Dr. Charles Parrott and the department of Theatre and Performance Studies hosted acclaimed performance artist Tim Miller and his one-man show, “Rooted,” on Jan. 25 and 26 at the Stillwell Theater.
“Rooted” is a sexually and politically-fueled performance featuring comedy, deep tragedy and the life experience of a man who’s spent the better part of 40 years “fighting the power.”
The performance and the stories highlighted were focused on Miller’s personal life, stories of hope and devastation that he experienced as a gay man in the 20th and 21st centuries.
From a hilarious anecdote about one of his first romantic misadventures with a best friend at the age of nine to marrying his partner of more than 20 years when the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, it was a performance about empathy and seeing what life’s like from another pair of shoes.
A large portion of the show was devoted to politics, so when asked about the Trump presidency during a discussion after Thursday night’s show, he replied, “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen in my life, and I was alive for Vietnam and saw that president impeached.”
His performance included many stories in which he battled the U.S. government, including his role in the NEA 4, a group of artists in the 1980s who had their grants from the National Endowment of the Arts removed due to their controversial lifestyles. It was a fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court — a fight that Miller and the rest of the NEA 4 won, if only temporarily.
“If you happened to have been sexually assaulted, as a ridiculously high percentage of young women in college and universities campuses have been, or if you’re a student of color, or wherever you come on this — to me it comes back to that there’s no alternative to speaking up, by telling our stories, by representing, by being visible,” Miller said.
“Telling the story—your black lives matter story or your story from the women’s march a year ago or last weekend, every time those stories are told, it begins to embolden us and embolden other people,” he continued.
Miller’s story and his performance brought a reality to the political and social resistance-type movements that are so prevalent today. In the discussion after the show, he was asked about performance, expression and what’s so special about the medium.
“When we see someone perform, it makes us all braver,” he said.
