Solo Cabaret as Autobiographical Performance: Embodied Musicality and Affective Storytelling

Phillips, N ORCID: 0000-0001-7126-2161 Solo Cabaret as Autobiographical Performance: Embodied Musicality and Affective Storytelling. Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 31 (3). ISSN 1352-8165 (Accepted)

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Abstract

This article explores solo cabaret as a medium for autobiographical performance, focusing on how embodied musicality and affective storytelling enable performers to construct and communicate personal narratives. It refers to work including that of Bette Midler, Lena Horne, Elaine Stritch and Barb Jungr to exemplify cabaret’s capacity for emotional resonance and identity formation, as well as to the personal practice of the author in his Ecce Homo (Homotopia and Edinburgh 2014/15) and his upcoming Gaydaddy (2026), foregrounding the significance of both craft and spontaneity in the embodying of musicality. It also highlights ‘felt’ experience for both performer and audience as key aspects of creative practice as research. The article engages with recent scholarship and sites the practice in a range of performance studies and approaches, that redefines cabaret as a synthesised hybrid of live practices, arguing for its relevance within contemporary performance studies, and its potential in performance pedagogy. It concludes that by its intrinsic use and crafting of embodied musicality from conception through to performance, the solo cabaret creates an optimum medium for autobiography that is uniquely performative and highly affecting for an audience.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	1901 Art Theory and Criticism; 1904 Performing Arts and Creative Writing; Drama & Theater; 3601 Art history, theory and criticism; 3604 Performing arts; 3606 Visual arts
Subjects:	M Music and Books on Music > M Music N Fine Arts > NX Arts in general
Divisions:	Art and Creative Industries
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
Date of acceptance:	30 September 2025
Date Deposited:	26 Jan 2026 13:22
Last Modified:	26 Jan 2026 13:22
URI:	https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27985

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