Posthumanist Collaborations in Performance

Book excerpt: Posthumanist Collaborations in Performance presents a novel approach for readers to engage with new materialist performance as a method of qualitative inquiry and as a means of combating the anthropocentric loneliness of modern life. It offers a theoretical and practical examination of how we are fundamentally entangled with a more-than-human world through practices the authors call “naturecultural performances.” The book features a collaborative body of arts-based research by three scholars working at the intersections of performance studies, new materialism, environmental studies, and qualitative inquiry. The result is an interdisciplinary body of theoretical scholarship, including a wide array of landscapes, plants, animals, minerals, and other more-than-human agencies. The book also presents practical examples and case studies of naturecultural performances, showcasing the diverse ways in which the concept of “natureculture” can be applied in research and creative practice. This book will be of interest to faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, performance practitioners, and anyone else interested in exploring or creating work based on their own fundamental relationships with the more-than-human world.