Traumatic utopias: : Holding hope in Bridgforth’s love conjure/blues

• Autores: Alison Reed
• Localización: Text and Performance Quarterly, ISSN-e 1479-5760, Vol. 35, Nº. 2-3, 2015, págs. 119-141
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This essay juxtaposes the loaded terms of trauma and utopia to rethink how shared histories of struggle call new collectives into being. Sharon Bridgforth’s love conjure/blues uses traumatic legacies as the raw material for creatively inhabiting concrete utopias in theatre spaces, a performance mode I term “traumatic utopias.” Building on black feminist traditions of self-definition in the face of violence, love conjure/blues centralizes black social life against the grain of a ubiquitous politics of hopelessness. In so doing, Bridgforth’s performance novel turns to the everyday transformation of social realities, innovating artistic form in the process.