Performing Animality

Performing Animality provides theoretical and creative interventions into the presence of the animal and ideas of animality in performance. Animals have always played a part in human performance practices. Maintaining a crucial role in many communities’ cultural traditions, animal-human encounters have been key in the development of performance. Similarly, performance including both living animals and/or representations of animals provides the context for encounters in which issues of power, human subjectivity and otherness are explored. Crucially, however, the inclusion of animals in performance also offers an opportunity to investigate ethical and moral assumptions about human and non-human animals. This book offers a historical and theoretical exploration of animal presence in performance by looking at the concept of animality and how it has developed in theatre and performance practices from the eighteenth century to today. Furthermore, it points to shifts in political, cultural, and ethical animal-human relations emerging within the context of animality and performance.

Author Biography

Una Chaudhuri, New York University, USA
Laura Cull, University of Surrey, UK
Holly Hughes, University of Michigan, USA
Kim Marra, University of Iowa, USA
Garry Marvin, University of Roehampton, UK
Monica Mattfeld, University of Kent, UK
Lourdes Orozco, University of Leeds, UK
Jennifer Parker-Starbuck, University of Roehampton, UK
Carrie Rohman, Lafayette College, USA
Peta Tait, La Trobe University, Australia
Catherine Young, City University of New York, USA