The Corporeal Kindness of Adrian Howell’s The Pleasure of Being.

Flisher, Mark ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8056-0320 The Corporeal Kindness of Adrian Howell’s The Pleasure of Being. In: The Routledge Companion for Bodies in Performance. Routledge, Abingdon. (Submitted)

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Abstract

This chapter explores the concept of corporeal kindness as demonstrated in Adrian Howells's one-to-one performance, The Pleasure of Being: Washing, Feeding, Holding (2010), where participants are invited to surrender themselves to Howells's 'total care.' Drawing upon my encounters with this performance and framing them through the lens of kindness, the primary aim of this piece is two-fold: to address the concept of care ascribed to the work, and to consider Howells's claim that care was not reciprocated by the participant. I argue that, given the performance's time constraints, it was not feasible for me, as the participant, to engage in a reciprocal care dynamic. Not only does care have to be planned for, but it is a relational activity where the caregiver and receiver work together to maintain the caring environment. Instead, I propose that in the negotiation of my somatic experiences for the betterment of Howells, I engage with corporeal kindness, which can be reciprocated by the artists, and which sits alongside Howell’s care practice.

Corporeal kindness is defined as a negotiation that involves the drives, desires, and sensory aspects of one's body. These experiences are inherently ambiguous and resist easy categorisation, even by the individuals who undergo them. Therefore, unlike care, despite it being for the betterment of the other, corporeal kindness does not have to be recognised by the receiver. In embracing corporeal kindness, I found myself in an intimate space of embodied entanglement with Howells, where bodies are attuned to one another, and the potentialities of these interactions are embraced. In this context, the co-authorship inherent in The Pleasure of Being transcends the structural or political aspects of the work. Instead, Howells and I co-authored my understanding of self by drawing upon our corporeal depths.

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