Performance is defined by Andrea R. Roberts to be “a form of a dialogue between place, political issue or grievance, memory, and audience,” in her article “Performance as place preservation: The role of storytelling in the formation of Shankleville community’s Black counterpublics.” Within the context of identity maintenance and community preservation, this definition for performance is appropriate. Roberts claims that identity persists not solely through the permanence of a place, but through the persistence of customs and traditions. To perform these qualities keeps the community alive, performance in this case is the literal perpetuation of customs. For Roberts, performance in the context of the descendants of formerly enslaved Texans not only maintains identity but also grieves and communicates a horrific past—without the use of words.
Performance as a form of dialogue is conceptualized in Bill T Jones’s Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land—it is identity that is performed and sustained through repetition. It can seem to be contradictory as a performance is never the same when repeated but identity is also just as malleable. Jones is in conversation with topics of sexuality, race, and religion. The performance is divided into four sections; ‘The Cabin,’ ‘Eliza on Ice,’ ‘The Supper,’ and ‘The Promised Land.’ Each section attempts to make sense of the strife that exists within the identity of people who are black, queer, women, and/or of a religious background. The documentary provides insight from the dancers and their own personal experiences in relation to the content of the performance. The audience is also involved in this dialogue, without the viewers there would not be any media—scholarly articles and reviews—produced about the performance which contributes to the continuation of the conversation.
Works Cited
Jones, Bill T. Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land. 1990.
Roberts, Andrea R. “Performance as Place Preservation: The Role of Storytelling in the Formation of Shankleville Community’s Black Counterpublics.” Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, vol. 5, no. 3, 2018, pp. 146–65, doi:10.1080/20518196.2018.1480002.
