Advocacy, allies, and ‘allies of convenience’ in performance and performative protest

Abstract

Though allies of various types have always played a role in the production of political performance – in mainstage, community, and performance art contexts – the literature to date tends to focus more on the practices of artists marked and marginalised by their gender, race, disability, or intersectional conjunctions thereof, rather than on the practices of their theatrical allies. In this chapter, I consider the practice of allies, particularly in online performance, as a newly emerging context and platform for political performance. After tracing the ways in which allies are typically involved in political performance about, for, with, and by marginalised people and communities, I point to complications arising in online performance as activists, campaigners, and entertainers – including those with a relatively recently acquired interest in a currently topical or controversial aspect of cultural politics – attempt to use these new platforms to attract new audiences to a cause, to their work, or a combination of the two.