“Why won’t you help me … shave my head?” Critical autoethnography and understanding affective response to an act of critical vulnerability in solo performance

Abstract

In my current arts-based research practice, I explore the aesthetics of critical vulnerability as it relates to my solo performance “How not to Make Love to a Woman,” a critical autoethnography and solo performance piece about leaving an abusive marriage. The initial research question revolved around an examination of how aesthetic choices contribute to affective responses. As the performance and the research both transformed,
I became less interested in aesthetic choices and more about descriptive accounts of what occurs between spectator and performer in the moment of critical intimacy where the audience is invited to shave the performer’s head. Through this examination I have come to understand some of the ways the affective spectator responses to these moments of spectator-performer interactions can result in the kinds of subtle attitudinal shifts that contribute to increased possibilities for community dialogue about the subject of domestic violence.