Performance and Place: Theatre-making in the Anthropocene

Science studies scholar Bruno Latour and biologist Neil Everndon, among others, emphasize the role of the arts in translating environmental data into accessible narratives (Everndon 1978, 102; Latour 2016; see also Heise 2016). Artists can act as cultural mediators, using their skills of storytelling to cultivate sensitivity to the scope and implications of complex phenomena, such as climate change.The proposed project will examine an emerging body of drama and performance that engages with ecological issues through a focus on place. The project is unique in its focus on place as a dramatic element, its transnational scope, and its inclusion of both stage drama and site-specific performances, which are seldom examined together. The case studies chosen include theatre-makers from the US, Germany, Belgium, and Taiwan, whose works are produced through transnational collaborations and circulate internationally. They are: Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig; Idris Goodwin; Sarah Cameron Sunde; Rimini Protokoll; Kris Verdonck/A Two Dogs Company; Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang; and U-Theatre's Ecological Base. Place is presented by these artists not as inert backdrop to human action, but as a central actor, and theatre, as a medium, is expanded, with performances taking place on the stage, street, ocean, mountaintop, and a virtual moonscape.The analysis of these works will be organized around three spatial paradigms that have defined human-place relationships during the Anthropocene: landscape, environment, and network. Historically, these paradigms chart changing relationships between humans and place: from stable local scenes seen at a distance, to enveloping natural and cultural surroundings, to a meshwork of social and technological connections. This project builds on my research in contemporary drama and ecological performance to explore the various ways that drama can model more sustainable relationships between humans and the places they inhabit. Furthermore, it will examine how performance technologies sensitize audiences to the temporal scope and geographical scale of ecological issues.The methodology of the project will be aligned with current practices in theatre and performance studies, which includes a critical analysis of performances and their contexts, interdisciplinary research, and interviews with theatre-makers, which will provide valuable insights into the production of these works and the larger social and ethical issues at stake. The data collected from research will be published in two journal articles and culminate in a scholarly monograph. It will also be applied in my work as a teacher-scholar in Hong Kong through public talks, teacher workshops, and collaborations with local theatre artists.