Storying the Repertoire: Performing a Slow and Queer Backwardness at the Upstairs Lounge

Abstract

In this essay, I theorize my 2022 site-specific performance at 604 Iberville Street in New Orleans as a case study in slow and backward queer storytelling performance. In my performance, I embody logics of intimacy to story the 1973 arson attack at the Upstairs Lounge which resulted in the death of 32 queer people, which at the time was the largest single loss of queer life on U.S. soil. I champion queer storytelling performance as a viable and world- and history-making form of documentation, historicity, and communion.