Abstract
This chapter explores the notion of memorial. It analyses traditional memorials and performance as memorial. Drawing upon Metchild Windrich’s 2014 text Performative Monuments: The Rematerialisation of Public Art and Thomas Laqueur’s 2015 book The Work of the Dead: A Cultural History of Mortal Remains, the chapter argues that performance as memorial can work alongside traditional forms of memorial to enhance the relationship between performance and death by helping us to find more personal ways to memorialise those we have lost. Supported by Peggy Phelan’s discussion of mourning, this chapter questions what it is to witness and to survive the death of the other and the role that memorials play within the process of mourning. In addition, the chapter also examines the relationship between ephemeral memorials and re-performance, arguing that both acts reflect the ways in which the dead, just like performance, do not disappear.
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Notes
- 1.
This is much like Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s 1998 resurrection of David Bowie’s alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, in a live art performance. Stardust was created by Bowie and then killed off by him during a concert. Forsyth and Pollard’s resurrection of him could be seen in contrast to Breitmore because Stardust was resurrected by other performers following his performed death by Bowie.
- 2.
This was also the case in Nando Messias’ creation of Sissy, a persona that he performed as and killed off in ‘a theatricalised funeral’ (2018: 3). Sissy was created, embodied and then killed off by Messias in a similar way to how Breitmore was by Hershman Lesson.
- 3.
This idea has also been examined by others, including Diana Taylor in her 2003 text The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas and Philip Auslander in his 2008 book Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture.
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Julius, S. (2021). Mourning and Memorial. In: Re-performance, Mourning and Death. Adaptation in Theatre and Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84774-6_7
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