Description
Interspecies Performance brings together artists and scholars from across the disciplines to interrogate the rich terrain of contemporary interspecies performance practice – specifically in relation to nonhuman animals. The book foregrounds an intersectional and ethically oriented approach that centres care, empathy and collaboration, and considers the deep entanglement of contemporary oppressions.
Fahim Amir · Kat Austen · Silvia Battista · Christopher Braddock · Emily Burdfield-Steel · Ruth K. Burke · Lucy Cash · Soojin Chang · Laura Cooper · Leonie Cornips · Criptonite · Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca · Dolphin Dance Project · Shannon Epplett · Every house has a door · Fevered Sleep · Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp · Abhay Ghiara · Alexis Pauline Gumbs · Maximilian Haas · Michaela Harrison · G. C. Heemskerk · Tessel Janse · Mark Jeffery · Essi Kausalainen · Raja’a Khalid · Tuija Kokkonen · Eva Meijer · Performances for Pets · Amanda Piña · Juan José Luis Katira Ramirez · Filipa Ramos · Undine Sellbach · Agat Sharma · Hermione Spriggs · Jessica Ullrich · Elly S. Vadseth · Louis van den Hengel · Julia van der Putten · David Weber-Krebs
‘More than a book, this is a dynamic field of catalysing encounters through which the very idea of performance is extended, expanded, reshaped and reinvigorated. When species meet with such creativity, care and curiosity, they vastly increase the potential of performance to envision and to engender futures of multi-species thriving. These astonishing collaborations and theorizations establish a vibrant interspecies praxis at the cutting edge of contemporary performance.’
Una Chaudhuri
Contents
Foreword: What if species is a performance?
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
An Introduction to Interspecies Performance
Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp
OTHER ACTORS: PERFORMING BEYOND THE HUMAN
Moths Must Be Moaning
Agat Sharma with Emily Burdfield-Steel and Julia van der Putten
Sheep Pig Goat
Fevered Sleep
Performing Knowledge as Interspecies Encounter: Sheep Pig Goat and the ethics of attention
Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca
Performances for Pets
Performances for Pets (Alex Bailey and Krõõt Juurak)
Performances for Pets and Art for Animal Audiences
Jessica Ullrich
Afterthoughts on Balthazar (2011–17)
Maximilian Haas and David Weber-Krebs
The Interspecies Collective
G.C. Heemskerk and Eva Meijer
BODIES OF WATER: PERFORMING OCEANIC SOLIDARITIES
Bodies of Water: Reflection
Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Interspecies Hydro-Choreographies: A gelatinous correspondence
Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp and Elly S. Vadseth
Whale Whispering
Michaela Harrison
Dolphin Dance Project
Benjamin Harley and Chisa Hidaka
OTHER TONGUES: COMMUNING BEYOND THE HUMAN
Entangled Animisms: Whakaaro and dialogue in the artwork of Shannon Te Ao
Christopher Braddock
Conversation in the Shape of a Cowlick and Other Tongues
Lucy Cash, Leonie Cornips, Mark Jeffery and Louis van den Hengel
Octopus Letters
Criptonite
Concert of A-lure
Laura Cooper and Hermione Spriggs
THRESHOLDS: EXPLORING OTHER REALMS
Introspective Theatre: The theologies of darkness of an intangible firefly
Silvia Battista
A Hummingbird Butterfly Brought Me Messages from My Bones:
Learning from Amerindian ritual practices through artistic research
Amanda Piña with Fahim Amir, Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Juan
José Luis Katira Ramirez
‘Why Should Our Bodies End With Our Skin?’: Intergenerational longings,
dislocations and waiting in BXBY
Undine Sellbach with Soojin Chang
The Rite for Future Beetles
Kat Austen
ZOOEISIS: CULTURAL ANIMALS
Piles of Bones: The performance of sovereignty through reindeer culling in the subpolar North
Tessel Janse
That Space Before Feelings Creep In
Raja’a Khalid and Filipa Ramos
Elephant
Every house has a door
Domestic Rewilding and Interspecies Labour
Ruth K. Burke and Shannon Epplett
Epilogue
Non-Human Performance: Following birds here at the borderlands
Tuija Kokkonen (translated by Hanna Westerlund)
Notes on Contributors
Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca is Lector and Head of DAS Graduate School at the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam University of the Arts.
Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp is a creative producer and researcher in the field of contemporary art and performance.