Conclusion Documenting Black Performance
Conclusion Documenting Black Performance
Key Considerations
This concluding chapter utilizes archival evidence to argue that scholars must rethink how we identify a powerful theatrical space. Trees, telephone poles, and bridges became stages upon which lynchings occurred, but mobs were not alone in repurposing the spaces over which they had control. African Americans redefined spaces (including their own living rooms) to accomplish identity-sustaining theatrical work. In such a racially charged climate, blacks could not use existing dramatic conventions or rely on American theater's aesthetic tendencies. They had to transform theatricality in the United States from a mode that solidified blacks' position as noncitizens to one that further asserted their right to citizenship.
Keywords: theatrical space, black performance, archival evidence, dramatic conventions, theatricality, citizenship
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