Backstage Cruising: Asemic Inscriptions and the Trans-Vocal Collective
In the normative world of opera, the prompter lives in a state of constant suspension. Tucked into a box at the edge of the stage, they exist in the gap between presence and absence—part of the performance, yet invisible to the public. I identify a structural alignment between the prompter and the trans subject: both are marginal voices whose labor is required only when the normative facade fails. For the trans researcher-prompter, the state of being suspended in the language of the libretto is not a passive impasse, but a radical artistic operation that deconstructs the myth of the sovereign, individual voice. The prompter’s labor is defined by a unique form of vocal dispossession. Bound to a text they did not write and a sound they do not own, the prompter serves as a vocal prosthesis, offering their voice to fill the silence when a performer falters. In these moments, the prompter throws their voice through the silence and onto the body of the performer. This creates a collective voice: an acousmatic phenomenon where the voice and its source no longer match. In this suspension, the solid matter of the libretto dissolves into a liquid medium where bodies and voices are permitted to be asynchronous. For the trans subject, this refusal to produce a single, legible identity—in favor of a shared and shifting resonance—becomes a site of power. To navigate the emergency of a live performance, the prompter often abandons verbal clarity for a realm of asemic and alinguistic inscription. When the linear structure of the score fails, communication shifts to a fluid repertoire of tongue clicks, rhythmic claps, pops, and haptic gestures. I describe this interaction as a form of backstage cruising—a set of signals and vibes that are deeply meaningful to those in the know (the conspiratorial alliance of prompter and performer) but remain imperceptible to the audience. This cruising is a shared practice where the prompter destroys the authority of language to preserve the life of the performance. By reframing the prompt box as a site of suspension, this presentation explores how pausing the power of language allows a queer, marginal presence to thrive. It privileges babble and the fragmentary over the demand for a polished, stable identity. In the suspension of the prompter’s box, the collective voice does not just support the performance; it actively unsettles its foundations.