FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W2021998960> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W2021998960 abstract "Holly Hughes Performing: Self-Invention and Body Talk Lynda Hall Holly Hughes, Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler. New York: Grove Press, 1996 Holly Hughes, one of the most acclaimed and popular contemporary performance artists and playwrights, publishes five of her works in Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler, including: “The Well of Horniness,” “The Lady Dick,” “Dress Suits To Hire,” “World Without End,” and “Clit Notes.” She also includes extensive autobiographical material detailing her artistic process while commenting critically on her family and the sociocultural milieu which informs her work, such as the collaborative feminist performance community at Women’s One World Cafe (WOW) in New York City. In this review, I focus on the two performance pieces I have seen, “World Without End” and “Clit Notes,” which exemplify her active interventions into cultural norms. Self-creating within complex representational frames, Hughes uses parody and satire in her incisive critiques of misogyny and heterosexual hegemony. Self-creation and sociocultural critique are the thematic axes on which I address her book/performances. While her stage directions indicate “the performer,” her frequent references to her art as self-writing and self-invention invite the spectator/reader to conflate self and performer. There is no evidence to date that anyone else has performed either of the two pieces I address here. In discussing her work, I have simply used “Hughes” throughout. Describing the sociohistorical changes which impact her experience as an artist, Hughes states that “visibility is the dyke mantra du jour.... When I came out in 1973 we fretted about the Male Gaze, how it could swallow us whole. Now we’re complaining that folks aren’t looking hard enough” (“Headless Dyke” 7). While visibility is liberating and promotes a lesbian sense of self-presence and desire for the artist and potentially for the spectator, visibility also invites and produces societal discipline and censure. In 1990, along with three other artists, Hughes was defunded by the NEA, creating a notoriety which precedes her wherever she performs. In her Introduction to Clit Notes, Hughes addresses the NEA and the controversy that “swirled around public funding of art that addresses the body, especially the body that’s either queer, female, of color, or some combination of those” (19). The equation of “homosexuality with obscenity” by Congress made the risks of performance evident, as her works confront homophobia. Her art allows her to create and define her selves, providing the space “to talk back” (19). The immediacy and materiality of the writer/performer’s body and voice on stage facilitate talking back and contesting cultural conventions by acting out subjectivity in relation to history, memory, and desire. Performance by definition suggests repetition, and through repetition, the possibility to pose questions, to play the same scenes and roles differently, and to re-member, re-view, re-shape, re-mark, and re-invent the past. The elaborate stage directions in Clit Notes enable the reader to imagine Hughes’ actions and body during performance. According to Hughes, she hopes her efforts will inspire others to exercise agency and rewrite their stories. Readers and spectators may realize that “they can be the heroine, that they can create their own plot rather than go on living inside the standard narrative” (9). Rewriting and revising old myths and fairy tales strategically, as Hughes does, is a way of interrogating diverse patriarchal, heterosexist imperatives and narrative plots. She concludes “Clit Notes” by inciting the audience to “start acting out our own plots” (212) of resistance. Hughes indicates that very early in life she resisted women’s harmful constrictive scripts of passivity and silence, and their designated female role as object of male desire. As a child she felt “I didn’t want to be a princess,” and she sardonically and subversively inquired: “What if I’d rather be eaten than rescued?” (10). Writing/Performing: Creative Self-Invention The autobiographical nature of Hughes’ writings and performances blurs traditional distinctions between the “real” and representation. Her performances and theoretical discourse suggest that, for her, life and art exist in a continuous relationship. Discussing “World Without End,” Hughes says: “The work’s real personal, real autobiographical” (Schneider 180). Refusing to evacuate the subject position, she fluidly..." @default.
• W2021998960 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W2021998960 creator A5021763251 @default.
• W2021998960 date "1997-01-01" @default.
• W2021998960 modified "2023-10-17" @default.
• W2021998960 title "Holly Hughes performing: self-invention and body talk" @default.
• W2021998960 cites W2320213761 @default.
• W2021998960 doi "https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.1997.0010" @default.
• W2021998960 hasPublicationYear "1997" @default.
• W2021998960 type Work @default.
• W2021998960 sameAs 2021998960 @default.
• W2021998960 citedByCount "0" @default.
• W2021998960 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W2021998960 hasAuthorship W2021998960A5021763251 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C107038049 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C135121143 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C138885662 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C142362112 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C144024400 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C153349607 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C163286209 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C19165224 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C196187386 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C2776445246 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C2778171436 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C41895202 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C94625758 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConcept C95457728 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C107038049 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C135121143 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C138885662 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C142362112 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C144024400 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C153349607 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C163286209 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C17744445 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C19165224 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C196187386 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C199539241 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C2776445246 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C2778171436 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C41895202 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C94625758 @default.
• W2021998960 hasConceptScore W2021998960C95457728 @default.
• W2021998960 hasIssue "2" @default.
• W2021998960 hasLocation W20219989601 @default.
• W2021998960 hasOpenAccess W2021998960 @default.
• W2021998960 hasPrimaryLocation W20219989601 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2093188016 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2112245075 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2294695029 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2327006398 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2367490634 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2748952813 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2800846065 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2803800026 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W2899084033 @default.
• W2021998960 hasRelatedWork W4239106833 @default.
• W2021998960 hasVolume "7" @default.
• W2021998960 isParatext "false" @default.
• W2021998960 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W2021998960 magId "2021998960" @default.
• W2021998960 workType "article" @default.