Location: PNX140
Facilitators; Christina Cook and Joanna Garfinkel
Abstract:
Trans theatre challenges reified, cisnormative discourses that currently dominate media, political, and health contexts. While these prevailing discourses promote a single, unified version of transness, often filled with misinformation (Billard, 2024), trans theatre offers opportunities to embody alternative perspectives through genre agnosticism, fiction-as-autobiography, and non-hierarchical models of performance creation rooted in trans ways of knowing (Stryker & Blackston, 2023). This praxis workshop will examine these aspects of trans theatre and their potential to foster pluralistic enactments that cross, exist between, or transcend binaries, paving the way for new trans futures. Workshop attendees will engage in participatory exercises guided by a trans ethic of care. To further illustrate these possibilities and centre a trans gaze, workshop facilitators will share excerpts from POSTCARDS, an autoethnographic script (Saldaña, 2011) developed over the past five years through a hybrid process involving formal research methods and play development (Belliveau & Lea, 2016). POSTCARDS explores gender freedom, family, and transphobia, delving into narratives of coming out as a nonbinary trans woman while completing a doctorate in psychology. The participatory forum of this workshop will offer creative practice rooted in transformation and trans temporalities supporting gender liberation for all.
References:
Belliveau, G., & Lea, G. W. (Eds.). (2016). Research-based theatre: An artistic methodology.Intellect.
Billard, T. J. (2024). The politics of transgender health misinformation. Political Communication, 41(2), 344–352. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2024.2303148
Saldaña, J. (2011). Ethnotheatre: Research from page to stage. Left Coast Press.
Stryker S., & Blackston D. M. (Eds.). (2023). The transgender studies reader remix. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003206255
Requirements
This introductory workshop is designed for conference attendees with little to no experience in trans and collaborative theatre techniques and processes.
Attendees are not required to do any advanced preparation.
The workshop will include participatory, experiential exercises where attendees explore aspects of an ethic of care and collaborative practice inspired by trans ways of knowing.
Facilitators will also share excerpts from POSTCARDS (10-15 minutes), a theatre-as-research script.
Observers and the audience are welcome, and at any time, participants can choose to assume an observer or audience role instead of a participant role.
Biographies:
Christina Cook (she/they) is an interdisciplinary theatre artist, arts-based scholar, and therapist. Christina’s playwriting focuses on trans, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming narratives, and her work advocates gender liberation for all. She is currently an Assistant Professor at Adler University and an Associate Writer at Playwrights Theatre Centre. As a counselling psychologist, Christina strives to foster interdisciplinary work born from commitments to mental wellness and theatre.