A Manifesto on Making Space in Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music

"A Manifesto on Making Space in Taylor Mac's 24-Decade History of Popular Music" argues that Decades can be read as a manifesto. Focused on Mac's use of the Lesbian Avengers's "Dyke Manifesto" and Whitman's "To a Stranger," this article shows how, through performing texts and devising audience exercises, Mac creates a manifesto for contemporary politics: to make space for those who have been historically displaced, to endure things that go on too long in order to stay committed in direct political actions, and to draw on queer pleasure as a means of sustaining these two processes.