Feeling and Falling at the End-Times: Rituals of impending collapse

What affective resources can performance offer for addressing a post-apocalyptic predicament, and how can it help explore modes of being and feeling beyond hope? This article engages with these questions by examining Simple Action, a participatory dance performance by Yasmeen Godder Dance Company (2016). Described by Godder as an ‘alternative contemporary ritual’, Simple Action is built around a single set of actions repeated throughout the work: the performers approach members of the audience seated around the dance floor, invite them to give their body weight to them, and support them in their slow and gentle fall to the ground. Inspired by Stabat Mater, the work foregrounds the performance of shared vulnerability and care as a timely alternative to uplifting ideals of agency. In my analysis, I juxtapose Godder’s work with the post-apocalyptic rituals developed by contemporary climate movements, showing how it resonates with a mood of helplessness and obstruction by pre-enacting collapse as a corporeal and interdependent experience. By bringing Simple Action into dialogue with feminist thinkers such as Adriana Cavarero, Bonnie Honig, and Lisa Baraitser, I argue that rather than steering us away from politics, the work’s focus on humility and relationality traces pathways for the reinventing the political on a minor scale and adapting it to catastrophic times.