"I Am Half-Sick of Shadows": Finding Queer Agency through Life-Model Theatre in Body Art Projects and Gallery Spaces. (original) (raw)

""For centuries, the human body has been represented in Western gallery collections through painting, sculpture and live performance. Much figurative work involves life-drawing; and uses the bodies, ideas and creativity of life-models in its creation. Gender constructions of the body are heavily binarised; accompanying commentaries framing them heteronormatively - a practice that has steadily been challenged by feminist and queer practitioners. Noting work by Cast-Off Drama (Yorkshire) and Gendered Intelligence / London Drawing (London), this paper demonstrates that life-model theatre can reveal and contest binary constructions of gender, challenging heteronormativity in figurative arts-making and gallery spaces. Further exploring the theme of female and transgendered masculinities, the paper discusses responses to J. W. Waterhouse's 1894 "The Lady of Shalott" from Cast-Off Drama (2002-2013), Rikke Lundgreen & Phil Sayers (2007) and Margaret Harrison (2013), noting the importance of mirrors, weaving and song in queer readings of the work. The attached document is a copy of the powerpoint presentation I gave accompanying the hour-long talk on the 17th June at the AGender Conference, Leeds Art Gallery, UK. I am currently converting the talk into a chapter that will be published in a forthcoming anthology on the conference by Cambridge Journals. The slideshow reproduced here is offered as a visual document of the presentation for educational research purposes only. Much of it constitute original photographs from Cast-Off Drama performances at Leeds Art Gallery, also at York Art Gallery in the UK. Please see copyright notice below. For questions on the slides, please contact Nina Kane - ninakane@btinternet.com COPYRIGHT: Please read before opening the document. © All slides in this presentation and images of gallery working except for slides 24 and 51 are copyrighted to Cast-Off Drama – www.castoffdrama.blogspot.com and images must not be reproduced or redistributed without prior written agreement from the company. Images of individual artworks are also copyright to individual artists and to various public and private museums and gallery collections and are reproduced here for educational purposes only. For further questions on this please contact Nina Kane: ninakane@btinternet.com Dr Nina Kane would like to express thanks to the Education Officer and Department of Leeds Art Gallery for support of this work over the years. She also thanks all staff of Leeds Art Gallery who have assisted with the work, and would like to extend an extra thanks to the Assistant Community Curator for the AGender Conference and for ongoing support of Cast-Off Drama"

Trans*tastic Morphologies: Life-Modelling Theatre and 'The Lady of Shalott'.

Reflections on Female and Trans* Masculinities and Other Queer Crossings, 2017

This chapter is from a collection of essays, 'Reflections on Female and Trans* Masculinities' edited by Dr Nina Kane and Jude Woods for Cambridge Scholars Publishing (June 2017). In this, Dr Kane explores the potential of Tennyson’s literary figure The Lady of Shalott and J.W. Waterhouse’s 1894 painting of the subject to act as a creative catalyst for exploration of the gender binary and gender crossings. Drawing specifically on her own life-model theatre practice (essentially dramaturgical and performative), on the gallery education and community projects of Cast-Off Drama and referencing the visual arts work of Phil Sayers, Margaret Harrison and Tony Bevan, Kane charts a progression of the life-model performer from one side of the binary (female) to the other (male). This Trans*tastic passing is enabled through shifting identification with both the Lady of the poem and Lancelot, the Knight, and is presented to the reader here in a rhizomatic and hairy weaving of textual and visual threads. If citing this chapter, please do so as follows: N. Kane, 'Trans*tastic Morphologies: Life-Modelling Theatre and The Lady of Shalott.' In N. Kane and J. Woods (eds.), Reflections on Female and Trans* Masculinities, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017.

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