Society for Cultural Anthropology

Oral Presentation Session

Indigenous Resistance to the Anthropocene through a Multispecies Performance Practice

Presenter(s)

• 

  Ryan Koons

  Maryland Folklife Archives

The Anthropocene proposed geologic age reflects human industry that, in an attempt to conquer nature, has equaled or surpassed the processes of geology and become a major source of global destruction. The age is entangled with colonial structures, especially in colonial nation-states like the United States. This paper contextualizes that entanglement in a case study of ritual performance practice at Tvlwv Pvlvcekolv, a Muskogee Creek Tribal Town in the Southeast of North America. Pvlvcekolv's ceremonial music and dance often derive from the habits of local ecological kin, like plants and animals: a multispecies performance practice. The Harvest Dance, for example, follows the life cycles of plants and features choreographic tendrils, leaves, and growth. Examining this dance, this paper demonstrates how members of Pvlvcekolv resist the Anthropocene by maintaining relationships with ecological kin through performance.