Climate Odyssey theater project

The whole adventure started back in 2017 when Sara Dal Corso and I, developed the idea of a community theater project on climate change. After two years of applying for funding, we could finally start in the beginning of 2019. Over a 3,5-months period we engaged 15 project participants in weekly interactive art-&-science workshops. Inspirations were endangered species, climate fiction, historic events, utopian visions and many others. From these inspirations small performances started to crystallize and the play was created. The public performance took place at Festival de Telheiras, Lisbon, 26 May 2019. We had three sold out shows! To us it was moving, special and inspirational. It showed the power of community and the importance of meaning-making to create climate action. 

This art-and-science project explores embodied and performative practices and their potential for climate change transformations. It argues for an integrative approach to sustainability transformations, one that reconnects body and mind, that fuses art and science and that integrates diverse forms of knowledge in an open, collaborative and creative way. It furthers research suggesting that the arts can play a critical role in engaging people with new perspectives on climate change and sustainability issues by offering opportunities for critical reflection and providing spaces for creative imagination and experimentation. Such processes may be important for contributing to the changes needed to realize transformations to sustainability.