Horizonal futures - Reflecting on future through contemporary performances

Abstract

This thesis examines contemporary performances through a lens of queer futurity. The term ‘queer futurity’ originates primarily from José Muñoz’s book Cruising Utopia: The then and there of queer futurity, in which he argues that the present is not yet queer, in this way positioning queerness as an ideality that can only exist in the future. The lens consists of a selection of four concepts that keep recurring in Muñoz' discourse: temporality – potentiality – disidentification – rejecting heteronormative logics. Whereas Muñoz turned to queer cultural works from around the 1960’s to discuss queer futurity, this thesis looks at contemporary performances that are not labelled as queer works: 8: Metamorphosis by Nicole Beutler Projects (2019) & Swan Lake The Game by Club Guy and Roni (2020). The motive to look at performances that do not primarily identify as queer is related to the way the word 'queer' is used in this thesis: taken out of the realm of gender and sexuality and considering it as a rejection of clear-cut categories and binary modes of thinking. Deploying the lens of queer futurity in non-queer performances provides an opportunity to focus on those elements within the performance that reject the categorised, binary thinking of the present time and open up to other modes of existence. The lens of queer futurity highlights how these performances reject the here and now and offer invitations to reflect on the future.