by Tiina Rosenberg, Sandra D'Urso, Anna Renée Winget. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021; pp. xx + 541. This edited volume accents the contemporary in "contemporary performance," less by its central focus on cutting edge theatre- or meaning-making than by emphasizing links between queer and trans feminist identities in relation to recent global political events. Looking through intersectional lenses of gender, sexuality, disability, and race, the editors of The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance see political themes energizing new performance and its theorizing. With new theatre, a new audience emerges, and in this case, so does a growing interest in activism. That increase can be both good (as revitalizing) and bad (as fetishizing). In the chapter on Black queer trans theatre-maker Travis Alabanza's work from the late 2010s, Beck Tadman problematizes "the equivalence of visibility with acceptance and safety" (167). Tadman's theoretical reflections on Alabanza follow playwright Leelee Jackson's open letter to predominantly white institutions from whom she needs to protect her work—work that "denormalizes racism" and "assume[s] queerness as the norm" (162, 165)—that these institutions claim to "love," but ultimately mishandle. Professional exposure and relying on the hope that "you'd do better" isn't worth the harm done (163). Collected here are analyses of queer and trans feminist performance of the twenty-first century, attuned to how creators and creations are informed by the specificity of their political contexts. The anthology itself was edited amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which imposed drastic shifts on daily life. Gatherings became impossible, and pertinent to [End Page 114] performing artists, theatres closed, some of them for good. In the Handbook's framing, the backdrop for contemporary performance includes the ongoing Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police movements that arose from George Floyd's murder in 2020 as well as conflicts in Syria, Africa, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, the Middle East, and Ukraine, to name just a few. Attention is also paid to anti-LGBTQI global legislation that led to a surge in asylum-seekers, in addition to the intense anti-trans legislation happening now in the US. The book just predates the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but it perhaps saw it coming. And of course, climate change continues to decimate the planet. The book ultimately asks how we move forward, what is the most urgent work, how does performance studies take up that work, or as Eric A. Stanley inquires in the conclusion, "how [do we] get free?" (516). The book is broken into five sections—the first four consist of author contributions demonstrating cutting-edge dramaturgical inquiries that integrate reporting, interviewing, critiquing, and theorizing. The final section examines the past, present, and future of the field in a transcribed dialogue between trans feminist scholar/artists Emi Koyama and Eric A. Stanley. Part one, "Subversive Performance: Breaking Through Codes of (Un)Intelligibility," includes academic chapters and creative pieces that seek to disrupt normativity through the (un)intelligible, considering the nonlegible, the untranslatable, the undisciplined, the unveiled, and the inhuman. Part two, "Whose Queer Currency? Ex/Changing CIS [sic] White Fragility," highlights queer of color critiques developed in performance, activism, and drag. The contributors suggest that a deeper engagement with trans histories will reorient performance and contemporary feminist theory toward thinking about whiteness and economics of the gaze. Part three, "Queer Crossings and Transformations," interrogates notions of the body through theories of embodiment and pain, which naturally leads to the penultimate section. In Part four, "Healing and Revolution: Activism as/in Healing," case studies ask how applications of healing might push new possibilities out of subjugation in the form of communitarian and even spiritual resistance. Bringing together a wide range of contributors, including PhD students from universities around the world, well-established theorists like Sue-Ellen Case, as well as emergent performers such as drag entertainer and activist Miss Barbie-Q and choreographer and interdisciplinary practitioner Shyamala Moorty, the...