Transformative Power in Performance

Abstract

Despite the crucial role that performative arts play in enabling progressive transformation, education, healing and psychological protection for abuse on certain female bodies, often the intentions or agenda of such performances habitually outweighs the transformative potentials therein. In the context of this paper, my association with transformation is related to power in a performance that invites participants to reclaim the broken pieces of their lives as a form of agency. Tears in the Mirror, is based on my personal experience narrated in a performance-based project on sexual violence. In my position as the artist directing the play, I took down notes over a period of one-week rehearsal with the actor, representing my experience. The autoethnographic performance method for information sourcing was used with the actor. I used observation and discussion in the process and each stage reflected a continuing process of integrating the ‘doing’ of autoethnography with a critical reflection upon the subject matter. My findings showed that victims of sexual violence are more likely to identify with narratives of other victims during a performance. This is because in viewing the image of the actor on stage one is simultaneously viewing the self in the mirror of the other.