Papers by Lisa Woynarski
As current precarious ecological conditions require urgent and multi-scalar responses, performanc... more As current precarious ecological conditions require urgent and multi-scalar responses, performance has an opportunity to creatively respond to the ecological situation, opening up new ways of thinking and engaging the public’s imagination. Problematising differentiating practices that divide humans from ‘nature’, I suggest performance may highlight the interconnectedness of humans and the more-than-human world by theorising, revealing and critiquing ecological relationships. My research into an ecological performance aesthetic takes up this opportunity and conceives of new ways of critically thinking about performance. I engage a range of ecological philosophy, combined with ecodramaturgical analysis of performance, to theorise the intersection of performance and ecology. Ecodramaturgy (May 2010) combines ecocritical and applied approaches to performance with ecological ways of performance-making, and represents a critical extension to the discipline of performance studies. Drawing ...
This book addresses theatre’s contribution to the way we think about ecology, our relationship to... more This book addresses theatre’s contribution to the way we think about ecology, our relationship to the environment and what it means to be human in the context of climate change. It offers a detailed study of the ways in which contemporary performance has critiqued and re-imagined everyday ecological relationships, in more just and equitable ways. The broad spectrum of ecologically-oriented theatre and performance included here, largely from the UK, US, Canada and Europe, have problematised, reframed and upended the pervasive and reductive images of climate change that tend to dominate the ecological imagination. Taking an inclusive approach this book foregrounds marginalised perspectives and the multiple social and political forces that shape climate change and related ecological crises, framing understandings of the earth as home. Recent works by Fevered Sleep, Rimini Protokoll, Violeta Luna, Deke Weaver, Metis Arts, Lucy + Jorge Orta, as well as plays and Indigenous activist movem...
Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 2015
Stories are powerful forms of representation and cultural imagery in many Indigenous cultures, an... more Stories are powerful forms of representation and cultural imagery in many Indigenous cultures, and performance is a site where these stories are shared, revealed and enacted, making it a powerful site of cultural imagery for Indigenous ecological knowledges and cosmologies. I argue that an Indigenous ecological ethos is a necessary addition to thinking about performance and ecology, one that resists patronizing and simplistic stereotypes of the 'eco-Indian' and acknowledges diverse, complex and evolving epistemologies. Drawing on Huggan and Tiffin's postcolonial-ism ecocriticism, as well as May and Kuppers experience as non-Indigenous scholars and practitioners, this article considers the role postcolonial ecology might play in the field of performance and ecology and how non-indigenous scholars and theatre-makers might engage with it. I suggest strategies for locating an Indigenous ecological ethos, through Däwes, Nolan, Howe and Halba and their critical reflections on Indigenous performances specifically attuned to ecological concerns. I draw on plays and performances that highlight the inseparability of land, identity and more-than-human (Salmon is Everything, NK603: Action for Performer & e-Maiz, Woman for Walking); work that is non-linear and recognizes the simultaneity of past, present and future (Burning Vision, Chasing Honey); and work that takes up ecological justice issues (Sila). These aspects suggest ways of locating an Indigenous ecological ethos and developing a more multivocal and inclusive field of performance and ecology.
The Trans-Plantable Living Room was a trans-national growing performance project examining how an... more The Trans-Plantable Living Room was a trans-national growing performance project examining how an inherently local act such as gardening can serve as a lens for climate change -- this article, written by three of us -- examines the various sites and collaborative methods used for both the indoor and outdoor incarnation of this project, at World Stage Design 2013 and in London.
A piece features the slow and growing activist gestures of the trans-national collaborative proje... more A piece features the slow and growing activist gestures of the trans-national collaborative project: The Trans-Plantable Living Room -- an outdoor, edible performance venue -- which served as a platform to examine local gardening as a possible metre for global climate change. Short article in the Gestural Notes portion of the Contemporary Theatre Review's Issue about 'Gesture, Theatricality, and Protest.'
For On Anthropomorphism. A house full of weather and a polar bear costume are active things that ... more For On Anthropomorphism. A house full of weather and a polar bear costume are active things that have ‘thing-power: the curious ability of inanimate things to animate, to act, to produce effects dramatic and subtle’ (Bennett 2010: 6), or the capacity for agency. These things are from Fevered Sleep’s performance works The Weather Factory (2010) and It’s the Skin You’re Living In (2012). These performances enact an ecological anthropomorphism that decentres the human by acknowledging the ecological agency of the more-than-human. Following Chakrabarty’s (2012) concept of humans as geological forces in the current ecological age of the Anthropocene, a non-anthropocentric aesthetic of performance and theatre may help contribute to what Bennett (2010) calls an ‘ecological sensibility’. One of the ways it may do this is through ‘ecological anthropomorphism’, which disrupts the anthropocentric hierarchy and not only reveals the way the more-than-human is like the human, but also gives shape to the human. I employ Karen Barad’s queer ecology to problematise the configuration of human/nonhuman in a dualism and radically unsettle the ontological distinctions between human and ‘other’. The film, It’s the Skin You’re Living In, follows a man in a polar bear costume as he walks from the Arctic to the city, acknowledging and troubling the interconnections between human-animal-climate. While the performance installation of The Weather Factory, in which different weather conditions were installed in a residential home near Snowdonia, Wales, provides an affective metaphor that appeals to human capacity to understand the geophysical influence of human agency in the current ecological age. I will suggest that both of these works illustrate ecological anthropomorphism as the capacity for action/agency to shape and be shaped by the human, providing a potentially non-anthropocentric way of thinking about performance.
This paper outlines the development of the field of performance and ecology stemming from perform... more This paper outlines the development of the field of performance and ecology stemming from performance studies, theatre studies and ecocriticism. It introduces some of key concepts, tensions and approaches within the field. I consider its development to its current context within the academy and identify some the key texts at the intersection of performance and ecology.
Book Reviews by Lisa Woynarski
As the effects of human action usher in a new ecological era, performance has the opportunity to ... more As the effects of human action usher in a new ecological era, performance has the opportunity to creatively engage with ecological responses and resilience, requiring new ways of conceiving and theorizing performance. Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May contend that ‘such theorization is urgently needed if the performing arts are to play a role in transforming social values in the face of the ecological challenges of the twenty-first century’ (p. 2).
Conference Presentations by Lisa Woynarski
“Trans-cultural, trans-national, trans-species histories in performance,” American Society for Theatre Researchers Conference, 2012
Primary author. Portions drawn from "To be a good citizen and a good artist: Questions and explor... more Primary author. Portions drawn from "To be a good citizen and a good artist: Questions and explorations of ecologically restorative work," a paper I developed within "Art and Biotechnology," a seminar led by Eduardo Kac at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Presented in the Working Group “Trans-cultural, trans-national, trans-species histories in performance,” American Society for Theatre Researchers Conference, 2012.
Uploads
Papers by Lisa Woynarski
Book Reviews by Lisa Woynarski
Conference Presentations by Lisa Woynarski