1 © The Author(s) 2020 C. Philpott et al. (eds.), Performing Ice, Performing Landscapes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47388-4_1 Performing Ice: Histories, Theories, Contexts Elizabeth Leane, Carolyn Philpott, and Matt Delbridge Ice has long shaped our planet. Many of the landscape features we see today are the result of its actions over thousands or millions of years. This has long been known; but in the Anthropocene we understand that, through our production of greenhouse gases, humans also shape ice—not the ice in trays in our refrigerators, but the glaciers that produce our rivers, the sea ice that impacts our ocean currents and the enormous ice shelves that hold the vast majority of our planet’s freshwater. While humans have always encountered and interacted with ice, understanding this relation- ship has taken on a new urgency in the twenty-frst century. E. Leane (*) School of Humanities, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia e-mail: Elizabeth.leane@utas.edu.au C. Philpott Conservatorium of Music and Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia e-mail: Carolyn.philpott@utas.edu.au M. Delbridge School of Communications and Creative Arts, Deakin University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia e-mail: matthew.delbridge@deakin.edu.au