Towards a Black Trans*lational Praxis: Archiving Black Queer Atlantic Performance Art
- Joshua K Reason
- Department of Africana Studies, School of Arts & Sciences
Photo of Joshua K Reason.
(Re)presenting a performance that renders Black LGBTQI+ history legible beyond what the archive dares to say, Joshua Reason will use spatial visualization tools to critically remap the city of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil. They will work with Coletivo das Liliths, a Black and LBGTQI+ artist collective based in Salvador, to place the collective’s performance practice in conversation with Black theory, activism, and performance cultures across the Americas and Europe. In particular, their story map will offer a close reading of Xica, the collective’s performance of the life and persecution of Brazil’s first known Black travesti. Following Xica’s archival traces throughout the city, the collective’s performance history, and contemporary Black LGBTQI+ movements through space and time, the project leverages performance art as a translational tool for Black LGBTQI+ communities. This project is a preliminary attempt at archiving the performance work of this collective, documenting the community impact and pedagogical value of their creative work.