Interspecies Performance symposium and book launch

Interspecies Performance symposium and book launch

Join us for a one-day symposium to mark the launch of the book Interspecies Performance co-edited by Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca and Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp and published by Performance Research Books.

How might human ideas of performance be transformed through encounters with nonhuman animals? Or - given that how human and animals can meet is shaped by the contexts in which those meetings take place - how might animalizing the aesthetics and spatial-temporal qualities of performance enable new interspecies encounters? What happens to performance if it is made for nonhumans understood as perceiving and expressive subjectivities with aesthetic interests and preferences, rather than the mere objects of human art and attention? In contact with other species, the entire apparatus of performance is transformed.

Over the last quarter century, there has been a profound questioning of the anthropocentrism of performance leading to the manifestation of an incredible amount of interspecies arts works and projects made internationally. 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. In this symposium we will foreground the question of what performance contributes to understanding of the relationships between animal justice, decoloniality and disability justice.

Combining talks, practical workshops and performance, this event brings together contributors to the book and other local artists and researchers to explore the aesthetics, epistemology, ethics and politics of contemporary interspecies performance.

Provisional program

Language: English through amplified sound.

9.30-10 Walk-in and coffee

10-10.30 Welcome

Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca + Florence Fitzgerald-Allsopp

10.30-12 Choice of practical workshops

Kai Hazelwood, Shedding Playgroup

OR

Emilie Gallier, Gleaners and the Worms

12-1 Lunch (provided, vegan)

1-2 Animals + Disability Justice in Performance

A Conversation with Criptonite (online)

Nina Mühlemann and Edwin Ramirez

Moderator: Mira Thompson

2-2.30 Break

2.30-3.30 Animal Colonialism / Colonial Animals in Performance

Talk and screening by Tessel Janse

Moderator: Saskia de Wildt

3.30-4 Break

4-5 Agat Sharma

5.30-7 Book launch + drinks

Copies of the book available to buy

Organized by the Lectorate of the Academy of Theatre and Dance, Amsterdam.

With thanks to support from Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA), in collaboration with the "Animal Voices" course at ArtEz

Host or Publisher Laura Cull Ó Maoilearca