En un instante: la teoría de la representación como crítica queer/feminista de la violencia

In one breath: performance theory as a queer/feminist critique of violence

Em um instante. a teoria da representação como crítica queer/feminista à violência

Por Katharina Pewny*

* Theater, Film and Media Studies, German Literature, Philosophy, and Women's Studies, Universidad de Viena, Austria; Ph.D., Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies, Universidad de Viena, Austria; actual miembro del grupo de investigación Theater and Transnationality y catedrática del Werkstatt Tanzwissenschaft (taller de estudios sobre danza) en el Gesellschaft für Tanzforschung (Sociedad para la investigación sobre la danza). Elise Richter researcher / Austrian Science Fund, Austria Correo electrónico: katharina.pewny@univie.ac.at.

Resumen

El presente artículo analiza distintos acercamientos que las teorías feministas y queer presentan frente a las categorías de género. Si bien las primeras buscan rotular explícitamente la feminidad y la masculinidad, las segundas cuestionan el sistema binario de género. No obstante, ambos cuerpos teóricos son confrontados cuando se trabaja la violencia: ¿Cómo nombrar la masculinidad de un victimario sin naturalizar el orden sexual? ¿Qué función puede cumplir la violencia en los procesos de género? La autora utiliza la representación "Who wants to, can come" para ejemplificar los medios sensoriales de las construcciones de género. La vista, el sonido y el movimiento son recursos empleados para irritar la percepción de la audiencia y, así, su acercamiento a la dicotomía tradicional de los sistemas de género.

Palabras clave: Género, queer, representación, teatro.

Abstract

Key words: Gender, queer, performance, theater.

Resumo

Este artigo analisa as diversas aproximações que as teorias feministas e queer apresentam frente às categorias de gênero. Embora as primeiras procurem etiquetar explicitamente a feminilidade e a masculinidade, as segundas questionam o sistema binário de gênero. Ainda que ambos os corpos teóricos sejam confrontados quando se trabalha a violência: Como denominar a masculinidade de um verdugo sem naturalizar a ordem sexual? Que função pode desempenhar a violência nos processos de gênero? A autora utiliza a peça "Who wants to, can come" para exemplificar os meios sensoriais das construções de gênero. A vista, o som e o movimento são recursos empregados para irritar a percepção da audiência e, assim, sua aproximação à dicotomia tradicional dos sistemas de gênero.

Palavras chave: Gênero, queer, representação, teatro.

Queer/feminist movements of thought aim to change the very power relations on which discrimination and violence are founded¹. This pertains to all social spheres including the sciences and their institutions: queer/feminist movements criticize structures of dominance and in doing so they intentionally disrupt the symbolic order of academia. These movements are not conceived as simply appending to the traditional sciences, but rather as transgressing them. In the following I will offer a critical reading of categories of academic discourses - i.e. of their premises. I hope that by denaturalizing these discourses I will contribute to altering their hetero/sexist dynamics.

From the perspective of queer/feminist theoretical developments, I will first address the question: What could "we" possibly "get out of" theater and performance theory? Second, I will give a brief summary of a queer/feminist critique on violence, which I will then bring together with certain aspects of a performance by Barbara Kraus².

Theatrical categories in conceptualizing gender

I will begin with some thoughts on the categories of theatrical repertoire. Theater, performance theories, and practices as art forms have rarely been taken into account in recent European discourses on genders. Frequently researched topics include film, video, cyberart and club cultures. Categories of theater and performance such as staging, mimesis, masquerade, performativity have been circulating within gender and other poststructuralist theories since the 1980s. For at least twenty years, theatrical repertoire has supplied diverse gender theories with its concepts³. Taking a look at the history of theater studies (Theaterwissenschaft) as a discipline could help explain why theaterrelated categories have provided quite illuminating insights when thinking about gender. In Germanspeaking countries, what started out as textbased studies within German literature departments, Theaterwissenschaft (literally: "theater science") emerged as a discipline in the 1920s (Corssen y Kirsch, 1992). This new discipline recognized the power of signification of space, stage, acting, music and directing in its analyses and allowed for differentiations to be made in content and method. Theater and performance studies developed during the century wellknown for having engendered practices that blurred clearcut lines between art forms and those involved in it, i.e. between the "artists" and "audience" and for the institution of hybrid aesthetic movements, conventions and experiments⁴. Because of this, theater theory provides ways of speaking about realities that can no longer possibly be explained via (common philosophical/scientific practices of) ontology. The fleetingness of the "object of study" of theater studies is the specific characteristic that could explain the abovementioned affinity of theatrical concepts and deconstructive discourses with one another, as the decentralization of the play script left theater studies without an epistemic foundation. In theater studies research there is no genuinely comprehensible central element, in contrast to studies of art history and aesthetics which have images, scores and texts as "central elements" that can fall back on for their research. Susan Leigh Foster asserts that a consequence of and reason for this is a dialectics of theorizing bodies as the signifiers of the ephemeral and the momentary, thus covering up underlying "scripts" or "choreographies," which leads to a lack of visibility of such theories⁵.

This may explain why theatrical concepts (mirror, mask/ masquerade, stage/staging, mimesis, performativity) have been appropriated by poststructuralist "gender" theories. Theatrical concepts can be employed to describe unstable and variable relations as they refer to aesthetic - in terms of the original meaning of aesthesis as "sensuous perception or awareness" - processes of constructing meaning, which are not based on objectifiable conditions. In theater the construction of meaning takes place on the bodies physically present within a certain space. Sue Ellen Case shows that analyses surrounding the concept of "performativity" have receded from the foreground in favor of a "performativity of writing" that guarantees the physicality of the body, specifically for performance theorists. The concept of "performative writing" is established, according to Case, through the traditional dominance of writing over the body, of theory over art (1996, pp. 20-23)⁶. If performativity is deemed to have problematic effects in theater and performance theory, then, to a large extent, it remains unclear as to what artspecific implications "performance" holds in gender theories.

1. "Performance" places emphasis on gender as a perceptual process and on the incoherence within the individual subject (gender is not seen as ontologically selfevident, but as "something that is perceived") (Irigaray, 1994; Butler, 2001; Felman, 1981 and Vinken, 1992). This is the point of intersection with notions of "queer". "Queer [...] tears apart the seemingly obvious relationship between sex and gender, sexual desire and object choice, sexual practices and political identities, and renders subjectivities infinitely indeterminant"(Walters, 1996, p. 835).

2. Performance does not privilege linguistic signification, rather it focuses on the synchronicity of the sign character and the materiality of bodies visible. The title In One Breath alludes to this. In the performances Zwischenräume (Spaces In Between) and Home Sweet Home⁷, the breathing of the dancers/performers created a level of visual and acoustic signs, which are distinctly clear in these "dance theater" pieces that both have parts without music where the breathing took on the role of the music⁸. The synchronicity of the sign character and materiality of bodies - that has to be mentioned in one breath for them to flow into one another - is in line with a "queer" definition of sex/ gender (Butler, 2001 and Polymorph, 2002).

3. An understanding of materiality and sign character that gives primacy to the synchronicity of the material being and sign character of bodies has the power to uproot unproductive dichotomies (especially "feminist" and "queer" theories) of the "constructed" body versus the "natural" body.

Following my reflections on theater theory, I will now expand upon the specific practices. One particular type of theater that has found its way into queer theory is Shakespearian theater. Similar to the way ancient Greek theater has been constructed as the "ideal" origin by early feminist research in theater studies (Pewny, 1993), Shakespearian theater seems to have initiated and pushed forward queer theater theory. Research on socalled boy actors who played women (characters) who played men (or male roles) has worked toward further staging and rendering ambiguous the correspondence between sex, outer appearance and desire (Stallybrass, 1991). The ambiguity of the actors' gender literally "clung" to their bodies and the "layered" manner in which they wore gender(s) contributed substantially to the representational order of the theater. According to Marjorie Garber the invention of the stage curtain and its integration into the theatrical architecture moved the indistinguishability between real and nonreal away from being based on bodies and moved it toward the difference between art and reality (Garber, 1990, 244f). Movements that muddled the distinction between (theater) art and reality, between theatrical and other types of spaces and between two (clearly separable) sexes were turned around in the 20^th century, the most prominent examples of which can be found in performance art. The concept of the "veiled phallus" (Garber, 1990, 244f)⁹returns here and is reenacted as difference within the individual subject. The theater's "curtain" has been (at least for the most part) physically done away with, and now is enacted within the characters on stage/performers themselves as well as in the gaze of the audience (Brandstetter, 2002).

Differential politics of categorization

Theatrical concepts such as "masquerade", "staging" and "role" employed in thinking about gender uncover the inconsistencies and ambiguities of sexuality¹⁰. They highlight gaps between a (seemingly consistent) self and its representations. But the different theatrical concepts bear implicit constructions of subjectivity and thus, of gender. For example, a term like "role" that stems from classic dramatic theater implies a self that can take on a role and afterwards return to its former self. So, in this context the following questions come up: What happens when we try to unambiguously name gender relations? What (terminological) limits are we confronted with when naming the varying categories of gender? The following section was developed based on my interest in a critique of concepts treated as selfevident and in queer/feminist thought. Here I step into contentious fields of inquiry and am concerned with fruitful contributions made by feminists and queer theorists to a critique of sexualized violence. The above named questions are among the most crucial topics, and, therefore, some of the most promising points of encounter between feminist and queer analyses and understanding.

In giving a brief overview of this discussion, I will incorporate both writings and debates from political movements. In the 1970s, feminist critiques erupted - also as part of the (personal experience of) making the private political - and they strongly focused on relations of dominance and on a critique of (sexualized) violence by men on women and girls. "Men" and "women" - the conceptual framework of gender duality - functioned as necessary categories in order to be able to describe the immense number of perpetrators and the women and girls affected. There are many different terms that name many different realities: in order to expand the meaning of the word "rape," women began to speak of "sexual violence" against women/girls. "Sexual violence of men" made an explicit reference to the sex of the violator. The use of the terms "sexual violence of men" against "women, lesbians and girls" was an attempt to differentiate the positions of those involved and to clearly specify different forms of violence (misogynist, lesbophobic violence). "Naming 'sexualized violence' also strengthens the exertion of power by means of violence that is exercised sexually" (Unterweger, 2001). Hence, "sexualized" violence stresses that a physical attack does not constitute the beginning of violence; rather it is embedded within numerous other societal norms.

Feminist critiques of violence have sounded out a spectrum ranging from women as victims/survivors to women as perpetrators - with all of its nuances in between (such as considering the possibility that a woman could simultaneously be both a perpetrator and a victim) - that are still valid today. In Germanspeaking countries, the "complicity" debate (which focused on the complicity of women in National Socialism) initiated by Christina ThürmerRohr put a spotlight on women as perpetrators, both within heterosexual and lesbian contexts (Ebner, Coltre and Newald, 2001, p.14)¹¹. From the mid990s, further work has focused on women/lesbians as aggressive and (potentially) violent subjects, also uncovering how the mainstream has marketed "lesbians" as "violent"¹².

In recent years, the discourses listed below have been developed and added to the initial feminist analyses of sexualized violence:

2. Psychology/trauma theory that interweaves sociopolitical analyses with internal psychological processes (of the victims), and others that limit themselves to "therapeutic" discourses in the stricter sense (Herman, 2003; Heynen, 2000; Rothschild, 2000).

3. National and supranational juridical discourses, symposia and debates (on "women's shelters" and other institutions, including the debate on rape as a war crime or as grounds for asylum, etc.).

In German-speaking countries, (academic) publications of violence critiques from the perspectives of antiracist, queer and dis/ability studies have increased in circulation in the past years (for example Ohms, 2000; Castro Varela, 2003; Steyerl and Gutiérrez Rodríguez, 2003). Although these analyses intricately work through the interplay of different forms of violence and see these not simply as "supplemental," but as having emerged "intertwined" with one another (for example Haritaworn, 2003), these works often remain separate from the past history of feminist debates on sexualized violence¹³. One difficulty in bringing together these violence critiques could be posed by their differing politics concerning the use of categories. While "queer positions" (despite this problematic generalization) aim to dissolve the principle of gender dualism, "feminist" positions rely on designating (two) sexes, as in the model of the perpetrator and victim. The main discrepancy between feminist and queer critiques of violence is not to be found in putting women exclusively in the position of the victim, but rather it lies in the gender dualism posited by feminists who maintain that the sex of the majority of the perpetrators is male and that of the victims is female. "The insistence on 'queer' - a term defined against 'normal' and generated precisely in the context of terror - has the effect of pointing out a wide field of normalization, rather than simple intolerance, as the site of violence" (Michael Warner quoted in Walters, 1996, p. 834).

I find that the connection between a critique of sexualized violence based on gender dualism and the critique of instating a dualistic distinction of gender as a form of violence¹⁴is a very productive point of departure, and I would therefore like to begin with a definition of violence that encompasses both critiques. Carol HagemannWhite states that

violence within gender relations is when a person's physical or emotional integrity is violated, in a way that has to do with the sexuality of the victim and the perpetrator, and has been brought forth by the structurally 'stronger' person taking advantage of their position in the power structure (Dackweiler in Koher and Pühl, 2003, p. 47).

In order to be able to name this power structure, it is necessary to have categories that - following the line of argument of critiques on sexualized violence - relate to gender (relations). Sexualized violence is - in line with a structural strengthening of (a male) position - to be viewed as a political institution that produces the hierarchical orders of compulsory heterosexuality that embodies a male part, defined by its power over the female, and a female part constituted by subjugation (against one's own will). The analysis of establishing hetero/sexist norms through the assertion of (e.g. via sexualized) violence could be a common field of interest for queer/feminist thought. I would like to demonstrate this point by means of an analysis of the film Dandy Dust¹⁵by Doro Wiese:

Compulsory embodiment of a differentiated self that invents itself from within categories that bring about identity, such as family background, historical memory, unambiguous gender and heterosexual desire, are staged here [...]. In Dandy Dust the self is staged as inconsistent and a means to transport these outgrowths that are bodies embedded in a fragmented narrative structure and that function as nodes within the collective family experiment and the constitution of the subjects that are violently brought about, and which - despite the will to be a family - escape being rendered unambiguous.

Here, Dandy Dust is raped into becoming a girl/woman (Heinrichs, 175f)¹⁷. In Wiese´s argument, it is not clear why rape makes a multiple gendered person a woman. In continuing with the genealogy of feminist critiques of violence I would like to point to the significance of linking "being raped" to "becoming a woman/girl," and "man" (men) to perpetrator(s). Therefore, we could add that "Sir Sidore rendered himself [not only, K.P.] a heterosexual man through rape" (Wiese in Koher and Pühl, 2003, p. 128, my emphasis).

From a queer/feminist view we can point out the following aspects of sexualized violence as hetero/sexist conditioning:

1. Feminization as/through the object status, masculinization through the perpetrator status;

2. Sexualized violence as heterosexualization, and as

3. a mechanism that renders gender unambiguous.

In differentiating these approaches in order to offer a critique of violence, I aim to demonstrate that sexualized violence is a product of hierarchically structured compulsory heterosexuality that "calls for" sexual dualism: for a masculinity that has power over femininity and for a femininity defined along the lines of involuntary sexual(ized) subjugation.

Touching

Accounts of sexualized violence are "touchy" to deal with, because they underscore both the materiality of bodies and their sign character that is linked to ways of thinking about performance. Hence, rape or beating are assaults on the body that touch, hurt and make incisions on the body on both material and symbolical levels. This dual effect has been taken on as a theme by numerous authors, performers, and theatermakers (Pewny, 2002). In this third and final section I will bring performance theory and violence critique together by examining the performance Wer will, kann kommen (Who wants to, can come, my translation, Vienna, 1999) by Barbara Kraus through the lens of Ann Cvetkovich's reading of queer/feminist performances as expressions of culture that also have the potential to "preserve" traumas. Cvetkovich understands lesbian cultures (songs, films, everyday events, photographs, artwork etc.) as "archives," e.g. of traumatic memory (Cvetkovich, 2003). In contrast to discourses that are generally based on the psyche, Cvetkovich's approach concentrates on visible and perceptible expressions of culture that often employ different practices to bring out into the open that which is unspeakable and repressed. She works with the collective dimension, into which she "integrates" sexualized violence. She writes: "trauma cultures are actually doing the work of therapy" (Cvetkovich, 2003, p. 10), which she does not mean as a reference to processes of individualized therapy but rather public and cultural manifestations, such as concerts and workshops during the Michigan Women's Music Festival.

Performances are public, cultural manifestations. The performance Wer will kann kommen portrays a single figure (Barbara Kraus) as she transforms into diverse characters of different genders without employing a "stage curtain," thus rendering her transitions transparent and making her body the site where the ambiguity of gender is performed¹⁸. This indifference toward difference (man/ woman) corresponds with the lack of spatial signifiers in the performance space (clearly delineating the audience or stage) and with the missing stage curtain¹⁹. One "scene" that stands out because of its unconventional spatial and aesthetic setup is when a tape recording of the performer's voice (in the character of Johnny) is heard narrating a text about sexual acts and acts of sexualized violence. Beforehand, the performer distributed eye masks or suggested that the "spectators" close their eyes for this part. The performer moved throughout the room lightly touching the "audience" on their shoulders, necks etc. and handing out eggs and strawberries to everyone²⁰.