Boychild

Tosh Basco, known by her performance name boychild (stylized in lowercase), is an American performance artist, dancer, and photographer.[1] boychild identifies as nonbinary trans, but considers her persona of boychild to be female and uses she/her pronouns when performing.[2] By inhabiting female pronouns whilst performing while sustaining a nonbinary identity, boychild is "non-conformist to hegemonic ideas of sex and gender, boychild is positioned as subordinated to other in more ways than one and the viability of her sex, gender, and humanness is called into question."[2] boychild's performances relay how bodies have been thrown into arbitrary categoricalness that reiforces cisheteronortmative benefit from these classifications.[3]"She uses her body as a vehicle for performing. The "body has become a form of political subject and considered a heart of power"[4] The body is the physical embodiment of "the self", which "can be used as a tool to reveal the ubiquitous wholeness of being—dissolving difference."[5] Her choreography, she told Interview Magazine, is like "the physical body turning into a cyborg ... It’s like a glitch; there’s a repetitive thing that happens."[6] Performances of boychild's often consist of lip-syncs to heavily distorted pop songs.[2] Her signature style includes a shaved head, full-body makeup, tinted contact lenses, and neon lighting.[7] She lives and works predominately in California and Hong Kong.[8]

  1. ^ "How collaboration is the driving force behind Wu Tsang's mesmerising new film on the Migrant Crisis". www.sleek-mag.com. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  2. ^ a b c Riszko, Leila (2017-07-03). "Breaching bodily boundaries: posthuman (dis)embodiment and ecstatic speech in lip-synch performances by boychild". International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. 13 (2): 153–169. doi:10.1080/14794713.2017.1348094. S2CID 27049412 – via EBSCO Host.
  3. ^ Halberstam, Jack (2021-10-07), "Gender and the Queer/Trans* Undercommons", Why Gender?, Cambridge University Press, pp. 38–56, doi:10.1017/9781108980548.004, ISBN 9781108980548, S2CID 244623543, retrieved 2022-12-19
  4. ^ Campagna, Vanessa (2017). "Gesturing toward Queer Utopia: The Children's World of Paula Vogel's And Baby Makes Seven". Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism. 32 (1): 107–126. doi:10.1353/dtc.2017.0024. ISSN 2165-2686. S2CID 149398531.
  5. ^ Lehner, Ace (2016-01-01), "From Self-Portrait to Selfie: Contemporary Art and Self-Representation in the Social Media Age", Self-Representation in an Expanded Field, MDPI, doi:10.3390/books978-3-03897-565-6-12, ISBN 978-3-03897-565-6
  6. ^ Small, Rachel (2014-12-10). "Boychild". Interview Magazine. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  7. ^ "Boychild - 0 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy". www.artsy.net. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  8. ^ "BOMB Magazine | Wu Tsang & boychild". BOMB Magazine. 18 August 2017. Retrieved 2022-12-19.