Telling tales, allowing the body to speak : redefining the art of flesh in feminist performance art.
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Date
2006
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Abstract
This thesis is constructed between a double argument. The first is a feminist argument that the female body may be viewed as a tool for cultural reinscription against dominant structures of subjectivity and representation that have rendered women the common flesh of art, without recourse to their own representational economy. Secondly, it is argued that the female body can never be recuperated as an essential, original form. That is, there is no essential female body or nature to be represented. In this sense, the body is artificial, or not natural, and so can be re-presented, specifically in feminist performance art, in order to rework radically the relationship between language, subjectivity and desire. The research undertaken is genealogical and also looks towards the future: deconstructing the historical imperatives that have produced 'the female body' and suggesting ways in which feminist performance art may redefine the ways in which female flesh is represented.
Description
Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.
Keywords
Performance art., Performance art--South Africa., Feminism and the arts., Women in the arts., Feminism and theatre., Human body in the performing arts., Women artists--Psychology., Theses--Drama and performance studies.