Aurora Murphy: Preventing Rape Through Performance: "I am a victim of a terrible crime"

How can performance prevent rape?

On-stage performance can help us reimagine what we take for granted. This blog looks at how performance can explore different ways to be a woman or a man, and negotiate relationships that are flexible, fun, and freeing.

I suggest that performance can be used as a tool in rape prevention. I look at how performative methods of rape prevention may build upon and develop other forms of social education that work to end rape, creating possibilites for different ways to engage in intimate relationships.

This blog is a personal, theoretical, and performative exploration of how performance can be used in rape prevention.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

"I am a victim of a terrible crime"

'I am a victim of a terrible crime'

I spoke these words in front of a group of people, strangers in a drama therapy workshop, because this man here, David Read-Johnson, asked me to.

I wasn't acting. I meant it. The words were like thorns in my mouth, and tumbled out with blood and tears.

Everyone said it. Some people described their crimes in a language only they could understand. My body spoke in a language only it could understand. I cried so much! I wasn't prepared. I went to his workshop as a therapist, not a client.