Regis Reflection

            Regis’s discussion of the second line parades in New Orleans touches on some of the methods and intents particular to performance art as we have studied in class, and how it has redefined the traditional perception of art. An important aspect is the inability to become a passive viewer – either you join in, wherein you experience the blurred “line” between audience and performer, or, because of the massive crowd surrounding the club and band, you won’t be able to truly witness the parade at all from a distance, which Regis contrasts with parades of a white European tradition (i.e., Mardi Gras and St. Patrick’s Day). (755)

            Through “memory tactics,” the second line parade redefines the way in which lives are memorialized. Regis contrasts the staid monuments memorializing wealthy capitalists against what Pierre Nora calls lieux de mémoires, “spaces actively transformed by popular action into places of memory that concretize popular historical consciousness. … Seemingly temporary, or fleeting, the memorials of second liners endure in the collective memory of participants.” (762-3)

This kind of active transformation and the reliance on memory have made the second line parades susceptible to constant evolution. Regis acknowledges this in the funeral for D-Boy, highlighting the way the younger generation paid their respects in a “manner [that] challenged the formality and pious respectability of the older generation, which had been dominating the wake thus far.” (760)

            Another important aspect of the parades to Regis is their modes of defiance against the normalized hegemonic culture. While participating, the author noticed the marchers “improvise on standard lyrics” and teenagers hit street signs as “musical appropriations of space,” physically and symbolically claiming the streets. (757)