Place on Parade: Consumerism and Disidentification in the Parade Genre
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Andy Colpitts
is an artist-scholar focusing on rural theatre and spectatorship, popular performance, and queer meaning-making. He received his BA from Brown University in Theatre Arts and Literary Translation. As a theatre-maker, Andy is a puppeteer, playwright, and burlesque dancer. He trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and has toured with Bread and Puppet Theater and the Vermont PuppeTree. He is currently a doctoral student at Cornell University in the Department of Performing and Media Arts.
Abstract
The American parade has been investigated in terms of how it transforms urban streets into a place where collective memory and identity are consolidated along lines of class, race, ethnicity, and gender (Ryan; Roach). However, the role of the rural parade has heretofore seen little critical analysis. Since any conception of the urban relies on the rural as a foil, we wonder how the American parade, existing in both urban and rural landscapes, promotes and challenges the unchecked expansion of cosmopolitan culture and dominant ideology. This article examines how the parade genre functions as a civic ritual that seeks to unite individuals through nationalism and consumerism, yet may paradoxically become a stage for political dissent. By juxtaposing performances from the Bread and Puppet Theater at the Fourth of July Celebration in the rural town of Cabot, Vermont, and Tony Sarg’s “upside-down marionettes” in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, I theorize how conventions of the parade work to inculcate spectators with a sense of group identity. I argue that these same conventions lay the foundation for political dissent, via a process that José Muñoz calls disidentification, to propose (and at times enact) alternatives to dominant ideology.
About the author
is an artist-scholar focusing on rural theatre and spectatorship, popular performance, and queer meaning-making. He received his BA from Brown University in Theatre Arts and Literary Translation. As a theatre-maker, Andy is a puppeteer, playwright, and burlesque dancer. He trained at the École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq and has toured with Bread and Puppet Theater and the Vermont PuppeTree. He is currently a doctoral student at Cornell University in the Department of Performing and Media Arts.
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Place-Making, Identities, and the Politics of Urban Life: Theatre and the City. An Introduction
- Punchdrunk’s Kabeiroi: Taking Immersive Theatre to the Streets
- (Un)real City: Spatial and Temporal Ghosting in ANU Productions’ The Party to End All Parties
- Performing the City: Space, Movement, and Memory in O Ben’Groes at Droed Amser
- A Sense of Place: Staging Psychogeographies of the UK Housing Crisis
- Interrelating Necrocities and Borderscapes in the Migration Performances The Jungle, Lampedusa, and The Walk
- The Impossibility of Fleeing: The Deconstruction of Urban Space in Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living
- Place on Parade: Consumerism and Disidentification in the Parade Genre
- Criticising Capitalism in the City and on the Stage: The City Street Movement Occupy Wall Street and Tim Price’s Protest Song
- “Racism Isn’t Just Someone Shouting at You from a Passing Car”: Roy Williams in Conversation with Gemma Edwards
- “Violence, Ritual, and Space”: Aleshea Harris in Conversation with Julie Vatain-Corfdir and Jaine Chemmachery
- “Your Proscenium Is as High as the Sky”: Anne Hamburger in Conversation with Julie Vatain-Corfdir and Émilie Rault
- Walkshop Paris: Notes on a Creative Process with the Urban Landscape
- Dramaturgy and Design: A Roundtable Discussion with Anne Hamburger, Cristiana Mazzoni, and Andrew Todd
- Jeanette R. Malkin, Eckart Voigts, and Sarah J. Ablett, eds. A Companion to British-Jewish Theatre since the 1950s. London: Methuen, 2021, x + 259 pp., £103.50 (hardback), £35.95 (paperback), £82.80 (ebook PDF and Epub).
- Tiziana Morosetti, ed. Africa on the Contemporary London Stage. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, xv + 246 pp., £99.99 (hardcover).
- Liz Tomlin. Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change. London: Bloomsbury, 2019, viii + 205 pp. £85.00 (hardback), £28.99 (paperback), £26.09 (PDF ebook).
- Caridad Svich. Toward a Future Theatre: Conversations during a Pandemic. London: Bloomsbury, 245 pp., $26.95 (paperback), $90.00 (hardback), $24.25 (PDF ebook), $24.25 (Epub and Mobi ebook).
- Dom O’Hanlon, ed. Theatre in Times of Crisis: 20 Scenes for the Stage in Troubled Times. With an Introduction by Edward Bond. London: Bloomsbury, 2020, xxii + 296 pp., $30.02 (paperback), $25.16 (ebook PDF and Epub).
- Peta Tait. Theory for Theatre Studies: Emotion. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021, vii + 188 pp., £45.00 (hardback), £12.99 (paperback), £9.35 (PDF ebook), £9.35 (Epub and Mobi).
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- Place-Making, Identities, and the Politics of Urban Life: Theatre and the City. An Introduction
- Punchdrunk’s Kabeiroi: Taking Immersive Theatre to the Streets
- (Un)real City: Spatial and Temporal Ghosting in ANU Productions’ The Party to End All Parties
- Performing the City: Space, Movement, and Memory in O Ben’Groes at Droed Amser
- A Sense of Place: Staging Psychogeographies of the UK Housing Crisis
- Interrelating Necrocities and Borderscapes in the Migration Performances The Jungle, Lampedusa, and The Walk
- The Impossibility of Fleeing: The Deconstruction of Urban Space in Martyna Majok’s Cost of Living
- Place on Parade: Consumerism and Disidentification in the Parade Genre
- Criticising Capitalism in the City and on the Stage: The City Street Movement Occupy Wall Street and Tim Price’s Protest Song
- “Racism Isn’t Just Someone Shouting at You from a Passing Car”: Roy Williams in Conversation with Gemma Edwards
- “Violence, Ritual, and Space”: Aleshea Harris in Conversation with Julie Vatain-Corfdir and Jaine Chemmachery
- “Your Proscenium Is as High as the Sky”: Anne Hamburger in Conversation with Julie Vatain-Corfdir and Émilie Rault
- Walkshop Paris: Notes on a Creative Process with the Urban Landscape
- Dramaturgy and Design: A Roundtable Discussion with Anne Hamburger, Cristiana Mazzoni, and Andrew Todd
- Jeanette R. Malkin, Eckart Voigts, and Sarah J. Ablett, eds. A Companion to British-Jewish Theatre since the 1950s. London: Methuen, 2021, x + 259 pp., £103.50 (hardback), £35.95 (paperback), £82.80 (ebook PDF and Epub).
- Tiziana Morosetti, ed. Africa on the Contemporary London Stage. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, xv + 246 pp., £99.99 (hardcover).
- Liz Tomlin. Political Dramaturgies and Theatre Spectatorship: Provocations for Change. London: Bloomsbury, 2019, viii + 205 pp. £85.00 (hardback), £28.99 (paperback), £26.09 (PDF ebook).
- Caridad Svich. Toward a Future Theatre: Conversations during a Pandemic. London: Bloomsbury, 245 pp., $26.95 (paperback), $90.00 (hardback), $24.25 (PDF ebook), $24.25 (Epub and Mobi ebook).
- Dom O’Hanlon, ed. Theatre in Times of Crisis: 20 Scenes for the Stage in Troubled Times. With an Introduction by Edward Bond. London: Bloomsbury, 2020, xxii + 296 pp., $30.02 (paperback), $25.16 (ebook PDF and Epub).
- Peta Tait. Theory for Theatre Studies: Emotion. London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2021, vii + 188 pp., £45.00 (hardback), £12.99 (paperback), £9.35 (PDF ebook), £9.35 (Epub and Mobi).
