Issue #04

Winter/Spring 1992

Cover of Issue #04

In this culture we're born with certain tattoos. Or rather, we're told that various aspects of our bodies mean certain things, and then we're encouraged to help make those meanings clearer—how we do our hair, how we talk, or don't. And then, sometimes, we figure out how to use those codes in other ways, to recreate ourselves and this world. What links this issue of the Performance Journal, “Speaking Ethnicity,” to the last one “Gender Performance,” is that they both seek to explore the languages of those markings, and understand how they speak—or how we can make them speak. And one of the best reasons for this issue to follow the last is to reiterate the need for sexuality, gender, and race to be understood in terms of each other (like the fierce pussy street posters on this page) and in relation to political change (see David Chan and Fred Ho). These pages try to get at what the images, sounds, and voices are that constitute ideas of ethnicity, how we use them in our work, how racism is reinforced, and how it is resisted. Especially for dancers and performers, whose work is articulated in their bodies, these questions are central.

— excerpt from Esther Kaplan, "Letter from the Editor"

Editorial team

Contributing Editor

Esther Kaplan Caroline Palmer Guy Yarden Cathy Edwards

Copy Editor

Michael Sexton

Ad Layout

Christopher Caines

Articles

1-1

Letter from the Editor

In this culture we're born with certain tattoos. Or rather, we're told that various aspects of our bodies mean certain things, and then we're encouraged to help make those meanings...

2-3

Stateless Hybrids

Cuban- American visual artist and writer Coco Fusco debunks troubling misconceptions about multiculturalism in ‘first world’ nations like the United States to contextualize the ideologies that intercultural, interracial, and inter-ethnic...

6-6

In a Rut

I haven't seen Miss Saigon , which I hear is the usual debasing schlock, but I debased myself enough by participating in the two protests mounted against the play during...

6-6

From Negrophobia

CUT TO: SCREEN of high-definition television set in the bulbous shape of Mickey M's head. The area surrounding the screen is pitch black. The screen crackles with a blizzard of...

8-8

A Call for Cultural Guerrillas

Lenin outlined five major features of the system of imperialism—capitalism at its monopoly stage—that are useful to an understanding of the political economy of American culture today: the increasing concentration...

17-18

What Time Is It?

Except for the last 37 years (i.e., since the 1964 Civil Rights Act), America has had an official policy of state racism. Since day one, the "American dream" has been...

18-18

Building Subjects

As race, sexuality, and gender emerge as popular themes in the media, I have come to realize that I can no longer accept the lack of and the misrepresentation of...

19-19

Burdens/Blessings

In Houston, Texas, you don't walk into the hotel lobby after 10 p.m.—you just don't do it. It's not a matter of pride or an issue for scientific debate, we...