Donovan Lounge, 2nd Floor Greenlaw Building

“Logic Strike: The Poetics of Ruptural Performance”

Recent years have seen a rise in the practice of political street performance. Often called “interventions” or “performance activism,” many of these actions surpass the transparent political messaging of traditional agit-prop performance. Rather, they mobilize the particular qualities of performance as embodied action—what I call “ruptural performance”—as a modality in opposition to the stultifying effects of the society of the spectacle. This talk traces the characteristics of rupture as a mode and element of political performance in events enacted by a diverse array of performers and activists. All make politically charged performance interventions that exceed defamiliarization towards disorientation. The interruption and irruption of performance in public space willfully confounds and baffles the audience rather than simply conveying a direct political message.

Tony Perucci is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the author of Paul Robeson and the Cold War Performance Complex: Race, Madness, Activism (University of Michigan Press, 2012). His writings on the politics and aesthetics of performance have appeared in the journals TDR: The Drama Review, Text and Performance Quarterly, and Liminalities, as well as the books Iraq War Cultures (Peter Lang 2011), Performing Adaptations (Cambridge Scholars 2010), and Violence Performed (Palgrave 2010).