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by Travis Alabanza (Author)
Gender is a polyphonic portrait of the representation of gender in art, from acclaimed, award-winning playwright and artist Travis Alabanza.
Gender is performance. Think of the acts of drama that go hand in hand with our experiences of gender: a man spreading his legs on a train; a woman showing biceps in a boiler suit saying, "We Can Do It!"; a stiletto heel stepping on a briefcase. It seems wherever gender goes, there follows a show of what it might be trying to say. Art is also wrapped up in performance. We see a piece of art as a still of a performance in motion, a moment of drama, a snapshot, a glimpse into a spectacle--it captures a breath to be immortalized. In this book, celebrated playwright and artist Travis Alabanza offers a revelatory new perspective on the ways that art and gender have interacted through the ages, taking us into the drama that always follows gender, and the drama that always follows art. Through a number of recognizable works from the national collection of art at Tate, we discover who is really putting on a show, and what they are trying to tell us. Includes Color PhotographsAuthor Biography
Travis Alabanza is a writer, performer, and theater maker based in London, via Bristol. Their writing, performance, and public discourse surrounding trans and Black identities has had them noted as one of the most prominent emerging trans voices in the arts and beyond. For stage, Alabanza wrote and performed in their debut show Burgerz. The show won the Total Theatre Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and also sold out numerous venues, including Southbank Centre and Traverse Theatre. It was also voted one of the top shows of the year by Guardian readers and is published by Oberon Books.
Their play Overflow, which premiered at and live-streamed from The Bush, was met with critical acclaim including numerous four-star reviews and over 4,000 streams worldwide. Alabanza's work has also appeared on BBC Front Row and The Verb, and in 2019 they hosted their first radio documentary, Going to The Gay Bar, for BBC Radio Four. Alabanza was listed in the Evening Standard as one of the 25 most influential Londoners under 25 and placed on the Dazed100 list.
