Theatre and Eco-criticism

A paper delivered at the River Dialogues symposium at the University of Leeds on 31st May 2019. It takes two plays from my forthcoming monograph, Performing Mountains, and using ideas from eco-criticism expands the critical context beyond mountain studies and into rivers.

Dilip Purshottam Chitre is a modern Indian English poet of great repute, who has penned various poems and has won several literary awards. The poet, in him, came out in early when he was a lad of mere fourteen. " Travelling In Cage" a collection of his poems, is his best known works in English. His poem " The Felling of the Banyan Tree" shows his excessive interest in ecology and his feeling for nature. In this paper, I would like to point out the close relation between Ecology and literature. Instead of plunging directly on the poem with eco-critical point of view, let me explain eco-criticism and its main concerns. The first part of my essay consists of introduction to eco-criticism, the second part deals with the poem from eco-critical point of view and The last part shows a brief comparison between Dilip Chitre's " The Felling Of The Banyan Tree ", Emily Dickinson's " A Bird Came Down The walk " and Robert Frost' s" Nothing gold can stay" with eco-point of view.

This paper outlines the development of the field of performance and ecology stemming from performance studies, theatre studies and ecocriticism. It introduces some of key concepts, tensions and approaches within the field. I consider its development to its current context within the academy and identify some the key texts at the intersection of performance and ecology.

Dilip Purshottam Chitre is a modern Indian English poet of great repute, who has penned various poems and has won several literary awards. The poet, in him, came out in early when he was a lad of mere fourteen. " Travelling In Cage" a collection of his poems, is his best known works in English. His poem " The Felling of the Banyan Tree" shows his excessive interest in ecology and his feeling for nature. In this paper, I would like to point out the close relation between Ecology and literature. Instead of plunging directly on the poem with eco-critical point of view, let me explain eco-criticism and its main concerns. The first part of my essay consists of introduction to eco-criticism, the second part deals with the poem from eco-critical point of view and The last part shows a brief comparison between Dilip Chitre's " The Felling Of The Banyan Tree ", Emily Dickinson's " A Bird Came Down The walk " and Robert Frost' s" Nothing gold can stay" with eco-point of view.

Illustrating how Merleau-Ponty’s enigmatic phenomenology lends itself beautifully to both theatrical and ecological analysis, this essay examines how his work heralds a call to engage with our world on an embodied, improvisatory level. Exploratory improvisation and Merleau- Ponty’s phenomenology mitigate notions of distance into a causal relationship towards (re)engaging wholeness, by inviting the sensuous intimacies of interaction: with ourselves, with each other, with earth.... in distance, in proximity. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology must be embodied and experienced with a consciousness, an alertness and perceptive awareness of the act of engagement. The call to action by Merleau-Ponty begets an improvisatory eco- theatre; however it is not a move towards environmental activism. This paper illustrates how improvisation is a means to experientially make clear this delineation, which is crucial to overcome the dichotomies of separation and otherness that have been so entrenched in the Western world. Re-engaging our sensitivity of improvising as tool for survival, in a world where our sensitivities are all too often socially-placated and dulled is where the work of Merleau-Ponty and where theatre can be an active tool for re-imagining a future, our future. Merleau-Ponty’s eco-theatre is holistic, is inclusive and is most definitely a form of activism (or act-of-vision): a phenomenology that, properly and fully grasped, can be embodied through a ‘theatrical’ practice, specifically through exploratory improvisation.

Invited Keynote Speaker, “Jumping Scales in Performance Studies: thinking through the nature-culture Divide,” Greening the Future of Live Performance, Public Arts Initiative on Performance and Ecology, School of Drama, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, 26 March 2009
https://www.cmu.edu/cas/events/2008-09/spring/greening-performance.html

A performer's poems: written from the precarious and fragile, evocative alchemistic moments that butoh (re)presented for me…on this day, in and for that moment. Penned immediately following three consecutive day, outdoor events, these words capture my body-as-participant in Kokoro Dance's 19th Annual Wreck Beach performances, Vancouver, Canada (July 2014). The poems chart the subtle fluidity and changing landscape – internally/externally – of each fresh performance. Performing in the waters of British Columbia's west coast was particularly resonant following the Fukushima disaster (directly relating 'our' butoh back to its origins as a response to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) – and these poems capture in their essence one woman's quest to understand and relate to the built and the meltdown of 'environment' through a somat-ically, embodied ecological perspective. Embedded and woven through these lines are references specific to choreographic elements of the piece, the location, the timing and/or local Indigenous Musqueam legends….from the Argentina vs. Germany World cup, to the sand dunes, to Xe-ls, the Creator… their imbrication enlivens the congruency of what was birthed on the beach, and the particulars are designed to conflate our understanding of the potency (and urgency) demanded of our/this place and time. My poetry is movement, simultaneously holding within its lexicon a tension between understanding, applicability, the local and the universal. My poetry is a butoh dance open to your interpretation. I offer it as a gift….

On Ensayos, a curatorial platform and collective research practice initiated in Tierra del Fuego in 2010.
The interlacing of these words –curious, care, cure- is perhaps the best way to describe the research and residency program Ensayos that takes place in Tierra del Fuego, Chile, since 2011...

Attempts to convey the urgency of the climate crisis often rely on the figure of the child. From Greta Thunberg via school-striking students to the grandchildren invoked in the titles of bestselling books about global warming, appearances of children seem especially effective in protesting the loss of a habitable planet. The iconic child that needs saving (or becomes the planet’s saviour) is equally prominent in British plays about climate change. Drawing on queer critiques of the conceptual short circuit between the child and the future, this article identifies two waves of UK eco-theatre: the first wave endorses hetero-nuclear family bonds and future-oriented thinking; the second wave traces alternative relations to nonhuman, ageing, or ailing Others in the present. The first part of the article revisits critiques of reproductive futurism; the second examines the straight ecologies that characterise the first wave of eco-theatre, based on a detailed analysis of Duncan Macmillan’s play Lungs (Studio Theatre, Washington, DC/Sheffield Crucible, 2011). The final part considers climate-change plays that sever reproductive timelines, as exemplified by Caryl Churchill’s Escaped Alone, Lucy Kirkwood’s The Children, and Stef Smith’s Human Animals (all Royal Court, 2016).

This week on HowlRound, we continue our exploration of Theatre in the Age of Climate Change begun a year ago in honor of Earth Week 2016. How does our work re ect on, and respond to, the challenges brought on by a warming climate? How can we participate in the global conversation about what the future should look like, and do so in a way that is both inspiring and artistically rewarding? NYU professor Una Chaudhuri is one of the great thinkers on eco-theatre. I met her only a year ago but her warmth and generosity make me feel like I have known her for a long time. Her ideas constantly help shape my own.-Chantal Bilodeau ESSAY BY UNA CHAUDHURI

The felicities of nature are bountiful but the basket of man is rather constricted, owing to the profiteering mindset of mankind. Essentially humans are inclined towards loving but when we tend to humanize nature there theeruption of desires starts crowning. In the history of human evolution there are numerous cases of humanly exploitation of nature and it's tacit undermining of natural resources. Literature had always been true to the projection of life be it in conundrum of civilized cities or the pristine life in jungle. So as with The Jungle Book (2016) directed by John Favreau based on the classic work of children's literature i.e. Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book (1894). This paper aims to deal with the projective analysis of the movie from ecocritical vision further elucidated with emerging biocritical approach of human in terms of their relationship with nature.

Este artículo aborda nuevos enfoques al género de la novela en el siglo XXI. Al inicio sustenta que incluso los críticos contemporáneos más vanguardistas de finales del siglo XX e inicios del XXI, comparten una característica fundamental: un referente en lo que se identificó como “close reading” en el mundo académico angloamericano y “analyse de texte” en francés. Después de numerosas declaraciones en las últimas décadas sobre la muerte de la novela, del autor y de la crítica literaria, resulta evidente que la novela como género ha sobrevivido, los autores siguen siendo tema de estudio y nuevos enfoques son posibles. El estudio del trauma en la ficción (como lo introdujeron Cathy Caruth y David Aberbach), así como la eco-crítica, prometen nuevos puntos de partida. La necesaria “close Reading” requerida por Twitter también abre
nuevas posibilidades.

[ENGLISH BELOW]

Tekst dotyczy działalności Pracowni Ekologii Teatru przy Wydziale „Artes Liberales” Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, w tym: jej otwarcia, przedsięwzięć i zajęć. Pracownią kieruje Włodzimierz Staniewski – założyciel i dyrektor Europejskiego Ośrodka Praktyk Teatralnych „Gardzienice”. Autor niniejszego artykułu brał udział w prowadzonych przez Staniewskiego warsztatach pod nazwą Ekologia teatru, które zaowocowały stworzeniem tzw. „eseju scenicznego”. Finałowe widowisko składało się z prac studentów na temat łacińskiej powieści Metamorfozy albo Złoty osioł autorstwa Apulejusza z Madaury. „Esej sceniczny” z muzyką skomponowaną przez Jana Lecha (uczestnika zajęć), pod naukową i artystyczną opieką Włodzimierza Staniewskiego, miał premierę w październiku 2016 roku w Gardzienicach. Stanowił serię krótkich, luźno powiązanych ze sobą etiud teatralnych, przygotowanych przez studentów „artes liberales” u boku gardzienickich aktorów. W roku 2017 spektakl ewoluował. Studenci stworzyli z niego spójną całość, której oś tematyczna została oparta na eseju Wiktora Uhliga o kobiecych postaciach w Metamorfozach. Wątki poboczne dotyczyły m.in. znaczenia motywu osła w kulturze i kulturowych odniesień w powieści Apulejusza. W tym kształcie Esej sceniczny o złotym ośle, kobietach i pragnieniu został wystawiony podczas konferencji „Kontekstów” w Zakopanem.

The paper concerns the work of Theatre Ecology Workspace in the Faculty of ‘Artes Liberales’ (University of Warsaw), including its opening, projects and classes. The Head of Workspace is Włodzimierz Staniewski, the founder and director of The European Centre for Theatre Practices in Gardzienice. The author of the article participated in Staniewski’s course called ‘Ecology of the Theater’ which resulted in a ‘stage essay’. The final performance consisted of students’ works on Apuleius’ novel ‘Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass’. The ‘stage essay’ with music by Jan Lech (a participant in the class), under the scientific and artistic supervision of Włodzimierz Staniewski, was premiered in October 2016 in Gardzienice. It was a set of short pieces performed by ‘artes liberales’ students and Gardzienice actors. In 2017, it was developed by the students and formed a coherent whole. A central theme of the play has been based on Uhlig’s essay about female characters in ‘Metamorphoses’. A subplot concerned such topics as the cultural significance of donkey and cultural references in Apuleius’ novel. In this version ‘The Golden Ass’ was staged at the ‘Konteksty’ conference in Zakopane.

[ENGLISH BELOW] Tekst dotyczy działalności Pracowni Ekologii Teatru przy Wydziale „Artes Liberales” Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, w tym: jej otwarcia, przedsięwzięć i zajęć. Pracownią kieruje Włodzimierz Staniewski – założyciel i dyrektor Europejskiego Ośrodka Praktyk Teatralnych „Gardzienice”. Autor niniejszego artykułu brał udział w prowadzonych przez Staniewskiego warsztatach pod nazwą Ekologia teatru, które zaowocowały stworzeniem tzw. „eseju scenicznego”. Finałowe widowisko składało się z prac studentów na temat łacińskiej powieści Metamorfozy albo Złoty osioł autorstwa Apulejusza z Madaury. „Esej sceniczny” z muzyką skomponowaną przez Jana Lecha (uczestnika zajęć), pod naukową i artystyczną opieką Włodzimierza Staniewskiego, miał premierę w październiku 2016 roku w Gardzienicach. Stanowił serię krótkich, luźno powiązanych ze sobą etiud teatralnych, przygotowanych przez studentów „artes liberales” u boku gardzienickich aktorów. W roku 2017 spektakl ewoluował. Studenci stworzyli z niego spójną całość, której oś tematyczna została oparta na eseju Wiktora Uhliga o kobiecych postaciach w Metamorfozach. Wątki poboczne dotyczyły m.in. znaczenia motywu osła w kulturze i kulturowych odniesień w powieści Apulejusza. W tym kształcie Esej sceniczny o złotym ośle, kobietach i pragnieniu został wystawiony podczas konferencji „Kontekstów” w Zakopanem. The paper concerns the work of Theatre Ecology Workspace in the Faculty of ‘Artes Liberales’ (University of Warsaw), including its opening, projects and classes. The Head of Workspace is Włodzimierz Staniewski, the founder and director of The European Centre for Theatre Practices in Gardzienice. The author of the article participated in Staniewski’s course called ‘Ecology of the Theater’ which resulted in a ‘stage essay’. The final performance consisted of students’ works on Apuleius’ novel ‘Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass’. The ‘stage essay’ with music by Jan Lech (a participant in the class), under the scientific and artistic supervision of Włodzimierz Staniewski, was premiered in October 2016 in Gardzienice. It was a set of short pieces performed by ‘artes liberales’ students and Gardzienice actors. In 2017, it was developed by the students and formed a coherent whole. A central theme of the play has been based on Uhlig’s essay about female characters in ‘Metamorphoses’. A subplot concerned such topics as the cultural significance of donkey and cultural references in Apuleius’ novel. In this version ‘The Golden Ass’ was staged at the ‘Konteksty’ conference in Zakopane.

Abstract: Performing the Ecology of Place: Embodying an Eco-Cultural 'Living History' on Lasqueti Island/Xwe'etay[i] involved the creation of a one-time cross-generational, outdoor, community performance event that endeavored to allow for a deeper understanding of the relationships locals held with the place and culture in existence on the unique ‘off-the-grid’ island of Lasqueti/Xwe'etay, in the area now recognized by many as British Columbia, Canada.

I had the honour to guest-edit a special-themed journal issue for the CSPA (Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts) titled 'dis/sustain/ability'...I include here the short introductory editorial I wrote...the full issue is available here: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1374151

ABSTRACT Steve Waters has suggested that climate change can be understood through the optic of classical tragedy. Building on Waters's interpretative frame, then, this article asserts that British society – a protagonist in the environmental drama – has authored its own ...