Performance
NAVEL, Los Angeles, CA
June 2, 2019
Based in Los Angeles, NAVEL is a test site for community-driven projects, critical equitable practices, collaborative learning and kinship. I presented a PowerPoint lecture made of stills from The Exorcist (1973) paired with a script.
The performance examined the figure of the scapegoat, a central player in validating the dominant class, neoliberal agendas, and artist in academia. The university, functioning under a big business model, allows just enough criticism to reaffirm its authority and distract crowds of protesters with an admittance of small evils in order to detract attention from much larger exploits.
The artist-teacher finds oneself in an untenable position. Functioning as a representative of the school and critic of the system, the teaching artist suffers from maintaining a questionable ethical position as witness to the operations of both parties. I, and many more teaching artists, exist in this precarious space, with mounting lawsuits and silenced protests.
The image used in the PowerPoint depicts a teenage girl demanding all forms of control be excised from her body and soul. The same year The Exorcist was released Roe v. Wade provided a fundamental "right to privacy" to protect a pregnant woman's liberty to choose whether or not to have an abortion. Each of these events challenged authoritative control over the bodies of its occupants.
Over four decades later Americans struggle to keep belief and the imaginaries of dominant culture off our bodies. Young, women of color will be the first to suffer from the encroaching laws. It was in the spirit of protest and learning that I created this performance (Kill your teachers, but first kill your desire to scapegoat the other). I adapted the performance into video form below.
