Alphabet Hysteria
Chris Hill
The Hysterical Alphabet was a very unique and captivating experience. I initially appreciated the approach Terri Kapsalis and company took in juxtaposing real time performance with recorded multi-media. I respected the playful feel of the alphabet format while addressing graphic medical accounts that had me questioning the history of gender identities and stereotypes through the lends of a historian. I was absolutely enchanted by the voice of Terri Kapsalis and fully agree with her decision to perform the majority of the piece live, and also enjoyed the dynamic quality of layering her recorded voice with live vocals to emphasize and draw interest at one point in the performance. Her soothing voice with the vintage film gave the performance a timeless quality that was effective in giving the viewer a sense of the past. The Hysterical Alphabet was rich with metric montage and rhythmic montage, but seemed to be most concerned with tonal montage. I thought it was interesting how she used the alphabet like a time line starting in ancient Egypt with ‘A’ and leading up to a more contemporary time period with the letter ‘Z’. The Hysterical Alphabet had me thinking about how the history of hysteria as a “white woman’s disease” influences our contemporary notions about women and sickness.
I thought it was interesting hearing Kapsalis explain the development of this particular performance. She said it evolved over the past decade from just text, to text and sound, and finally included video montage. I think it is unique that every performance is different and enjoyed the experiential quality this performance lent to the audience by including some slight improvisation.
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