Crude Optimism: Romanticizing Alberta’s Oil Frontier at the Calgary Stampede

Kimberly Skye Richards is a PhD Candidate in Performance Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. Her dissertation, “Crude Stages of the Capitalocene: Performance and Petro-Imperialism” examines a range of performance practices on oil frontiers in which petropolitics are negotiated, extractive ideologies are staged, and theatrical tactics are deployed to impede the expansion of petro-imperialism. She has published in Theatre Journal, TDR, Room One Thousand, and the collection Sustainable Tools for Precarious Times: Performance Actions in the Americas (edited by Natalie Alvarez, Keren Zaiontz, and Claudette Lauzon; Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). She is coediting an upcoming special issue of Canadian Theatre Review on “Extractivism in Canadian Performance Cultures.” [email protected]