Gender Outlaw to Perform at MCLA
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. - Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) will explore issues of sexual preference, gender identity and self identification through a performance by author and “gender outlaw” Kate Bornstein on Thursday, March 11, at 7 p.m. in the MCLA Church Street Center.Sponsored jointly by MCLA and Williams College, Bornstein will perform “On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us.” The Women’s History Month event is free and open to the public.
Bornstein is an author, playwright, performance artist and gender theorist who incorporates cultural criticism, dramatic writing and autobiography to make her point that gender is a cultural rather than a natural phenomenon.
“This year, it’s a very special celebration because it is the 100th birthday of International Women’s Day on March 8,” said Susan Birns, professor of sociology, anthropology and social Work at MCLA and the director of the College’s Susan B. Anthony Women’s Center. “Kate will perform what she calls ‘Postmodern Gender 101’ with a comic twist. She performs and speaks this piece in the unique style she calls ‘edutainment.’”
Using slam poetry, Bornstein performs several monologues from the plays and other performance art she has written and performed over the years. Audiences might see her cranky eighth grade teacher, a drag queen who is dying of AIDS or her mother talking about the day she discovered her son was undergoing a sex change.
Bornstein’s books are used in more than 120 college and universities around the world.
