INSIDER/OUTSIDER: DANCING QUEER AUTHORSHIP

: A Space for Acknowledgement

Abstract

I write this as an artist. I write this despite the academy and what I do not have and what you thrive on. I write this in recovery from panic attacks, anxiety disorder and a haze of medications and therapies over the past 3 years as a result of burnout. I write this while processing loss…a catastrophic loss of livelihood, network, capacity, allyship, my body. I write this conjuring memories, memories of systems and events that were in large part the source of my panic and anxiety and their malignancy. I write this during the Covid pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine, the January 6th insurgency, the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests, the rolling back of LGBTQA+ and abortion rights in the USA and an international wave of populism and conservative right politics that threaten me and those I love. I write this during a period that I lost formative queer models and landmark buoys that kept me paddling in the right direction, head above the surface…Stephen Sondheim, Larry Kramer, Terrence McNally, Andre Leon Talley, Judy Tenuta, Willy Burmann, Lauren Berlant, Irene Cara, Thierry Mugler, Olivia Newton-John, Leslie Jordan, bell hooks. I struggle to write this since, on day one of my enrolment, Roehampton University began the non-transparent decimation of the Department with which I was to be associated. I lost the kind of support I had anticipated. The power of the institution was diminished significantly through the aggressively manipulated redundancies forced upon its life’s blood…the teaching body…driving some of the most important thinkers on dance and theatre and performance from their positions and severely compromising those that remain. I write this in isolation, a forced seclusion away from the resources of the institution because of pandemic restrictions and guidelines and a string of strike actions and workload pressures that affected my Department of association and threatened my supervisors’ availability and wellbeing. I write this in the aftermath of Brexit. I write this with the spectre of time crushing down on my work because of the way this doctoral track is arranged. But I write this with a certain degree of optimism, knowing that my perspective of being “just a dancer” will render necessary the critical knowledge missing in the creative fields of production I am engaged in and the academy that depends on my perspective and the perspective of my colleagues for its relevancy and survival. I write this with a certain sense of urgency, anger and willingness, energising toward disruption and a better future in the microcosm of dance that is representative of but adjunct to the macrocosm of life. I write this in recognition of an interconnectedness that has finally become more prevalent in the face of pandemic recovery, energy (un)sustainability, the exhaustion of capitalism, the (non)durability of democracy, and planetary emergency with the belief we can emergently unite toward reconciliation if we share our collective resources through love and respect.

Date of Award	28 May 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Roehampton
Supervisor	Tamara Tomic-Vajagic (Director of Studies), Heike Salzer (Co-Supervisor) & Adrian Heathfield (Co-Supervisor)