The Antidote: theorising recovery engaged theatre-making as a process of affective attunement and agonistic activism.

Reflecting on The Antidote, created with performers in recovery from addiction, this paper theorises theatre-making practice that attends to being as formed through affective and emotive relation with others, including the non-human. It suggests that theatrical activity generates spaces, or liminal milieus, that facilitate new patterns of connection with others and, therefore, supports growth in recovery identity. Adapting Manning's (Manning, Erin. 2013. Always More than One: Individuation's Dance. Durham: Duke University Press) discussion of milieu, it examines how bodily attunement during theatre-making with people in recovery generated a recovery-engaged milieu. Acknowledging the antagonistic dimension of relation, it demonstrates how conflict and difference were embraced as a form of agonistic (Mouffe, Chantal. 2013. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. London: Verso) activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]