Vulvaplicity: vulvas and identities in contemporary performance

This PaR thesis analyses the politics of vulvas in performance, considering vulvic practices and the intersecting politics of gender, sexuality, sex, body politics and identity. It analyses the key topics of monstrosity, mythology, obscenity, abjection, morality, legislation and alienation and how such topics have helped rationalise patriarchal structures that have informed Western understandings. This research expands and contributes to the field of bodies in performance but proposes that the vulva – specifically and in terms of its wider connotations – calls for its own point of analysis. This thesis engages with queer and feminist theoretical frameworks to consider representations of the vulva in contemporary performance alongside the expanding landscapes of body autonomy, non-cis bodies, fluid sexuality and race. As such, gender, sexuality and race are explored through key theorists including Barbara Creed, Jack Halberstam, José Muñoz, Paul B. Preciado and Oyèrónké Oyěwùmi. This research explores the works of The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein, Del LaGrace Volcano, Chiyo Prinx and Buck Angel, all of whom intentionally frame their vulvas in order to resignify the social, political and cultural meaning of their bodies in contemporary performance. Vulvaplicity is a key term coined for the purposes of this thesis and is presented as a manifold praxis and methodological lens. Vulvaplicity utilises the qualitative methods conventional in applied theatre and autoethnographical experimentation in the form of workshops, performative prompt cards, performance-making and sharing as a means to challenge, confront, illuminate or expose necessary conversations around vulvic politics and intersecting discourses. Due to the taboo nature of this topic, the praxis works both through and against the challenges of patriarchal structures, proposing new approaches for performance creation and the understanding of identity politics. This PaR contributes to both the destigmatisation of vulva politics and a shift in the way we think about bodies.