UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Resisting

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Resisting Spatial Dispossession: Contemporary and Historic Performative Irruptions in California and Louisiana A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies by Kimberly Chantal Welch 2018 © Copyright by Kimberly Chantal Welch 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Resisting Spatial Dispossession: Contemporary and Historic Performative Irruptions in California and Louisiana by Kimberly Chantal Welch Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Sean Aaron Metzger, Chair This dissertation, “Resisting Spatial Dispossession: Contemporary and Historic Performative Irruptions in California and Louisiana,” focuses on the symbolic and material spatial dispossession of primarily black Americans in California and Louisiana. Using the migratory patterns of the Great Migration as a framework to explore the relationship between historic and contemporary dissident spatial practices in the carceral state, my project seeks to illuminate complex performances of race, gender, and sexuality that often fall out of or never make it into the archive. Anchored in black feminist thought and spanning four distinct mediums (theater, film, photography, and music), “Resisting Spatial Dispossession” explores the role media plays in spatial dispossession narratives, particularly ones around and about black female subjects. ii Chapter one links the Los Angeles Poverty Department’s (LAPD) theatrical representation of prison spaces with gendered experiences in Skid Row to illustrate the ways in which gender conditions spatial practice. Chapter two interrogates how the gendered specter helps us rethink the relationship between visibility, gender, and violence in sites of spatial dispossession as well as actor/spectator dynamics. through an exploration of We Just Telling Stories, a documentary on Rhodessa Jones’ “Medea Project: Theater for Incarceration.” Chapter three uses Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012) and People’s photograph-heavy “Katrina Girl” series to examine narratives that call upon black girls to produce an imagined future grounded in the reproduction of a structure hostile to black life. Chapter four focuses on Amy LaCour’s transformation of poetry written by African American women during the Great Migration into music and the ways in which LaCour addresses complicated notions of black female sexuality and transhistoric, multiplanar gendered violence. “Resisting Spatial Dispossession” reveals the productiveness of utilizing black feminist epistemologies to chart performance as a cartographic tool in the mapping of spatial dispossession and the accompanying dissident responses. iii The dissertation of Kimberly Chantal Welch is approved. Sue-Ellen Case Sarah Haley Uri Gervase McMillan Sean Aaron Metzger, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 iv DEDICATION PAGE To my mother, Karen Taylor, and grandmother, Syntyche Mitchell, whose support of my education from the very beginning and resilience through trying times laid the foundations for the completion of this project. v Table of Contents Introduction 1 1 Documenting Spatial Practice: Black Geographies & the LA Poverty Department 16 2 Ghostly Looks: Visibility and Common Sense in the Medea Project 59 3 Picturing Katrina: Queer Children and Black Death-Birthing Narratives 99 4 Amie Cota and Queer(ing) Migrations 140 Conclusion 183 vi Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my entire committee for their support and mentorship throughout the creation of this dissertation; without their contributions, this project would not have manifested. Specifically, I would like to thank Dr. Sue-Ellen Case for pushing my critical inquiry into performance theory; Dr. Sarah Haley for sharing her passion for black feminist theory with me, which strongly shaped this project; Dr. Uri McMillan for his investment in both my scholarship and academic trajectory; and Dr. Sean Metzger, my committee chair, mentor, advocate, and friend, who supported my project throughout its many iterations and has shaped me as a scholar. I would also like to thank the University of California for its generous contributions to my project throughout my tenure at the institution. Specifically, I would like to recognize the Institute for American Cultures for the Shirley Hune Inter-Ethnic/Inter-Racial Award and the Bunche Center for African American Studies, which both supported my research in New Orleans as well as UCLA’s Graduate Division for the Graduate Summer Research Mentorship Award, which supported the personal interviews I conducted in Skid Row and the broader Los Angeles area. vii Curriculum Vita EDUCATION B.A. DUKE UNIVERSITY, May 2013 Cum Laude Phi Beta Kappa Theater Studies Minor: Women’s Studies Thesis: Dialogical Performance: A Tool to Bridge the Educational Gap, Highest Distinction PUBLICATIONS Peer-Reviewed Articles 2018 “Documenting Spatial Practice: Black Geographies & the LA Poverty Department,” for Theatre Survey (forthcoming) 2017 “Sideways Fences: Resisting Gentrification in Boyle Heights, a Los Angeles Community,” for Lateral http://csalateral.org/issue/6-2/sideways-fences-gentrification-boyle-heights-welch/ Performance Reviews 2016 “What Fuels Development?,” for Theatre Journal Volume 68, Number 4, December 2016, pp. 659-661 https://muse.jhu.edu/article/645406/pdf RECENT CONFERENCES Organized Panels/Seminars/Working Groups 2018 American Comparative Literature Association University of California, Los Angeles Seminar: “Transient Performance Redux” 2017 American Society for Theatre Research, “Extra/ordinary Bodies” Atlanta, Georgia Working Group Session: “Transient Performance” 2017 American Comparative Literature Association viii Utrecht, Netherlands Seminar: “Transient Performance” 2017 Performance Studies international Conference, “OverFlow" Hamburg, Germany Panel: “Fluid Presents and Queered Futures: Recalibrating Overflow in Contemporary Minoritarian Performance” TEACHING EXPERIENCE 2018 University of California, Los Angeles – Instructor of Record 2014-2017 University of California, Los Angeles – Teaching Assistant RECENT ACADEMIC SERVICE 2016 Graduate Student Representative, Search Committee for Full Professor in Theater: Critical Studies 2016 (LGBT)Q Scholars, Undergraduate Research Symposium: workshopped students’ presentations prior to the conference 2015-2017 Co-Chair of Elevate: student-run organization dedicated to giving voice and visibility to the diverse contributions of women and multicultural scholars, theater practitioners, actors, and filmmakers RECENT AWARDS AND GRANTS 2017-2018 UCLA Dissertation Year Fellowship Amount: $20,000 2018 Fine Arts Trust Award Amount: $1600 2013-2017 Eugene V. Cota-Robles Fellowship, University of California, Los Angeles Amount: Year 1 & Year 2 - $21, 000; Year 3 & Year 4 - $25, 000 ix Introduction There’s always gonna be pockets of poverty, poor. And the word “homeless” to me means “not having a lease or a key.” I don’t particularly care for the word. Actually, I try to use “poverty” because poverty sorta encircles all of it. You know, the word homeless, (changes voice) “Oh you’re homeless,” it’s such a downer. You don’t want people to feel down even when you’re asking for help. —Cheryl K. Barnes, N Street Village resident and How I Got Over participant In the summer of 2014, How I Got Over, a documentary that follows the creation and performance of an original play about the experiences of women currently residing at N Street Village, was released. N Street Village is a recovery community that provides housing and services, including healthcare and employment, to homeless and low-income women in Washington, D.C. The project emerged as part of Theatre Lab’s Life Stories Program. Theatre Lab has partnered with N Street Village since 2007, however, it wasn’t until 2012 that the company brought the work produced by N Street Village residents to the stage. That year Theatre Lab collaborated with playwright Jennifer Nelson to write a play, “My Soul Look Back in Wonder: Life Stories from Women in Recovery,” based on the stories of the women residing at the recovery center. The creation of this play as well as the resulting performance are the focus of the documentary. As articulated on the official website for the film, HOW I GOT OVER follows 15 formerly homeless and/or incarcerated women as they craft an original play, based on their harrowing true-life stories, to be performed one- night-only at The Kennedy Center. As observers of their creative process, we bear 1 witness to their transformations from victim to artist, and to the performing arts’ capacity to heal trauma, create connection, and start a conversation.1 True to the official narrative of the film, the structure of the documentary paints a story of healing and recovery as the audience learns the women’s back stories, witnesses community affirmations throughout the film and emotional family reunions post-production, and learns what the women have been up to since the Kennedy Center performance. How I Got Over ends with a follow up with the women participants one year after the production. Throughout the coverage, one of the participants is markedly absent—Cheryl K. Barnes.2 What happened to her? I open my dissertation with this inquiry because the documentary’s erasure/occlusion of Barnes, and the women participants at N Street Village more broadly, in the film highlights some

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