(PERFORMANCE ART). CHAMPAGNE, Lenora. Reptile Warmth.

An Unrecorded Performance Piece

(PERFORMANCE ART). CHAMPAGNE, Lenora. Reptile Warmth. ([New York]: Leonora Champagne, 1984) 10 leaves. (178 x 116 mm.)  Stapled typescript.  With two postcards, each advertising two different performances, and a 12-page booklet highlighting Champagne's work and positive critical reviews. Small stain on edge of one postcard, but near fine all around.

An early work by playwright and performer Lenora Champagne, with additional promotional material made in the first few years of the artist's career.

First staged in 1984, "Reptile Warmth" is "an ironic look at sexuality and spirituality, and what happens when the two are confused. . . . [It] is about extinction anxieties and the perversity of going after things that are bad for you." The present item seems to be a copy of a hand-corrected typescript, and probably one of very few that exist. The play was never printed, and we find no other copies of the script in OCLC or anywhere else online.

The typescript comes with three other pieces of ephemera: a promotional booklet listing all of Champagne's early works and images of her performances, and two promotional postcards (one of which is stamped and addressed) for "Fractured Juliet," and "From the Red Light District"--the latter with an especially amusing image of Champagne dressed like a protester on the Christian right.

Lenora Champagne (b. 1951) was born in the Louisiana Bayou and moved to New York in 1972. Though she was initially wanted to be come a painter, Champagne was drawn to experimental theater and earned a PhD in Performance Studies from NYU in 1980. She is currently a professor at Purchase College, and has extensive experience as a performer, writer, director, and educator.  (1194)