MOVING WITH CATS

Publication Date

1-1-2024

Document Type

Contribution to a Book

Publication Title

Geographies of Us: Ecosomatic Essays and Practice Pages

DOI

10.4324/9781003390985-11

First Page

158

Last Page

182

Abstract

In this set of practice pages, Shannon Rose Riley dialogues with David Wood's classic essay, “Thinking with Cats,” by means of performance as research, phenomenology, and ecosomatics, in order to ask what else might be learned or learned differently-by moving with cats. This chapter offers two situated responses to this question-one in the context of a performance art piece at Month of Performance Art-Berlin and the other in the context of a somatic movement session in a private multispecies dwelling in Northern California. In each scenario, Riley engages “embodied perceptual practices” and “matching” as somatic strategies in order to ultimately argue for an intra-species affective attunement. The chapter concludes with some reflections on what is at stake in this work as well as with suggestions on how the reader may safely and respectfully begin to incorporate or invite moving with cats, or perhaps other critters, into their ecosomatic practice.

Department

Humanities

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