To Transcender Transgender: Choreographies of Gender Fluidity in the Performances of Mildred Gerestant Available to Purchase

In this essay, Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley analyzes Haitian American performance artist MilDred Gerestant’s recent work, “DanceHaitianGender” and “Transcender.” Integrating the masculine and feminine variations of the lwas within Haitian Vodou, Tinsley maintains that Gerestant pushes against the limits of “transgender” to suggest an alternative in transcender—that is, an engagement with the submerged Caribbean epistemology of syncretic religions. Offering a close reading of “Transcender,” Tinsley explores how and why Gerestant turns to Vodou not merely as a religious practice but also as an epistemology, captured here as the historically specific, creative, and outrageous choreography of black and Caribbean gender.