For the past couple of months, I have been in discussion with a few artists about dramaturgy in the Bay Area.  The group was loosely formed as a brain child of Tessa Wills.  As a group I am the only American, and together our experience is based largely outside of …here.  And so we wonder collectively why it is that the (literal) language of performance is so different here on the west coast than it is elsewhere.  i.e. Where is the dramaturgy?  Is there space for a SF-specific dramaturgical practice should it emerge directly from the cultural context of the region/city?

As our first foray out of our kitchens and into the public (!), we are hitting up the Too Much Festival, a queer performance festival curated by Keith Hennessy and Julie Phelps.  We are there to talk queer, in a sort of panel meets discussion, meets uncomfortable first date.   

Hello there.

Since I do not consider myself the foremost expert on queer performance in the Bay Area, I ponder some of the broader questions…I wonder how queer performance is curated.  Whether it is through collecting artists that queer is identified and defined, or rather through careful selection a pre-existing notion is brought to light, to visibility.

Speaking of visibility.

Naturally, the first thing I did when preparing for this event was enter “queer performance” into google.  The first link was to a word document – a syllabus for a course offered at the University of Texas, of all places.  The intro was benign enough, but one question stood out.  What keeps other kinds of queer performance “subcultural” or “marginal” to some presumptive dominant?  Or is visibility itself a kind of trap that precludes an “outlaw” stance? (discussing the increasingly mainstream queer or gay identity).

Perhaps queer performance is liminal, an artistic stage between being hidden out of view and being fully seen (read: made mainstream, less controversial).  It is an state of being, then, rather than a formalized genre.

If you can, you should come to the festival on Sunday.  10 hours of queer performance.  Talks.  Spectacle.  Dinner.