Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School Of
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MATERIAL ENTANGLEMENTS WITH THE NONHUMAN WORLD: THEORIZING ECOSEXUALITIES IN PERFORMANCE Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Michael J. Morris, B.F.A. Graduate Program in Dance Studies The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Norah Zuniga Shaw, Advisor Harmony Bench M. Candace Feck Catriona Sandilands Copyright by Michael J. Morris 2015 ABSTRACT This dissertation develops multiple theories of ecosexuality with three works of performance: Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens’ performance art project the Love Art Laboratory (2004-2011), Carlos Batts’ pornographic film Dangerous Curves (2010), and Pina Bausch’s dance Rite of Spring (1975). Following the premise that all sexuality—even human sexuality—is always already ecologically entangled with any number of nonhuman lives and materials, I consider the ways in which the performing arts produce views and understandings of these entanglements. Thinking with these three case studies, I develop multiple overlapping, intersecting, and diverging theories of ecosexuality that each figure human/nonhuman relations in ways that think beyond anthropocentric definitions of sexuality and the culture of human exceptionalism that such anthropocentrism reinforces. Following the use of the term “ecosexuality” in Stephens and Sprinkle’s performance artwork, I suggest that the significance of this concept will be as multiple and shifting as the terms from which it is assembled—ecology and sexuality—and that each of the performance works within this study demonstrates specific choreographic principles with which ecosexuality can be thought. Methodologically, I approach this material through a process of choreographic thinking, first articulating the prominent features of each performance and the choreographic principles that they instantiate, then using those principles to mobilize my theorizations of sex, sexuality, and human/nonhuman relations. These theories are supported by the work of critical theorists and philosophers across a range of disciplines, an ii interdisciplinary constellation including queer theory, feminist philosophy, posthumanisms, new materialism, porn studies, and dance and performance studies. With each of these three case studies, I arrive at a unique understanding of ecosexuality. The Love Art Laboratory presents ecosexuality as a matter of orientation, in which that toward which we become oriented is not an object from which we are separate but a relation of which we are a part: our intra-active material entanglement within the nonhuman world. Dangerous Curves envisions bodies as promiscuous assemblages of discontinuous parts depicted at multiple scales, in which parts do not add up to bodies organ-ized into one of two sexes and do not stay discretely bound within categories such as “human” and “nonhuman,” for which sexualities proliferate at any number of connections. In Rite of Spring, both dancing bodies and dirt fluctuate between animation and stillness, presenting a range of dynamic inclinations across a shared material continuum. Thinking these tendencies in relation to the “sexual instincts” and the “death drive,” Rite of Spring asks: how might we pursue life for its own sake, without our lives at its center? If sexuality is the unfolding of life in excess of survival, what might it mean to pursue a sexual life, specifically when “life” already encompasses the nonhuman? Together, these readings unfold the critical potential of these performance works and contribute to the scholarly consideration of the growing ecosexual movement. iii DEDICATION For lives that have not yet been made to matter. For the artists who show us new ways of making our world meaningful and new ways of making our world. For Carlos Batts (1973-2013) For Pina Bausch (1940-2009) iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation only exists because of innumerable relations of influence, inspiration, and support. No full account of these countless enabling relations can be given, yet I would like to acknowledge and extend my heartfelt gratitude for a few: To the artists whose work provided the impetus for the thinking that I have done here. In particular, to Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle: I cannot begin to quantify how much you and your work have influenced me, as an artist, as a scholar, and as a person. To Jiz Lee, Syd Blakovich, and April Flores: thank you for your bold, courageous performances. To Carlos Batts, who is no longer with us: thank you for showing me new ways of seeing and understanding pornography and sexuality. To Pina Bausch, who is also no longer with us: thank you for dances that move me toward new ways of thinking, feeling, and making dances. To Judith Butler and Donna Haraway: there are pages and pages of scholars who are cited within this dissertation, and they have all been influential, but there is no way to measure the degree to which your work has shaped how I think and what I am capable of thinking. To the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University, to Susan Van Pelt Petry, and to the Graduate School at OSU: thank you for the years of generous funding that have made this dissertation and degree possible, in the forms of a University Fellowship, teaching v and research positions, project grants, travel grants, and a Presidential Fellowship. I am very privileged to have been supported so substantially. To my committee, Norah Zuniga Shaw, M. Candace Feck, Harmony Bench, and Catriona Sandilands. You have each taught me so much, and this dissertation is evidence of your support, your rigor, your influence, and your care. In particular, to Norah and Candace: I do not know what my work would be without your influence. To Carrie Noland, Susan Leigh Foster, and the collected faculty and participants in the 2014 Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar: your insights and perspectives came at the perfect time, and were vital to the dissertation that I was then able to write. To my faculty, classmates, and colleagues during my years in both the MFA and PhD programs in the Department of Dance at OSU: you have been my community, my friends, and my family. You have inspired me and reminded me why I love this discipline. To Maree ReMalia: thank you for your tireless support, perspective, encouragement, and care. To my parents, James and Cindy Morris: thank you for your constant support and for years of allowing me the opportunities to become who I was going to be. To Matthew, my twin: the rigor, criticality, and excellence of your artistic practice— folded so carefully into the subtlety, elegance, and decadence of your aesthetic—never cease to inspire me. This dissertation is dedicated to the artists who show us new ways of making our world meaningful and new ways of making our world, and of such artists, you were the first I ever knew. My work is stronger because of the ways you challenge me to think, and your influence is throughout these pages. vi VITA 2007………………………………………… B.F.A. in Modern Dance, Belhaven University 2008-2009……………………………………University Fellowship, The Ohio State University 2009………………………………………… Labanotation Teaching Certification, The Ohio State University Dance Notation Bureau Extension 2009-2014……………………………………Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 2011………………………………………… “Eco Homo? Queering Bodies, Queering Sustainability” Keynote address/performance with Catriona Sandilands, Staging Sustainability: Arts Community Culture Environment, York University, Toronto, Canada 2011………………………………………… “Theorizing Ecosexuality: Intersections and Interventions in Sexual and Environmental Subjectivity” Ecosex Symposium II, Center for Sex and Culture, San Francisco, California 2012………………………………………… “Queers, Fairies, and the [Dancing] Dream of Liberation: Reading Frederick Ashton’s The Dream Through Harry Hay’s Radical Fairie Philosophy” Meanings and Makings of Queer Dance, Congress on Research in Dance Special Topics Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 2012………………………………………… “twincest/body fluids/fluid bodies” Queer Places, Practices, and Lives: A vii Symposium in Honor of Samuel Steward, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2013………………………………………… The Writing Across the Curriculum Outstanding Writing Instruction Award, The Ohio State University 2013………………………………………… “Ecosexuality in Performance: the Love Art Laboratory, Intra-Activity, and the Sexuality of Matter Itself” In Bodies We Trust: Performance, Affect, and Political Economy, Performance Studies Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 2013………………………………………… “Towards a Posthuman Ethics: Moving With Others in Karl Cronin’s Somatic Natural History Archive” Decentering Dance Studies: Moving in New Global Orders, joint conference of the Congress on Research in Dance and the Society of Dance History Scholars, Riverside, California 2014………………………………………… “When Lesbians Become Ecosexuals, Or The Ethical Progression From Queer to Posthuman” Queer Places, Practices & Lives II, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 2014………………………………………… Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar, Stanford University 2014………………………………………… “Implied Ethics: Describing Haecceity and the Persistence of the Event” Writing Dancing/Dancing Writing, joint conference of the Congress of Research in Dance and the Society of Dance History Scholars, Iowa City, Iowa 2015………………………………………… Presidential Fellowship, The Ohio State University 2015…………………………………………Graduate Associate Teaching Award, The