Moby Clit

MOBY CLIT is a 60-minute solo performance which reworks, subverts, and stitches together foundational stories from the American consciousness, creating a piece which foregrounds my own identity and whiteness. Beginning with the source texts of Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Annie, and The Wizard of Oz, I weave these stories together to create a new American foundational myth which calls the original myths into question. At the center of this is America’s foundation on race relations, ignoring racial problems, and its obsession with whiteness. Starting from my own vulnerability and self-reflection I hope to incite conversation and introspection around the relationship between the American Dream and whiteness.

The construct of whiteness, and its ability to remain unexamined in contemporary discourse, allows it to maintain a neutrality from which all else is determined and othered. This neutrality reinforces the power and weight of whiteness in the American (and global) imaginary. I want to place whiteness at the center, other it, investigate it, and hack at its root system.

I am fascinated by the strong, insidious foundational myths which are pervasive in American society, yet often go unexamined. How are we meant to go forward when the roots of American nationalism are bound up in race? Why is it that as a white artist I may still be able to make work about grand universals without my identity being implicated in the analysis? Why is it that when we picture the American Dream, whether we admit it or not, the image is white?

The performance combines poetry and prose with striking visual images, music, movement, and video projection. The script weaves together philosophical poetic language with base simple text, experimenting with what is understood and what is confused. I create surprising imagery, like a Marilyn Monroe moment gone wrong; the Wicked Witch pedaling an exercise bike; my own face eerily manipulated and projected to float around me.

This performance integrates my learning from mentorships with Stacy Makishi and Split Britches, who defined a genre of queer feminist performance creating new forms by exploiting old conventions, using details of everyday life, and borrowing from classical texts and popular myths. I want to make people laugh; I want to make them uncomfortable; I want to make them comfortable; I want to make them look at themselves.

Performer: laura Hunter petree

Director : Victoria Collado

Technical Director/Creator/Whale Designer : Nora Tjossem

Dramaturg : Ashley Chang

Poster Design : Priya Mulgaonkar