The choreographic force of matter: Reframing ecodramaturgy

I distill from my CARPA9 presentation into a paper that explores how the agency of matter can function as an ecodramaturgical tool and a choreographic force. Drawing on both theory and practice, it examines how movement emerges through interactions between human and more-than-human elements. The article invites a shift away from human-centered performance practices. It proposes a more ecological and entangled understanding of choreography, where movement is generated not only by human intention but also by the material world itself.

From ego to eco

I have always been drawn to the power and beauty of dance to connect us – with our inner world, with one another, and with the world at large. Over time, I have come to advocate more strongly that dance is not just about the self but a relational practice. This feels like an important recognition amid the ecological crisis, in which we seem to have forgotten that we are part of a greater web of life. These conditions call for a shift in how we approach dance education as well as how we create performances.

We often place humans at the center – or even on top – of the world rather than within it. This anthropocentric worldview has proven unsustainable, both ecologically and socially, particularly in light of the current ecological crisis. I believe we have arrived at a time when we must rethink, redefine, and reposition our place as humans. Considering that art and performance mirror our world and society, it is also necessary to reconsider the way we shape performative art: from ego to eco.

What if choreography isn’t just about humans? What if dance emerges not only from human intention, but also through the forces and presences of non-human matter that join the choreographic process? To examine how these ideas take shape in practice, I explore how the agency of matter operates ecodramaturgically through three sub-concepts, each examined through a corresponding case study.

Reframing ecodramaturgy through matter

My growing awareness of interconnectedness led me to explore how ecology might function not just as a theme in performance, but as a dramaturgical method – a way of (re)thinking, attuning, and moving with the world. Ecodramaturgy, a term coined by Theresa J. May, offers such a lens (Arons & May 2012, 4). According to May, ecodramaturgy is a practice that places ecological relationships and responsibilities at the core of the work. This involves embedding ecological sensibility in the creation process, critically examining the implicit environmental message of any performance, and minimizing their ecological footprint to align with an environmental ethos (May 2024).

Additionally, pioneer of eco-theater Una Chaudhuri asserts that one of eco-art’s key tasks is to shift our perspective and to decenter the human (Chaudhuri 2015). Building on this foundation, Lisa Woynarski frames ecodramaturgy as emphasizing connectivity: the entanglement of people, objects, materials, and natural forces (Woynarski 2020, 114). Ecodramaturgy, then, is not about representing nature but performing ecological relationships – shifting attention from humans as central agents toward an ensemble in which human and non-human forces co-shape the performance.

Yet, despite this attention to interconnectedness, one aspect remains underdeveloped in ecodramaturgy: the agency of matter itself. While scholars acknowledge that matter plays a role, this role is seldom examined in depth – particularly in dance, where human bodies have traditionally occupied the foreground. To meaningfully decenter the human, I argue that ecodramaturgy needs a stronger articulation of matter’s agential and performative capacities.

New Materialist thought offers an expanded concept of matter. Karen Barad’s well-known formulation, “matter is not a thing but a doing” (Barad 2006, 183), reframes matter as active, relational, and constantly performing. Through the lens of New Materialism, agency does not stem from individual entities but emerges through dynamic interactions, or what Barad calls intra-actions (Barad 2006, 141). Similarly, Jane Bennett’s concepts of Thing-Power and assemblages highlight the vitality and influence of matter (Bennett 2010), thereby enabling performance-makers and theorists to view objects, substances, and forces as contributors to action rather than passive scenery.

Positioning the agency of matter within an ecodramaturgical frame allows for a richer understanding of performance. It foregrounds how bodies, materials, forces, and environments act upon and co-create one another. In doing so, it expands ecodramaturgy by specifying how matter participates and how its performative capacities prompt new possibilities.

In dance, I explore this by looking not only at what human dancers do, but also at what matter – such as wind, cloth, or sand – does and how they influence each other. This interplay yields new movements, experiences, and forms of meaning, in which human and non-human performers jointly shape the performance.

Not only in performative contexts, but also in educational settings, it can be valuable for students to explore the perspectives of objects or environments. How do they move? What forces act upon them? How do they influence other elements? What relationships arise between dancers and materials? How do movers relate to the space around them, and what new movement qualities emerge when humans and matter interact? And finally: what impact does this have on the spectator?

Three sub-concepts: Co-existence, distributed agency, and co-creation

Within this ecodramaturgical framework, matter refers to both tangible and intangible elements, such as wind, sand, fabric, and grit. Rather than treating matter as passive scenery, I approach it as an active participant whose behavior influences a given choreographic context and shapes the unfolding of performance.

To articulate how the agency of matter operates in performance, I draw on a synthesis of ecological, New Materialist, and performance-theoretical perspectives. From this synthesis, I propose three interconnected sub-concepts – co-existence, distributed agency, and co-creation – to frame different facets of matter’s agential and performative capacities. These terms are not new in themselves, but I shape them in ways that support an ecodramaturgical analysis of how matter interacts, collaborates, and transforms within performance. Each sub-concept highlights a distinct aspect of relationality. In the analysis of my case studies, I foreground one sub-concept at a time, depending on the specific choreographic fragment under discussion. This does not mean the others disappear; rather, they may operate simultaneously or remain present in the background, contributing to the complexity and richness of the ecological performance ecology.

To briefly outline how these sub-concepts function:

Co-existence emphasizes matter as something that lives alongside the performer, influencing experience and partly determining dramaturgical focus. It shifts attention from human agency to the shared presence and influence of all entities involved. It considers how humans and matter exist in an ongoing relationship with their environment. Co-existence unfolds in real time and may stimulate responses from the dancers.

Distributed agency refers to the idea that agency is not confined to individual entities but emerges collectively within networks of relationships. I approach it as an emphasis on the interconnectedness of actors and their mutual influence within ecological systems. In dance performance, dancers and matter engage in processes that are sometimes deliberate and coordinated, as in choreographed movements, or emergent and spontaneous, as when chance encounters shape the performance. Distributed agency prompts direct, moment-by-moment responses from dancers as they attune to the shifting influences of both human and material actors.

Co-creation explores how human and non-human forces collaborate to produce choreography. It considers how matter and forces interact dynamically over time, shaping and being shaped by one another. It illuminates how diverse elements work collectively to generate outcomes greater than the sum of their parts. In dance performance, co-creation reimagines choreography as a mutual exchange between performers and materials, challenging conventional boundaries and inviting new ways of understanding collaboration.

Taken together, these three sub-concepts offer a framework for recognizing how matter operates as an active force within choreography. They not only help articulate the relational dynamics between human and non-human elements but also open new ways of reading performance through an ecological lens.

The choreographic force of matter in practice

Ecodramaturgy encourages us not to focus solely on who we are as dancers, but to shift our attention toward where we are and how we relate to human and non-human forces within our environment. By acknowledging matter as an active choreographic force, we shift away from representational approaches and open ourselves to the receptive and responsive capacities of the material world – to be affected and to affect. This requires a mode of attentiveness that attunes performers to the movements, resistances, and rhythms, and to the forces that act within the performative field.

In my research, I examined three performances in which matter played a decisive dramaturgical role. These case studies illustrate how wind, grit, sand, fabric, and other materials operate as agential participants rather than passive background elements. Across ULTRA (2023) by Nicola Galli, Vento (2020) by Groupe ZUR, and my own artistic research with MAE (2024), the sub-concepts of co-existence, distributed agency, and co-creation become visible in different configurations, revealing how matter shapes focus, movement, and meaning within an ecological performance ecology.

The contemporary dance performance ULTRA evokes an immersive atmosphere within the confines of a black box theater, featuring a scenography that suggests a post-apocalyptic landscape. Set in a dark space with black vinyl flooring, covered in a thick layer of black grit and illuminated by flickering lights, ULTRA portrays an ecosystem of organisms engaged in processes of connection, exchange, and transformation. The lights and incense smoke heighten the sense of immersion. The dancers’ physicality appears deeply connected to the landscape. At first, the grit partially conceals the dancers’ bodies, integrating them into the terrain. As their movements gradually evolve – initially constrained and close to the ground – the grit records their pathways through visible traces on the floor. Although true co-creation is not present in this performance, it is clearly suffused with co-existence, in which matter lives alongside the performers and shapes dramaturgical focus. Moments of distributed agency also surface, as movement emerges through reciprocal negotiation between dancers and the material ground.

In contrast to ULTRA’s highly staged environment, the artistic research dance project MAE unfolds in the dunes, where dancers improvise within a landscape they cannot control. Sand, wind, slope, and weather conditions constantly shift, requiring the dancers to respond moment by moment. The dancers leave traces in the sand, yet the sand’s textures and shifting surfaces equally shape their decisions, balance, and phrasing. Here, matter is not a backdrop but an unstable collaborator, generating a field of action that cannot be rehearsed in a studio. The dancers engage with matter in an emergent and spontaneous way, shifting between set choreography and improvisation while continually responding to the matter and situation. MAE therefore exemplifies distributed agency, in which dancers, sand, and wind collectively produce movement. At the same time, it retains co-existence, as the dunes frame a shared environment in continuous transformation.

Lastly, the interdisciplinary performance Vento most clearly demonstrates the full force of matter’s agency. Vento explores wind as both a natural phenomenon and a performative agent. The performance combines live music, dance, movement theatre, and theatrical tools such as projections, lighting, wind machines, and fabric to embody the essence of wind. Performed outdoors, the piece treats wind not as an effect but as a co-performer whose presence continually reshapes the choreography. From playful breezes moving fabric to forceful gusts disrupting performers’ intentions, wind becomes a generative, unpredictable partner. Light, projections, cloth, and weather interact with human bodies to form shifting assemblages in which no single element dominates.

The porous boundary between performance space and surroundings is enhanced by unplanned natural sounds such as croaking frogs or rustling trees that merge with the designed soundscapes. It is as if the “outside” seeps in. This intermingling evokes Una Chaudhuri’s notion of the “fifth wall” (Chaudhuri 2016), where the natural world infiltrates the performance space, dissolving conventional theatrical boundaries.

In Vento, co-creation comes to the forefront, as materials, wind, and performers collaboratively produce movement that none could generate alone. Co-existence emerges as a shared experience within a continuously shifting environment, and distributed agency unfolds through the unpredictable and constant motion of weathering forces.

In summary, across these three case studies, matter presents itself not as a passive backdrop but as an active, relational force. Together, these works highlight how the notions of co-existence, distributed agency and co-creation expand our understanding of choreography as an ecology in which human and non-human elements jointly shape performance.

Conclusion: Reflections on ecodramaturgy and the agency of matter

The agency of matter as an ecodramaturgical tool can challenge anthropocentrism. Equally important to analyzing its potential is recognizing its limitations. It is difficult to fully escape anthropocentric perspectives, as humans inevitably perceive, interpret, and make meaning through human-centered experience. This raises questions about the extent to which it is possible to engage matter in a truly non-anthropocentric way, and what conditions would be necessary to achieve such a perspective. I acknowledge that while the aim may be to decentralize the human perspective, a total removal of human-centric viewpoints may be impractical or even undesirable. From a broader perspective, humans ultimately remain responsible actors within ecological crises, and ecological thinking must also emerge from within human accountability. Ultimately, we must start taking responsibility and action from within ourselves – as human beings.

Furthermore, it is worth recognizing that ecological, reciprocal, and regenerative cultural practices are not new. Indigenous knowledge systems have long embodied relational forms of engagement that align closely with ecological thinking. In contrast, theater, dance, and performance in Western contexts are often embedded in a capitalist framework in which the exploitation and exhaustion of people and natural resources are inherently present. This raises the question of whether performance can ever truly become a shared or regenerative experience if our capitalist system remains unchanged.

Yet, within these complexities, I believe that ecodramaturgy and the notion of matter’s agency can shift how we perceive dance, performance, and their broader implications. It may not dismantle anthropocentrism entirely, but it can bring awareness and invite us into more attentive, responsive, and humble ways of relating. By acknowledging matter as a choreographic force, we move away from representational approaches and open ourselves to the receptive and responsive capacities of the material world – to be affected and to affect. It reminds us that we are part of a larger web of life and that action is always relational. In this sense, the choreographic force of matter is not merely an artistic proposition but an ecological orientation: one that calls for curiosity, responsiveness, and care as we move within a climate-changed world.

References

Arons, Wendy, and Theresa J. May. 2012. “Introduction.” In Readings in Performance and Ecology, edited by Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May, 1–7. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Barad, Karen. 2006. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Bennett, Jane. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

Chaudhuri, Una. 2015. “Anthropo-Scenes: Theater and Climate Change.” Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 3(1): 12–27.

Chaudhuri, Una. 2016. “The Fifth Wall: Climate Change Dramaturgy.” HowlRound, April 17, 2016. howlround.com/fifth-wall.

May, Theresa J. 2024. “What Is Ecodramaturgy?” Theresa J. May Artist/Activist/Scholar. Accessed June 30, 2024. theresajmay.com/about/ecodramaturgy.

Woynarski, Lisa. 2020. Ecodramaturgies: Theatre, Performance and Climate Change. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Case studies

MAE (2024) artistic research by Maedy de Miranda and MAE Eco Dance Collective. [Alkmaar & Schoorl, the Netherlands, March, 2025.]

ULTRA (2023) by Nicola Galli. [Teatro Comunale Città di Vicenza, Italia, March 16, 2024.]

Vento (2020) by Groupe ZUR. [Oerol Festival, Terschelling, the Netherlands, June 11, 2024.]