Animals in socially engaged performance practice: becomings on the edges of extinction

In this article, I am interested in exploring forms of animal–human interactions in performance contexts that highlight the relationship between the personal and the social with the animal acting as a mediator. I want to look at practices that have an emphasis on aiding individuals and communities at a particular difficult impasse in their lives and that are clearly associated with a recognizable and established community project. For this, I explore two instances of socially turned performance practice in which animals are presented as vessels of wisdom. Marcus Coates’ Journey to the Lower World and Felicity Barrow’s Mystic Chic position the animal as the expert in contexts where humans are experiencing radical shifts in their environment that imply loss and disappearance. The works provide an opportunity to investigate the articulation of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming-animal’ in the context of socially turned performance, as well as a chance to rethink the role of animals and humans in processes of extinction.