Chapter 10 - Trace a Vanishing, or Queer Performance Study

Summary

“Trace a Vanishing” provides an account of the interrelation between the fields of queer and performance studies by way of the particular intersectionality of black queer performance. Noting alliances between the fields’ investments in repetition, gesture, and disciplinary profligacy, the chapter goes on to linger with notions of vanishing and presence as a way of thinking about the particularities black queer performative figuration. The poignancy and complexity introduced by the black queer performer attempting to “restore” their behavior – in the parlance of performance studies – is only amplified by the possibility of disappearance to which these performers are almost always gesturing. Critics of black queer performance must devise methods for following the line of performances that, like all performances, vanish, but unlike most performances, bring to mind the complex and violent histories, and sometimes necessary impulses, of vanishing.