Performing Masculinities and the Black Body
- Submitting institution
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Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- RBREF2021013
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
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- Brief description of type
- Campbell has created a body of performance-research investigating how bodies inhabit space, and how that creates a relationship. The research resulted in a podcast and a photo-essay commissioned for the Sexuality Summer School due to take place in 2020.
- Open access status
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- Month
- April
- Year
- 2018
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Topher Campbell has created a body of performance-research that investigates how bodies inhabit space, and how that creates a relationship between people and the cities they inhabit, that is different for different bodies. In particular, Campbell draws on his own experiences as a Black man to explore the intersections between sexuality, masculinity and the navigation of urban spaces.
The research presented here was part of a series of events created in conjunction with Barbican London’s Basquiat exhibition - Boom For Real (2017-2018). Campbell’s contribution was a part performance/part protest on the streets of New York City. It consisted of a series of performative walks, in which Campbell moved his naked body through the streets of New York City while embodying FETISH, a multi-dimensional Queer African God. In addition to the work of Basquiat, the performance was a response to and investigation of the increased execution of Black people by police and vigilante forces in the United States (including Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland and Treyvon Martin) and the United Kingdom (Mark Duggan and Jimmy Mubenga), the development of the Black Lives Matter movement, and Campbell’s own experience of navigating space as a Black man.
The performance resulted in a variety of outputs, including [a] the photo-essay 'Performing Masculinities and the Black Body', part of University of Manchester's Sexuality Summer School public programme in May 2020 and [b] an episode of the Busy Being Black podcast (first broadcast April 2018) which are presented here. In this work, Campbell outlines his performance practice, the research questions that informed it, and how it relates to his wider investigations of the colonial domination of Black bodies, the African diaspora and examples of black excellence.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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