| This dissertation places breath as the central element in the life/art practice, performances and pedagogy of American performance artist Leeny Sack. A daughter of Holocaust survivors, Sack's work engages witnessing through her unique adaptation of the performance techniques of Richard Schechner and Jerzy Grotowski, and the somatic and mindfulness practices of Kinetic Awareness and vipassana meditation. "The Performative Self," a term used by Sack to describe aspects of her pedagogy, becomes the theoretical frame for discussing how breath figures performatively in three of Sack's autobiographical pieces, as well as in her teaching. Each of the three pieces is a performative response to trauma: The Survivor and the Translator to her family's and her own experiences related to the Holocaust; Neo-Ventriqual THOUGHT CLOUDS to Sack's mother's death; and Patient/Artist, to her diagnosis and subsequent treatment of acromegaly. Sack's practices combine with the trauma theory of Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, placing breath-based witnessing of both self and other as opening a performative space of potentiality. Research for the project included four modes: first-hand experiences of Sack's teaching; historical and theoretical reading; viewings of Sack's archival videos and photographs as well as Holocaust-related documentaries and performances; and several lengthy interviews with Sack. |
