Performing Farmscapes

320 Pages·2021·8.5 MB·English

by  Susan C. Haedicke

PERFORMING LANDSCAPES
Performing Farmscapes
Susan C. Haedicke
Performing Landscapes
Series Editors
Deirdre Heddon, Theatre Studies, School of Culture and Creative Arts,
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Sally Mackey, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama,
London, UK
PerformingLandscapesoffersacriticalstudyofgenericandcomplexsites
for performance, including forests, ruins, rivers, home, fields, islands and
mountains. Distinctive to this series is that such landscape figures will be
located both on and off the theatrical stage, approached as both mate-
rial and representational grounds for performance-led analyses. With its
unique focus on particular and singular sites, Performing Landscapes will
develop in novel ways the debates concerning performance’s multiple
relations to environment, ecology and global concerns.
Editorial Board
Professor Stephen Bottoms (University of Manchester)
Professor Una Chaudhuri (New York University)
Dr. Wallace Heim (independent scholar)
Professor Carl Lavery (University of Glasgow)
Professor Theresa J May (University of Oregon)
Dr. Paul Rae (University of Melbourne)
Professor Joanne Tomkins (University of Queensland)
More information about this series at
https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14557
Susan C. Haedicke
Performing
Farmscapes
Susan C. Haedicke
Department of Theatre and Performance Studies
University of Warwick
Coventry, UK
Performing Landscapes
ISBN 978-3-030-82433-4 ISBN 978-3-030-82434-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82434-1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
namesareexemptfromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreefor
general use.
Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinforma-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeen
made.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmaps
and institutional affiliations.
Cover credit: A Field of Wheat: Arts and Agricultural Project. Branston Booths,
Lincolnshire, England. September 2016
Performer: Anne-Marie Culhane
Photographer: Nathan Gibson
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Series Editors Preface
’
The Performing Landscapes series provides an international platform for
the first comprehensive critical study of generic but complex sites of
performancelandscapes,locatedonandoffthetheatricalstageandwithin
and beyond the frame of cultural performance practices.
Acknowledgingandengagingwiththenature-culturedynamicsalways
already at play in any concept of and approach to ‘landscape’, authors’
original research and innovative methods explore how landscapes—such
as mountains, ruins, gardens, ice, forests and islands—are encountered,
represented, contested, materialised and made sense of through and in
performance. Studies of singular landscape environments, experienced
fromnearandafar,offeruprigoroushistorical,culturalandcriticaldiscus-
sionandanalysisthroughthedynamicandinterdisciplinarylensofperfor-
mance. In the context of the twenty-first century climate changes the
series also directs attention to performance’s diverse contributions to
environmental debates.
Performing Landscapes aims to understand better how specific land-
scape locations function as sites of and for performance and what perfor-
mance practice and analyses does to and for our understanding of, and
engagement with, landscapes.
Professor Deirdre Heddon
University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
Professor Sally Mackey
The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama
University of London, London, UK
v
Acknowledgements
Manypeoplemadethisbookpossiblefromtheartistswhoseworkinspired
meandaudienceswhoenjoyeditalongsidemetoscholarsandcolleagues
who critiqued my ideas and made valuable suggestions. A very special
thank you goes to Kristen Oshyn, the artist whose evocative pen and
ink drawings bring a unique resonance to the book. I am also especially
grateful to the many artists who generously shared stories, photographs
and unpublished plays with me for this book, who willingly answered my
questionsininterviewsandbyemailandwhosometimesreaddraftsofthe
sections of the book on their performances to check for accuracy or add
special information: Tess Ellison and members of the community cast at
TheatrebytheLake(TheShepherd’sLife),FfionJones(TheOnlyPlacesWe
EverKnew andOdetoPerdurance/AwdlAmser),RuthLeveneandAnne-
Marie Culhane (A Field of Wheat), Mike Pearson (Carrlands), Mary
Swander (Farmscape and Map of My Kingdom), Octavio Solis (Alicia’s
Miracle) and Louise Anne Wilson (The Gathering/Yr Helfa). I want to
thank Sarah Harper, artist and close friend, with whom I have collab-
orated numerous times, for always finding the ‘wild card’—that unex-
pected‘bit’thatmakesherartsooriginal.ThankyoualsototheCoalition
of Immokalee Workers for their incredible work in transforming migrant
farmscapesthatIdiscussinthebook,butalsoforthetimetheyhavetaken
to give me interviews, find information and photographs, and answer
questions, with special thanks to Greg Asbed, Marley Monacello, Julia
Perkins and Nely Rodriguez. My heart-felt thanks to all the women in
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
UK agriculture who gave interviews and tours of their farms for Who’s
DrivingtheTractor?,aPaRprojectIcreatedwithSarahHarper,aspartof
the research for this book: Susannah Bolton (AHDB), Ali Capper (NFU
and Stocks Farm), Rosemary Collier (Warwick Crop Centre), Caroline
Drummond and Alice Midmer (LEAF), Emma Hamer (NFU and Mead-
owsweet Farm), Charlotte Hollins (Fordhall Farm), Sarah Pettitt and
Freida Pettitt (Franklyn Farm), Marion Regan (Hugh Lowe Farms) and
Becca Stevenson and Hannah Norman (Five-Acre Farm). I would like to
thank my friend and colleague Baz Kershaw for our numerous conversa-
tionsthatchallengedandinspiredmeandforourcollaborationonPrairie
Meanders in Iowa, an offshoot of his Meadow Meanders. A discussion
of Prairie Meanders did not make it into the book, but its practice-as-
research methodologies and thought experiments certainly did. I would
also like give a special thank you to friends and colleagues at Univer-
sity of Warwick who encouraged me over the years of writing the book:
Yvette Hutchison, who was always there for thrashing out ideas or just
sharing laughter, Tim White who has been a great friend for well over a
decade and has solved so many of my computer woes, Nicolas Whybrow
wholistenedtomyideasandhelpedmesecureinternalfundingforWho’s
DrivingtheTractor?,SilvijaJestrovicandBobbySmithforournumerous
conversations that challenged and inspired me and who gave up precious
time to read drafts of chapters, Nadine Holdsworth for her wise counsel
and Rosemary Collier in Life Sciences who helped me understand the
agricultural side of the story. I would also like to thank Deirdre Heddon
and Sally Mackey, the editors of the series in which the book appears,
for their strong support, excellent editorial advice, faith in my work and
encouraging comments. I am so grateful for their insights and challenges
that certainly improved the book.
Onamorepersonalnote,Iwanttoacknowledgetheamazingloveand
encouragement from my family without whom this book may never have
been completed. My sons and their partners all supported the project in
their special ways: discussing ideas and images, commenting on the art-
work,sometimesevenreadingdraftsandalwaysofferingreassurancesthat
I would finish. I also want to thank David who has been by my side for
manyyearsandwhosepatiencesustainedme.MysisterSallyandmydear
friend and almost sister, Patricia, need special acknowledgements as they
alwaysstandbymyside.Andaveryspecial‘thankyou’needstogotomy
first grandchild Torunn, who, although we lived eight time zones apart
during the writing of the book, made sure that we ‘played’ almost every
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix
day once the pandemic changed our lives. Even though we could only
meet on a screen, we cooked together, read, worked on art projects and
celebrated ‘dress up’ days. And last but not least, I want to welcome the
newest members to the family, Olivia, Margot, Alisair and Eleanor whose
laughter and energy never cease to delight and inspire me.
Praise for PerformingFarmscapes
“As agricultural subsidies disappear and pressures for adaptation in land
usage mount, as food security and sustainability become key global
issues, Performing Farmscapes is a timely and important reflection on
human agency and its impacts in rural contexts, on contemporary resis-
tances to its excesses, and on visions for recovering productive, agricul-
tural landscapes—on the ground, in and through creative narratives and
interventionist performances.”
—Mike Pearson, Professor Emeritus, Aberystwyth University, Honorary
Professor, Exeter University
“Fewer and fewer of us know how our food is produced, of the chal-
lenges farmers face, and about the impact of food production on nature.
Performing Farmscapes creatively interprets the considerable value of
performance as a means of raising our awareness of these issues and of
highlightingtheinfluencethatwe,asfoodcitizens,canhavethroughthe
choices we make.”
—Professor Rosemary Collier in Life Sciences, University of Warwick
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