ABSTRACT
Having donned my white satin opera gloves and feeling like I shall go to the ball after all, I walk downstage to address my audience. My dark hair is parted in the middle and tied back in a low chignon. A ball gown envelops my body while red high-heeled shoes cover my feet. House lights come up slowly. The fourth wall drops. I am no longer immersed in the space of performance, no longer protected by the warming lights of the stage. This is a moment of rude awakening. Nowhere else do I feel more visible, bare, open. The vulnerability of my thin body is exacerbated by exhaustion. My maleness and my femininity stand in contrast: body, gesture and dress misaligned. We are halfway through the performance of The Sissy’s Progress. I put myself, ‘a bloke in a dress’, 1 in front of the audience. The tension between sex and gender is pointed in this image. Words are dispensable. It is here that the two worlds of performance and activism collide.
