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.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Is Catharsis a lot of Crying?

I am writing about catharsis and crying so much I have to turn the radio off. You know that song 'She Cries'? (I will find the link and put it up). I am crying cos there has been a hole blast right through me with the pain of the song, the story it tells, and all the stories it doesn't tell. It's a gush that rushes through me.

Is this catharsis?


According to Aristotle, not really.
Catharsis, for him (so those who interpret his work say) is the discharge of emotions so that one may be rid of them.
Today, however, I cry out of recognition. I have no desire to rid myself of these emotions. Instead, it is an act of empathy, a desire to open to the world and let it run through my heart. It is no attempt to cleanse my heart (clean! poo-hoo!). It is a desire to let my heart see and be in the world. And some parts of the world can only be honoured through a good cry.
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3 comments:

  1. dystopianThursday, June 30, 2011

    i love that photo so.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JoannaThursday, October 25, 2012

    i love your post (: random reader & now admirer of this post heh. will read the rest of this blog too, if i manage to stay awake! (: brava!

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  3. Aurora MurphySunday, October 28, 2012

    Hi Joanna,
    Hope you can stay awake. Or that you get up and feel fresh.
    Catharsis is interesting.... (some people call it wallowing! I call it bringing a crisis to its head before it turns me on my head)

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