Epilogue for Readings in Performance and Ecology

readings performance 1Epilogue: Thinking forward …

‘My purpose is to encourage an eco-dramaturgy that not only makes explicit how performance and theatre create particular modes of ecological knowledge, but also to activate the interchange of this knowledge across disciplines and practices, because this is an essential transport in a time of climate instability…

Emotions about nature are implied in interpretations; an ache, or longing, runs through these essays. But the emotions in performance as they relate to nature-human relations is an area yet to be investigated in itself. The capacity of performance to explore unmapped forms of feeling contributes to the efforts to establish performance as a special mode of ecological understanding. It also challenges criticism to find the languages to articulate these emotions’.

in Readings in Performance and Ecology, edited by Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May (2012) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 211 – 216.