Going Feral: Queerly De-Domesticating the Institution (and Running Wild)

Abstract

This chapter is written from the position of the queer-identifying theatre practitioner-scholar and interrogates their relationship to the institutions of theatre, funding bodies, festivals and the academy. The queer-identified artist, like the queer-identified researcher, is always functioning in a deeply ambivalent position. What does it mean, when one of the fundamental principles of queer is that it sets itself up against what is normative, for this queer-identified person to exist within, be paid or salaried within, or seek approval from, one or more of these institutions? What happens to (their) queerness? The parallels between theatre and the academy are close and multiple; I sugge..