Description
Book SynopsisLois Weaver is one of the world's leading figures in feminist and lesbian performance, a true pioneer in the growing field. This book offers the first book-length assessment of her career and work, tracing its history, aesthetics, principles, inspirations, innovations and more. Contributors include Weaver's most important collaborators from throughout her career, as well as many of the leading feminist theorists, journalists, and performers of the past forty years. The book also includes interviews not just with Weaver, but also with her partner, in life and performance, Peggy Shaw, and groundbreaking theatre maker Muriel Miguel. The result is a book that is truly unprecedented, a lavishly illustrated and expertly curated celebration of an incredible career.
Trade Review'It is only fitting that the book that chronicles the career of pioneering feminist, lesbian performance artist, Lois Weaver is exceptional in its own right. This volume is a work of love with contributions from many of Lois’s collaborators, feminist theorists and writers.'
-- Morgan Gwenwald, GLBT Reviews
'Arguably, overall and above all, this volume helps to fill what has always been, and still is, a lamentable gap in terms of the documentation of feminist performance practices. Just as Lois expresses her debt to Muriel Miguel of Spiderwoman Theater for equipping her with the ‘tools’ that made it possible to make her own work and in turn hand these on to others (67), this book is a valuable means of communicating genealogies and legacies that are vital to sustaining and enhancing feminist performance cultures. In short, this is essential reading for all those makers, academics or theatre enthusiasts who share in Lois’s passionately held belief that ‘if you can imagine it you can make it.'
-- Elaine Aston, Studies in Theatre and Performance
'...The Only Way Home weaves (a word that Weaver’s collaborator Stacy Makishi uses to draw a relation between Weaver’s work and her last name) together visuals with words, at times even presenting Weaver’s production notes and her drafts of performance creation as visuals (149). From these carefully laid out depictions, we grow to understand the work and the woman behind it.'
-- Megan Shea, The Drama Review
Table of ContentsForeword Peggy Shaw
Introduction: welcome home Jen Harvie
Red pajamas Lois Weaver
Pink Tornado (from Faith and Dancing) Lois Weaver
Places to start Jen Harvie
Lois Weaver: the college years Charles L. Hayes
Jen Harvie interviews Lois Weaver
Jen Harvie and Lois Weaver
Lois Weaver interviews Muriel Miguel
Lois Weaver and Muriel Miguel
Virginia Started Over (from Faith and Dancing) Lois Weaver
What does it mean to be femme?
Virginia Was the East (from Faith and Dancing) Lois Weaver
Subject and Object (from Faith and Dancing) Lois Weaver
Jesus Wept (from Faith and Dancing) Lois Weaver
Citizen femme Jen Harvie
A femme on her own Peggy Phelan
A woman disguised as a woman: Lois Weaver’s fem(me)inist performances Lisa Duggan
For Lois: femme glorious Joan Nestle
Lois Weaver has great hair Moe Angelos
A view from the bottom Sue-Ellen Case
A view from the top Lois Weaver
Femme Cha-cha (from Lust and Comfort) Lois Weaver
Oh, for the love of work!
Lois, love, and work Jen Harvie
Looking back from behind Deb Margolin
Fire in My Pocket (from Split Britches) Deb Margolin
Weaver’s web Stacy Makishi
On Lois, for Lois, because of Lois Jill Dolan
The permanence of a performance Jess Dobkin
A queer family tree The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein
Lois Elin Diamond
On the road Helen Paris
Staying on the road Leslie Hill
Floods (from Miss America) Lois Weaver
You Never Told Me (from Miss America) Lois Weaver
The good guide for creating a non cooperative; or, how to organise a collective that will last for more than 30 years Lois Weaver
Imagine it, make it, change it Jen Harvie
Incandescence: The early years at WOW, Cynthia Carr
WOW: an uncooperative cooperative Holly Hughes
Lois Weaver makes the world a less scary place Rosana Cade
Taking a seat at the Table Deirdre Heddon
Long Table Protocol Lois Weaver
Entertaining discussion: The Long Table and Porch Sitting, Geraldine Harris
How to behave at a Porch Sitting Lois Weaver
Lois Weaver and the ethics and etiquette of the Long Table Diana Taylor
Collaboration Lois Keidan
Kinship Lois Weaver
Tammy interviews Lois Lois Weaver
‘I Got into the Wrong Car in Memphis’, ‘Demented Forsythia, a Love Song’, and ‘How Do You Sing a Broken Song’ Lois Weaver
Tammy WhyNot: stage/life superhero Jen Harvie
What Tammy taught me... about surviving as a poor girl in the academy Kim Solga
Making fun and making time: pedagogic principles Erin Hurley
Cupcake velocity: the subversive expertise of Lois Weaver and Tammy WhyNot Johanna Linsley
‘Stay Gone’ Lois Weaver
String of Lights (adapted from Salad of the Bad Café) Lois Weaver
Diary of a Domestic Terrorist Lois Weaver
Hidden treasures Jen Harvie
Lois performs in Aotearoa New Zealand Catherine Silverstone
‘Everything’s breakable’ – or what I learned from Lois Weaver Benjamin Gillespie
Talking about When the Tide Is Out, Lois Weaver and Stacy Makishi
Lois’s hidden treasures: What Tammy Needs to Know About Prison Caoimhe McAvinchey
Meeting Lois Weaver Anne Tallentire
Dear Carmen Paul Heritage
Laundry (from Faith and Dancing) Lois Weaver
Afterwords
33 ways to start Lois Weaver
Still counting Lois Weaver
Postcards
Lois Weaver Timeline, Jen Harvie with Lois Weaver
