Transness

Written By Rachel Hann
Featured Publication
Gender-Assemblages: The Scenographics of Sin Wai Kin</a>
Gender-Assemblages: The Scenographics of Sin Wai Kin
Ada M. Patterson – in conversation with Rachel Hann
Ada M. Patterson – in conversation with Rachel Hann
Staging Trans Feelings: tactical atmospherics and cisgenderism in We Dig (2019)
Staging Trans Feelings: tactical atmospherics and cisgenderism in We Dig (2019)

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In 2023, I was awarded an AHRC Fellowship for the project 'Trans Performance Now: Glitching cisgenderism'. This 2-year study will centre on investigations of trans and nonbinary approaches to performance making, as well as the cultural standpoint of 'transness' more generally. My work on trans performance to date spans arguments for 'atmospherics' as nonbinary stage aesthetics and 'gender-assemblages' to analyse the more-than-human practices of gendering. The overall objective of this ongoing enquiry is to platform the vitality of trans and nonbinary experiences in understanding the impact of cisgenderism on artists, audiences, and academics. 

Projects

Featured
AHRC Fellowship: Trans Performance Now
transness
AHRC Fellowship: Trans Performance Now
transness

As one of many 'trans cultures', trans performance makers have been celebrated over the last decade for interrogating trans lived experiences through autobiographical works. Yet, many of these artists have noted a need to move beyond venue programming cultures that frame trans performance as principally educational (for cis people to learn about trans personal trauma). In response to this need, this fellowship asks what is 'transness' in performance beyond personal testimony? What makes a stage design 'trans-informed'? What does 'transness' afford as a cultural/political standpoint beyond gender identity? In investigating these positions, this fellowship will provide the foundational infrastructure for a 5-year legacy plan that centres trans and nonbinary experiences as vital to a fair and just society.

transness

Publications

Featured
Gender-Assemblages: The Scenographics of Sin Wai Kin</a>
Articles, Scenographics, transness, Nonbinary, Costume
Gender-Assemblages: The Scenographics of Sin Wai Kin
Articles, Scenographics, transness, Nonbinary, Costume

The concept of gender-assemblage is proposed as a critical framework to identify, critique and negotiate the more-than-human processes of gendering. Sin’s drag draws upon their non-binary identity to speculate renewed discourses, actions and expectations for gendered practices.

Articles, Scenographics, transness, Nonbinary, Costume
Ada M. Patterson – in conversation with Rachel Hann
short form, transness, Open access, Costume, climate crisis, practice research
Ada M. Patterson – in conversation with Rachel Hann
short form, transness, Open access, Costume, climate crisis, practice research

Interview with trans artist Ada M. Patterson (b. 1994, Bridgetown) based between Barbados, London and Rotterdam. She works with masquerade, performance, poetry, textiles and video, looking at the ways storytelling can limit, enable, complicate or abolish identity formation.

short form, transness, Open access, Costume, climate crisis, practice research
Staging Trans Feelings: tactical atmospherics and cisgenderism in We Dig (2019)
short form, Scenography, Atmospherics, transness, Open access
Staging Trans Feelings: tactical atmospherics and cisgenderism in We Dig (2019)
short form, Scenography, Atmospherics, transness, Open access

To talk about ‘trans performance’ is to talk about performances that enact and investigate trans as a political act of affirmation, self-determination, and the felt affects of cis regulation. This paper is a working statement on the stakes at play in arguing the vitality of trans voices and perspectives for our collective social thriving.

short form, Scenography, Atmospherics, transness, Open access

Videos

Featured
PQ Talks 11 June - Panel 3: Trans/nonbinary Scenographics
Scenography Talks, Trans Performance, nonbinary, pq talks
PQ Talks 11 June - Panel 3: Trans/nonbinary Scenographics
Scenography Talks, Trans Performance, nonbinary, pq talks

Trans/nonbinary Scenographics w/ Rachel Hann, Nic Farr, M'ck McKeague

This is the recording of the third panel of the third day of the PQ Talks at the 15th Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space, which took place on 11 June 2023 in the Jatka78 theatre.

0:05:09 Introduction by Barbora Příhodová, the curator of PQ Talks

0:05:55 Introduction by Rachel Hann, moderator of the panel

0:07:20 Trans/nonbinary Scenographics w/ Rachel Hann, Nic Farr, M'ck McKeague

0:46:20 Q&A

More info: https://pq.cz/pq-2023-info/projects-2023/pq-talks-curated-by-barbora-prihodova/trans-nonbinary-scenographics/

Scenography Talks, Trans Performance, nonbinary, pq talks
Producing Trans Performance: ‘Transness’ beyond testimony in I, Joan (2022)
Trans Performance, keynotes and seminars
Producing Trans Performance: ‘Transness’ beyond testimony in I, Joan (2022)
Trans Performance, keynotes and seminars

Producing Trans Performance: ‘Transness’ beyond testimony in I, Joan (2022)

Abstract

Trans performance has arrived in the last twenty years. Having previously encountered producing narratives that frame trans people as either undertrained or impossible to find, I approach the Shakespeare Globe’s staging of I, Joan (2022) by Charlie Josephine as a case study on the possible futures of trans-led creativity. Josephine’s trans retelling of the Joan of Arc story, coupled with the Globe’s commitment to a creative team of mostly gender-diverse creatives, signals a significant shift in what ‘trans’ means for producing venues. I, Joan is an experiment, I argue, in valuing transness beyond utilitarian educational aims and towards a vital cultural standpoint. In this presentation, I adopt I, Joan as a case study in mapping shifts in producing cultures since the emergence of named ‘trans performance’ and ‘trans theatre’ in the late 2000s – whether as a genre or method – and its current creative focus away from typically one-person testimonials to collective expressions of ‘transness’. In particular, I map this shift in relationship to the critical agent of the producer role and the creative arguments for what trans professionals, including but also beyond the performer role, bring to a collaborative process.

Building on an ongoing survey of trans performance, I consider the comfortability (for producers) of trans testimony as educational has (possibly inadvertently) siloed trans voices and rendered them ‘manageable’, ‘self-contained’, and ‘safe’. However, today there is evidence that producers see an audience and a need for radical transness beyond testimony. Drawing on Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism (2020), this presentation will offer an overview of trans performance innovations in the last few years and argue for a renewed producing criteria when programming trans-led works.

Trans Performance, keynotes and seminars
Why trans performance matters: cisgenderism and performance making since 2010
Trans Performance, keynotes and seminars
Why trans performance matters: cisgenderism and performance making since 2010
Trans Performance, keynotes and seminars

This paper offers an introduction to my initial survey of performance works by trans artists to investigate political self-determinism in the early 21st century. ‘Trans performance’ is used here as a loose umbrella term for performance work developed by and for trans people. Built upon a survey from 2010 onwards, I argue that self affirmed trans performance has began to undertake an aesthetic and political turn away from autobiographic narratives - aimed at educating cis (non-trans) audiences - to offering tools for trans liberation. Artists such as Emma Frankland, Travis Alabanza, and Tabby Lamb have all stated a need to transgress the troupe of the traumatic trans story and instead offer social models of trans joy. I propose that our current social model is one of ‘cisgenderism’; or the social and legal preference of cis experience over trans experience. I argue that a new wave of trans performance works is seeking to offer a platform for identifying and negotiating the tactics of cisgenderism. Indeed, I propose that this shift is marked by a turn towards trans audiences. No longer focused on educating cis audiences on the impact of infantilising trans folk (where cis people act as gatekeepers to medical, social and political reform), this shift, I suggest, is focused on modelling trans self determinism beyond cis social imaginaries. I ask: what role can trans performance play in investigating models of trans liberation? What does it mean to make performance for trans audiences? I conclude with a brief manifesto for studying trans performance within the social, political, and legal contexts of cisgenderism.

Trans Performance, keynotes and seminars
Rachel Hann
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