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A Showwoman of a Certain Rage: Marisa Carnesky's Bleeding Spectacular

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This chapter charts Carnesky's key ‘performance-rituals of passage’ through Jewess Tattooess (1998-2001), Carnesky's Ghost Train (2004; 2008-2011) to Dr. Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman (2017-2018). The visceral aesthetics of Carnesky's showwomanry - magic, marvels, illusion, horror, and the persistent presence of blood – pervade Dr. Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman to offer alternative visions of womanhood. Through sensational performance rituals, Carnesky's ensemble demonstrates a revolutionary position to ideology, power and politics. In examining this work, the chapter considers how Carnesky's showwomen are vital to a broader feminist performance practice; one that celebrates the dawning of a new (r)age of the menopausal woman, in bloody spectacular ways.

Keywords: crone (hag, witch) ; gestic, gestus ; immersive ; juifemme ; Medusa ; menopause ; menstruation ; metamorphosis ; metaphor ; metatheatrical ; Pepper's Ghost ; rage ; ritual ; temporality, time ; writing the body

Paperback ISBN: 9781835950104
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A Showwoman of a Certain Rage: Marisa Carnesky's Bleeding Spectacular
Intellect , 18 (2024); https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2102/10.1386/9781835950104_3
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References

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References

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     [Google Scholar]
  2. Anzaldua, G. (1987), Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bates, L. (2022), Fix the System, Not the Women, London: Simon & Schuster Ltd.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Carnesky, M. (1999), ‘Concept, writer, designer, performer’. Jewess Tattooess, Films by Alison Murray. Soundtrack, Dave Knight with specially commissioned tracks by Katherine Gifford & James Johnson. Tattoos and set, Alex Binnie. London, BAC, 21 October and ICA, 9 December.
  5. Carnesky, M. (2001), ‘Concept, writer, designer, performer’, Jewess Tattooess, Copenhagen: Kanon Halleh, 18 January.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Carnesky, M. (2004-08), ‘Concept, writer, director, designer, deviser, performer’, Carnesky's Ghost Train, Brick Lane, London, UK.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Carnesky, M. (2008-14), ‘Concept, writer, director, designer, deviser’, Carnesky's Ghost Train, Blackpool, England, UK.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Carnesky, M. (2018), ‘Concept, co-deviser, writer’, Dr. Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman, Southend-on-Sea, Metal, and London, The Institute ofArcheology, National Theatre Studios (2015-17), London: Soho Theatre, 19-24 November.
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     [Google Scholar]
  10. Chemeley, S. (2018), Rage Becomes Her: The Power ofWomen's Anger, London: Atria Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Cixous, H. (1976), ‘The laugh of the Medusa’, Signs (trans. K. Cohen and P. Cohen), vol. 1, no. 4 (Summer), Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 875–93.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Cixous, H. (1991), Coming to Writing and Other Essays. Introductory essay by Susan Rubin Suleiman (ed. D. Jenson, trans. S. Cornell, D. Jenson, A. Liddle, and S. Sellers), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Cixous, H. (1993), The Newly Born Woman. With Catherine Clement (trans. B. Wing), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Cixous, H. (2011), Hemlock: Old Women in Bloom (trans. B. Bie Brahic), Cambridge: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Cixous, H. (2012), Eve Escapes: Ruins and Life (trans. P. Kamuf), Cambridge: Polity Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Cornet, W. (2022), ‘Ghana: Accused of witchcraft, hundreds of women banished to camps’, France24, First broadcast, 24 January, available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzmXXWPIAXU. Accessed 13 June 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Diamond, E. (1997), Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Gore, A. (2017), We Were Witches, New York: Feminist Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Greer, G. (2019), The Change - Women, Ageing and the Menopause, London: Bloomsbury.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. hooks, b. (2000), Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, Cambridge, MA: South End Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Juno, A. and Vale V. (eds) (1999), Re/Search #13: Angry Women - New Edition, New York: Juno Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Kwatra, A. (2012), Condemned without Trial: Women and Witchcraft in Ghana, London: ActionAid International.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Levy, D. (2019), The Cost of Living, London: Penguin.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Levy, D. (2021), Real Estate, London: Penguin.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Lorde, A. (2000), The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde, New York and London: Norton.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Lorde, A. (2019), Sister Outsider, London: Penguin Classics.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Machon, J. (2011), (Syn)aesthetics: Redefining Visceral Performance, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Machon, J. (2012), ‘Experiential identities in the work of Marisa Carnesky’, in S. Broadhurst and J. Machon (eds), Identity, Performance and Technology: Practices of Empowerment, Embodiment and Technicity, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 111–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Machon, J. (2013), ‘Immersed in illusion, haunted by history: Marisa Carnesky's Ghost Train’, in S. Munt and O. Jenzen (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Sociocultural Studies of the Paranormal, London: Ashgate, pp. 241–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Moran, C. (2020), More than a Woman, London: Ebury Press. 4243
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Segal, L. (2014), Out ofTime: The Pleasures and Perils of Ageing. Introduction by Elaine Showalter. London and New York: Verso.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Shaw, J., Fletcher-Watson, B., and Ahmadzadeh, A. (eds) (2022), Dangerous Women: Fifty Reflections on Women, Power and Identity, London: Unbound.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Traister, R. (2018), Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power ofWomen's Anger, London: Simon & Schuster Ltd.
     [Google Scholar]

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