Becoming-with-Animal: An Ecofeminist Performance Practice
Keywords:
performance studies, theatre studies, healing, feministAbstract
Born out of theory that questions human-animal binary opposition, including Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming-animal and multispecies ecofeminist theorist Donna Haraway’s notion of becoming-with, the article proposes the concept of becoming-with-animal. This concept acts as a lens through which to observe
performance practices in alliance with non-human animals, shaping them as necessary healing practices which recognise the urgency of redefining the relationship between human and animal, male and female, dominant and “Other”, in times of environmental crisis. Using this concept as an analytical tool, this article argues that human-animal transformation in the performance of religious ritual and contemporary theatre can be
conceived of as empowering and healing in the context of a Western society that is dominated both by a hetero-patriarchal and anthropocentric logic.
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