7.3 Censorship, subversion, and transgression in performance

Censorship in performance aims to control or suppress content deemed objectionable. Artists use subversive strategies like encoding messages and transgression to evade censors. These tactics challenge power structures and give voice to marginalized groups.

Performance as resistance critiques oppressive systems and inspires change. While it can shift cultural attitudes, systemic inequalities often limit its impact. The effectiveness of subversive performance depends on audience engagement and interpretation.

Censorship in Performance

Motivations and Methods of Censorship

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• Censorship in performance can be driven by political, religious, moral, or cultural motivations to control or suppress content deemed objectionable or threatening to those in power
• Methods of censorship can include direct bans, licensing requirements, cuts or alterations to scripts, age restrictions, defunding of artists or organizations, and intimidation tactics
• Evolving technologies and platforms, such as streaming services and social media, present new challenges and opportunities for both censorship and circumvention
  • These new platforms can enable wider dissemination of controversial content, but also create new avenues for surveillance, suppression, and self-censorship

Historical and Contemporary Examples

• Historical examples of censorship include the banning of plays in Puritan England, the Hays Code in Hollywood, and the persecution of artists under totalitarian regimes (Soviet Union, Nazi Germany)
• Contemporary instances of censorship may involve government restrictions, pressure from special interest groups, self-censorship by artists or institutions, or cancellation of controversial works
  • Recent examples include the cancellation of a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition due to pressure from conservative groups, the removal of a David Wojnarowicz video from the National Portrait Gallery after complaints from a Catholic organization, and the withdrawal of funding for a Palestinian youth theater by the Israeli government

Subversive Strategies in Performance

Encoding and Transgression

• Subversive strategies often involve encoding critical messages or taboo content in ways that can evade censors, such as through metaphor, allegory, satire, or double entendre
  • Examples include the use of coded language and symbolism in queer performances during times of criminalization, or the embedding of political critique in seemingly innocuous popular entertainment (Vaclav Havel's plays in communist Czechoslovakia)
• Transgressive performances deliberately violate norms, laws, or taboos to provoke, shock, or confront audiences with alternative perspectives and experiences
  • Examples include the explicit body art of Chris Burden and Marina Abramovic, the unruly drag of Divine and Vaginal Davis, and the guerrilla theater of the Living Theatre and Reverend Billy

Alternative Platforms and Public Support

• Some artists create underground or guerrilla performances in unofficial spaces to bypass institutional gatekeeping and reach audiences directly (apartment galleries, street theater, raves)
• Performers may use their celebrity status or cultural capital to push back against censorship attempts and rally public support for artistic freedom
  • Examples include the successful celebrity campaign against the defunding of the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990s, and the public outcry that led to the reinstatement of a censored AIDS educational puppet show in 1992
• Digital technologies and online platforms can enable artists to disseminate their work more widely and connect with global audiences, even if facing local restrictions
  • However, this can also make them vulnerable to surveillance, hacking, doxing and other forms of digital suppression

Performance as Resistance

Challenging Dominant Narratives and Inspiring Change

• Performance can give voice and visibility to marginalized identities and experiences, challenging dominant narratives and representations
  • Examples include the Black Arts Movement, feminist performance art, disability theater, and indigenous performance practices that assert cultural sovereignty and survival
• Dissident artists use performance to critique oppressive regimes, corrupt institutions, and abusive practices, often at great personal risk
  • Examples include the subversive performances of Vaclav Havel in communist Czechoslovakia, the Belarus Free Theater's underground productions critical of the Lukashenko regime, and the satirical punk prayer of Pussy Riot in Putin's Russia
• Subversive performances can create spaces of imagination and possibility, envisioning alternative realities and inspiring social change
  • Examples include the utopian experiments of the Bauhaus theater, the radical participatory performances of Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed, and the prefigurative activism of Bread and Puppet Theater

Constraints and Complexities of Transgressive Performance

• Transgressive works may serve to destigmatize taboo topics, expand public discourse, and shift cultural attitudes over time
  • Examples include the mainstreaming of queer representation thanks to transgressive artists like Robert Mapplethorpe, Holly Hughes, and Ron Athey, and the normalization of the body and sexuality in art through the work of Carolee Schneemann, Annie Sprinkle, and others
• However, the subversive power of performance is often constrained by systemic inequalities in access, funding, and media coverage, which can limit its reach and impact
  • Marginalized artists may face greater barriers and backlash in creating and presenting transgressive work, such as the defunding of queer and feminist performances during the Culture Wars of the 1980s-90s, or the precarious position of dissident artists in repressive contexts
• The efficacy of performance as resistance also depends on the receptiveness and critical engagement of audiences, who may reinforce or challenge the intended meanings
  • Subversive messages may be lost on unreceptive audiences, while transgressive performances can also be misinterpreted, appropriated or commodified in ways that blunt their critical edge (the commercialization of punk aesthetics, the gentrification of underground scenes)