Holly Hughes pitches lesbian camp this weekend

Performance artist lost grant at Helms' hands; gained political identity

It's been a good year for lesbians. Following in the tradition of last month's "Tip of the Nib" gay and lesbian cartoonist conference, lesbian theater artist Holly Hughes will share her comic personality with the Oberlin community over a weekend packed with performance and lecture events.

Most notably, Hughes will read from her new book entitled Clit Notes at the Coop Bookstore Dec. 6. The book, along with other prose dealing with gender and sexuality issues, has been the focus of discussion in professor of dance Ann Cooper Albright's course, Queer Acts: Gender and Performance. "[Hughes] is coming as part of that course and doing some public things as well, visiting various theater classes," Cooper Albright said.

Hughes got her start at WOW Cafe, New York's small, informal performance space devoted to lesbian performance work. That was back in the early '80s, the so-called "hey day" of that genre's surfacing to the main stream. "That's where Holly actually started writing her work," Cooper Albright recalled, "then she began being interested in performing." Hughes was interested in literally performing her writing, a form of expression that other theaters could not offer her. She will demonstrate this metamorphosis Dec. 7 when she will be performing works from Clit Notes in Warner Main space.

"[Hughes] is a performance artist who talks about lesbian sexuality," Cooper Albright explained. Though her visit is fairly standard in the series of Oberlin's resident speakers, the rarity of Hughes' visit is that she comes with so much knowledge and history, as well as comedy. In addition to her comical stage presence, Hughes has made quite a political mark as a member of the infamous "NEA 4"; in 1990 Senator Jesse Helms revoked her artist's fellowship grant, furthering her status as a nationally known lesbian activist icon.

"I know her work and have seen her perform," Cooper Albright said. "She's really funny. It's lesbian camp. As one of my students said in my class, a lot of times you might think of campy stuff with just gay men, so this should be an interesting difference."

Junior Ariel Carr, who is enrolled in Queer Acts, has particularly enjoyed her required readings from Clit Notes. "I'm very excited," she said when asked about Hughes' visit this weekend.

In addition to recently reading from Clit Notes, last week, the students in Queer Acts performed scenes from the book, as Hughes will this weekend. "It was basically just to get prepared," said sophomore class-member Rusty McCall. "It was a chance for us to be familiar with her work, just to get in the mood for her by trying to act out her work. We had to get into her mindset."

From WOW to now: Performance artist Holly Hughes shares her wit and PC intellect over a series of events. (photo courtesy of Ann Cooper Albright)