ABSTRACT
This chapter presents performance in its traditional sense, namely stage performance, and features different musical scenes involving stage performance, gender/sexuality performativity, and audience. Performance is to be found everywhere in the Cuban gay scene. Allen describes the streets of Havana as a 'theater for performance' and the fiesta's dance floor functions as an arena of performance. Drag shows, ballet, and santeria ceremonies are characterized by an audience that is made of passive spectators and active in creating and maintaining a gay space. In drag shows and santeria spirit possession, 'exaggerated performance' involves cross-gender transformation, or, using Butler's terminology, an alternative 'gender performativity', by choice. Drag shows are comical and intentionally Camp. The bond between style and content in music is crucial to the
