tongue, 1991-92, vocal performance

Lynn Book’s “tongue” was an irreverent and biting solo vocal performance whose mission was to deconstruct language, meaning and power through a poetics of feminist thought in rant form. It was first developed as part of “Lynn Book Covers” at Club Lower Links, in Chicago at the time of the early 90s culture wars when gay rights was an imperative to combat the threat of the AIDS epidemic being ignored by Washington; when the artists’ prerogative was necessary in a time of attempted censorship by conservative political powers; and yet another American-led war in the Middle East was being prosecuted by the Bush (the elder) administration. The stripped down text-centered work extended the notion of ‘writing woman’s body’ (Helene Cixous) to speaking it, voicing it and reinventing what ‘voicing bodies’ (Book’s term) could be. She developed this 1991-92 work (and it developed her) through a heuristics of procedures that included ‘audio journals’ (her reinvention), free writes, and concentrated writing from theoretical, rhetorical and narrative forms that she feverishly subverted almost at the moment that she opened her mouth. In the words of former Chicago Tribune journalist and writer, Achy Obejas, “Book winds her material around itself like a coil, going back every so often to pick up a piece that at first may have seemed a throwaway… because every little piece fits into every other and resonates.”

This collection includes video documentation, both complete, unedited versions, as well as edited versions, versions of the performance text, reviews in various publications including the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Reader, as well as an unpublished review, photos slide stills from several performances, announcements and hand written process notes by the artist.

Performances:
Study, Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago
Set 2 in Lynn Book Covers, Club Lower Links, Chicago
Complete work, Club Lower Links, Chicago
Complete work, Blue Rider Theater, Chicago
Complete work, Alfred State University, New York