UC Santa Cruz

This dissertation examines queer open mics as models for negotiating the ambivalences of neoliberalism and identity politics that herald a participatory form of cultural democracy. Like open mics generally, queer open mics are amateur performance venues where musicians, dancers, spoken word poets, and more perform live for one another. Unlike open mics generally, queer open mics center LGBTQ people, focusing on activism, healing, and community building rather than polishing performance skills. Using ethnographic data from three queer open mics in California and New Jersey, my work sheds new light on how urban amateur musical communities use performance as activism. I examine how queer people—specifically queer people of color—in the US gather to produce live performances as an ingroup practice. This research challenges recent claims arguing open mics act as sites for individual expression and professionalization by examining the community-focused and intentionally amateur character of these queer open mics. By deploying queer and critical race studies to analyze open mics, this research works to expand musicology's understanding of amateur performance by illuminating the important liberatory work queer and trans amateur artists do in their everyday lives.