“Protest ReEmbodied” is a performance that is an extension of an app I created that allows participants to take part in protests virtually, from their home, in their own time. It makes it possible for people who cannot physically attend protests to digitally insert themselves in protests, performing for the camera, creating video files they can then upload to social media and share virtually. It enables people with disabilities, vulnerable people during the COVID-19 pandemic (or those not wanting to potentially expose themselves), people distant or otherwise removed from the protests, and others, to participate and have their voices heard. In 2020 with the combination of political unrest due to the Trump presidency, social unrest due to the unceasing brutality and murderous actions of the police against Black people, and the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, protests representing the voices of the people became particularly relevant and important, but also difficult for many to participate in. The app I created gave a potential for engagement to many.

The app was featured in the online show Integrated Channels and as part of that I produced and enacted this performance live over Zoom. It is a variation on what the app does, in that participants are digitally inserted into footage I captured from various protests. In this performance I projected footage from the film I made of the Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality, from June 2020, on the day the Pride Parade was scheduled to be, but canceled due to COVID-19. In front of this projection, and with it on my body, I reenacted participating in the protest, complete with a loud hailer, chanting along with the recorded protest chants. The chants I used were a form of call and response, where one person called out a phrase and the crowd repeated it. Here I joined the crowd in repeating the called phrases with my loud hailer and strutted and danced along with the chanting in front of the projections. A wide angle camera and stereo microphones broadcast the scene to the live online viewers whose screens became the fourth level iteration of the protests: the first being the original protest, the second being the edited version of what I captured, the third being the live projected version with my body and presence and the fourth being what appeared on their screens and emanated from their speakers.