Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories Drag in a Changing Scene Volume 2
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Mark Edward is a pracademic and a category dodger. His performance work in live art, contemporary dance performance, theatre, drag and post-modern choreography are often rooted in political and social narratives such as fat body shaming, age(eing) invisibility, homophobia, toxic and bruised masculinity, disability, mental health, class and him being neurodivergent as a ADHDancer and ADHDrag. He has featured in Attitude magazine, Scene magazine and GT magazine, and been interviewed for several BBC radio and TV documentaries, focusing on drag histories and activism, with drag performers Choriza May, Mutha Tucka and Miss Dixie Swallows. He has also featured in ‘The History of Drag’ documentary, alongside Boy George, lanah.p and Ginny Lemon. His research into drag cultures provided the content for the three-part BBC ‘Drag Herstories’ series. He is the author of the book ‘Mesearch and the Performing Body’ (Palgrave), and co-editor (alongside Professor Stephen Farrier) of the books ‘Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers: Drag in a Changing Scene vol 1’, ‘Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories; Drag in a Changing Scene vol 2’ and ‘Drag: the Basics’ (Routledge) with Professor Chris Greenough. He is the writer, and producer of the acclaimed immersive installation work ‘Council House Movie Star’ and the the first person to bring practical drag studies into higher education. He has performed with and worked for a range of arts organisations and artists including Rambert Dance, Senza Tempo Dance Theatre, Penny Arcade in her pivotal work ‘Bad Reputation’ and with the Australian performance activist Jeremy Goldstein in his ‘Truth to Power Cafè’.
Stephen Farrier is Reader in Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. With Alyson Campbell he has coedited Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (2015) as well as a themed edition of RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance named the ‘Gender and Sexuality Issue’.
Drag research has arrived. This volume by Edward and Farrier is a triumphant celebration of the critical, creative and speculative potentials of drag. The authors confidently embrace the complexities of drag and offer an affirmative map of its many forms, politics, and contexts. Future drag scholarship will be indebted to the provocations and case studies captured within these pages: from the ‘sequin method’ for historiography to queering panto. I am feeling the fantasy.
Rachel Hann, Northumbria University, UK
From its playful title right through to its pantomimic concluding chapter, <i>Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories</i> is an exuberant, informed romp through the history of this most transgressive, protean, and wonderfully queer art form. Editors Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier have done a fabulous job in bringing together a panoply of academics, commentators, practitioners, and activists to cast some important light onto drag’s complex and fascinating past.
Emma Rees, University of Chester, UK
<p>This volume of essays makes a valuable and, yes, entertaining contribution to drag histories and herstories (the hairstories are in there, too), bringing a range of perspectives on performance cultures and performers that are illuminating. The sense of fun, passion and energy of so many performers and performance cultures are celebrated, documented and subjected to valuable critique here.</p>
- Professor Anne Pender, Australian Drama Studies
Drawing on rich interdisciplinary research that has laced the emerging subject of drag studies as an academic discipline, this book examines how drag performance is a political, socio-cultural practice with a widespread lineage throughout the history of performance. This volume maps the multi-threaded contexts of contemporary practices while rooting them in their fabulous historical past and memory.
The book examines drag histories and what drag does with history, how it enacts or tells stories about remembering and the past. Featuring work about the USA, UK and Ireland, Japan, Australia, Brazil and Barbados, this book allows the reader to engage with a range of archival research including camp and history; ethnicity and drag; queering ballet through drag; the connections between drag king and queen history; queering pantomime performance; drag and military veterans; Puerto Rican drag performers and historical film.
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword by Penny Arcade
Preface Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier
1. Dragging up the Past - Mark Edward and Stephen Farrier
2. ‘Once upon a time, there was a tavern’: metadrag and other uses of the past at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern - Ben Walters
3. Camp and Drag in the Mainstream: A Critical Study of the Phenomenon of Drag performance in the Northern British Fun Pubs, 1973-1993 - Chris D’Dray
4. Soldiers in Skirts: Cross-Dressing Ex-Servicemen, Sexuality, and Censorship in Post-War Britain - Jacob Bloomfield
5. Kinging the Stage: Male impersonators and drag kings, exploring shared historical narratives - Stephen Farrier
6. A Kiss that Breaks the Spell: Japanese “Drag Kings” and the Homosocial Culture of the Takarazuka Revue - Isabelle coy-dibley
7. Camp can be such a drag: Approaches to understanding camp and drag - Simon Dodi
8. Vonni Diva: Showgirl - Rosslyn Prosser
9. FagHag Drag: Penny Arcade’s Archive of Otherness - Joseph Mercier with Penny Arcade
10. Nobody’s Trash: Holly Woodlawn’s Puerto Rican Drag and the Subversion of Authorship - Gabriel Mayora
11. Bibi is a Sissy: Drag, Death by Silence and the Journey to Self-Determination - Nando Messias
12. Mother Sally and The Fig Leaf: Re/Productions of A Carnival Character in Barbados - Nick Ishmael-Perkins
13. The Buttcracker: Dragging Ballet into Queer Places - Mark Edward and Helen Newall
14. Oh wow! He’s queer! Queering Panto in Belfast: An Interview with Ross Anderson-Doherty - Alyson Campbell and Trish McTighe
15. Wicked Queens of Pantoland - Simon Sladen
Index
"Reliably excellent." - The Year's Work in Critical & Cultural Theory
Methuen Drama Engage offers original reflections about key practitioners, movements and genres in the fields of modern theatre and performance.
Each volume seeks to challenge mainstream critical thought through the introduction of original and interdisciplinary perspectives to the body of work under examination. Contributions to volumes will challenge existing critical paradigms and do so in an engaging and accessible manner that will open up fresh approaches and suggest avenues for further exploration.
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Mark Edward is a pracademic and a category dodger. His performance work in live art, contemporary dance performance, theatre, drag and post-modern choreography are often rooted in political and social narratives such as fat body shaming, age(eing) invisibility, homophobia, toxic and bruised masculinity, disability, mental health, class and him being neurodivergent as a ADHDancer and ADHDrag. He has featured in Attitude magazine, Scene magazine and GT magazine, and been interviewed for several BBC radio and TV documentaries, focusing on drag histories and activism, with drag performers Choriza May, Mutha Tucka and Miss Dixie Swallows. He has also featured in ‘The History of Drag’ documentary, alongside Boy George, lanah.p and Ginny Lemon. His research into drag cultures provided the content for the three-part BBC ‘Drag Herstories’ series. He is the author of the book ‘Mesearch and the Performing Body’ (Palgrave), and co-editor (alongside Professor Stephen Farrier) of the books ‘Contemporary Drag Practices and Performers: Drag in a Changing Scene vol 1’, ‘Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories; Drag in a Changing Scene vol 2’ and ‘Drag: the Basics’ (Routledge) with Professor Chris Greenough. He is the writer, and producer of the acclaimed immersive installation work ‘Council House Movie Star’ and the the first person to bring practical drag studies into higher education. He has performed with and worked for a range of arts organisations and artists including Rambert Dance, Senza Tempo Dance Theatre, Penny Arcade in her pivotal work ‘Bad Reputation’ and with the Australian performance activist Jeremy Goldstein in his ‘Truth to Power Cafè’.
Stephen Farrier is Reader in Theatre and Performance at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, UK. With Alyson Campbell he has coedited Queer Dramaturgies: International Perspectives on Where Performance Leads Queer (2015) as well as a themed edition of RIDE, The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance named the ‘Gender and Sexuality Issue’.