Angenette Spalink is a scholar and practitioner who studies the intersections of performance, dance, and ecology, focusing on performances and performance-making techniques that implement dirt, plants, and fungi. Her book, Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene (2024), considers dirt as a “multispecies community” that is teeming with life. The monograph examines case studies illuminating dirt’s performance and performativity within modernist and contemporary drama, performance, and dance, tracking the geographical, biological, and cultural meanings embedded within the materiality of dirt. By demonstrating the stakes of choreographing dirt, the book positions performance as a critical space to grapple with the multifaceted ecological dilemmas of our current era. Her research has been published in Theatre Journal, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, The International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, Modern Drama, and Theatre Annual. She also co-edited the Performance Research issue, “On Dark Ecologies.”
Spalink teaches a range of history, theory, and practice-based courses in theatre, performance, and dance studies. Her ecocritical performance and movement research inform her approach to teaching performance as both subject and method. She loves working with students to create innovative high impact projects that incorporate performance as research. Her creative practice includes work as a choreographer, movement director, deviser, and performer. She earned her PhD in Theatre, with a Graduate Certificate in Performance Studies, from Bowling Green State University.