I am a writer and artist working with text and performance. My work uses constraints, structures, and other strategies to question category and genre divisions including around identity and agency. I make solo and collaborative performance works that use voice, language, gesture, and digital interfaces to examine how individuals are shaped by cultural and social forces. Works look at the performer’s body as policed by economic, political and cultural narratives, at how ‘voice’ functions to place someone, and at how the language can perpetuate inequalities and power differentials.
My writing includes poetic texts that draw on materials generated in performance, or texts developed through procedures on existing texts. Rhythm, sound, and vocabulary are tweaked to resist the familiar, or to expose patterns and habits. Other work includes responses to work by artists, articles and conference presentations on voice, language, and performance, and artist publications. www.markleahy.net
