Graduate student Mx. JP Anne Giera (M.F.A. Performance and Performance Studies ’18) challenges perceptions in this short, powerful video performance about the trans body and identity. An emerging trans-femme, non-binary performance practitioner and academic, Giera seeks to use performance as a tool to dismantle the hegemonic powers that hold us to certain standards of belief regarding self, gender, and sexuality.
Pratt’s new MFA in Performance and Performance Studies is unique in that it combines the study of performance, art practice of performance, academic writing on performance, and performativity theory in one program. Coordinated by Humanities and Media Studies Professor Tracie Morris, the program launched in fall 2016 and attracts a diverse range of artist-thinkers from a variety of performance backgrounds who are carving out new opportunities in a world where performance is being practiced, considered, and taught in new ways. Giera is one of the program’s inaugural class of 19 students.