 Thank you so much. Thank you so much Derek and Cynthia and Teddy Ali Libby Everyone on the lab team for making this all possible for all of us all the artists and Audiences who've been coming in filled us all so much over the past few days So I imagine you two are just three thing With the beautiful performance we saw so thank you so much Miranda and Robert who are here representing love And Shannon Yes, it was such a comprehensive Journey that we were taken on. Thank you I I took a lot. I've taken a lot from the last few days as I'm sure you have to and and So I'm just gonna slip back for two seconds to a couple minutes To honoring the past and shaping I attended and people were bringing people into the room so I have a couple people I would like to bring and The first person I'd like to bring is Gavin Schmidt Who is a NASA scientist who's been one of the scientists like Bill McKibben who's been Calling our attention to the climate story for many years and Theater without borders had a climate change theater action in 2015. These are if those of you don't know about them Every two years with the conversation of the partners Cop 21 took place in Paris. That was the Paris climate agreement We do an event with the Arctic cycle Chantal Bilodeau And it began with new no passport curry duds fish We do a kind of a simultaneous event where playwrights around the world are invited to write something about climate relates to climate short pieces their prompts One minute five minutes And they're performed simultaneously around the world in living rooms on glaciers at universities We do something at the same time this year is the third incarnation in 2019 and You're all welcome to participate. Ask afterwards if you want to know more So in 2015 we had an event at the New York and Poets Theatre in New York and Gavin Schmidt was our honored guest and he stood up in front of the group before the readings by the by the playwrights and He said well, I could talk to you for hours about the science But I really only want to take five minutes of your time You are the artists and we need you We need you to tell the story of what is happening for this generation and for all the generations to come and he sat down and Miranda Robert and Lobdab you have told a story for this generation and for all the generations to come and Thank you for doing that and I know that the other artists on this panel and many of you in the audience are doing the same The other person I wanted to bring Into the room Liz if I can find it on my little computer My teeny tiny invaluable computer I Saw a movie. I was talking to Alex Aaron. I saw the movie knock down the house with my husband Mitch and Someone said the fierce urgency of now A quote by Martin Luther King and I was like, what's that from? What's that from the first fierce urgency of now? That sounds like climate So I am I researched it and here's Martin Luther King In April 1967 a year before he was killed Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. preached on the fierce urgency of now in a sermon entitled Beyond Vietnam a time to break silence Of all his speeches it remains the least remembered because it summoned Christians to protest the war in Vietnam and I quote We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late Life often leaves us standing bare Naked and dejected with a lost opportunity The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at the flood it ebbs We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and pushes on Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words too late There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect The moving finger rights and having writ moves on We must move past in decision to action so I think all of us who Are grappling and that's all of us as your beautiful piece showed all of us who are grappling with us have an opportunity and that is to engage with our grief and with our hope and We have some incredible Leaders here in in guiding us in in how to move forward in that so I wanted to start with Miranda and and Robert you have one take two Mike's and we were just talking a little bit over lunch about the history of this project and the levels of grief that are mentioned in the piece and And and how grief and hope operate for operate for you in the piece so if you could just speak about that a little bit I Don't know quite what to say I think that a lot of times as an artist I try to scan my body for where I feel fear and sadness and try to start from some of those places and Some of the most intense dread and terror and sadness that I have been feeling Connect to a lot of the research that I've been doing into climate crisis and extinction and I felt in myself that my own Fear and sadness was limiting me and creating a profound barrier in my ability to engage with the material and I said a little prayer that may be through the process of Investigating this work through my theatrical and Literary imagination, I might have the ability to metabolize some of that fear and Sadness and loosen it up a little bit the kind of barriers to the emotional Potency of these issues so that I could so that they could become more malleable and That's what I've been trying to do And and this piece kind of started for context with love dub which comprises Miranda and myself and Katelyn and Jeff and another ensemble of folks and we had committed to starting a two-year cycle of work interested in the environment and At the time that we were committing to to that process I feel comfortable sharing that that my mother was starting hospice at the time and I Was like, you know many many things that Miranda has written in the play Express my practice of dramaturgy a lot better than I can in a post-show environment, which is a real gift but I was like voraciously reading about climate crisis and You know at one point at a trip to where my mom was living at the time, you know I was like I'm kind of using this research as some kind of shield from my personal experience of what's happening in my own life and so through many many conversations we became really interested in this idea of Holding up a particular story of individual level grief about one particular Homo sapiens next to this idea of species loss and Just asking a question of you know in what ways are the emotional responses to those Separate elements different in what ways are they similar and in what maze might that energy be productive? You know the love dub It defines itself on the on your website as a hybrid physical theater company animating stories of science magic and myth and when you look at the little video It's just these delightful young people and they're saying what is love dub? It's joyful exploration It's humor wonder jumping dancing something that tickles us something we love and I thought it's such a beautiful juxtaposition that you were able to find in the piece between the participatory nature the Humor and the joy so how does hope figure in? And you were talking a little bit about joy Moreno, I Think joy is a practice and It's something you have to set about intentionally I think happiness is conditional and joy is a practice, and I think that's something that we try to practice in our company and I think that I've done a lot of Trauma work and studying about trauma work, and there's this Great wisdom of gallows humor, and I think that if you don't have it you die and So I needed to find it and I think that that is I Think that the beauty of imagination is It's buoyancy, and I think that's what we can add to a paralyzing matter Maybe I'll just add that I think we spend a lot of time in conversations around this piece which are ongoing thinking about different types of care and We were thinking a lot about the idea of hospice as a type of care which kind of admits mortality and Often often the beginning of a hospice process as I'm sure so many people in this room No, it can actually be kind of relieving and kind of wonderful in this really intense and kind of strange way But but we were interested in types of hope that Integrated grief rather than types of hope that attempt to mask it or block it off or undermine it I mean Everybody but I people bring different amounts of information to to to the room here I'm sure and I'm a latecomer to the climate Science myself. I identified with the character In the play that my science knowledge is limited And many of you here have more science knowledge many of you in the audience do and many of the practitioners Who are working at this intersection do but there are of course many Others in the world who are working very very hard to ensure that we all will some things will go forward and so there's also on a practical level of hope and That makes me want to turn to you on the Lisa Because there's the individual experience and we we saw a play of a of an individual it Speaking of her encounter with this story and struggle to to in a sense reach out and connect with us the audience You are looking at that not only In The works that you're doing which I hope you'll speak about but also in a systemic way in terms of How we can actually all look at the world through a different lens that will help us advance Can you speak about that? I'm having so many feelings right now. Thanks a lot Miranda and loved up And actually I was sitting in this in the many feelings And I'm trying to think about how to both be articulate about what is happening for me because there's a sort of demand in This work to speak and like deal with what you're feeling with authenticity So I'm actually trying to process that and speak to what you're Asking so bear with me, please Thank you. I Think one of the things that I'm feeling really strongly right now is actually anger and rage Because we are not doomed to a dying world we're not And there are people who are like there are politicians and there are systems who are telling us that that is true And That we might as well give up and not do anything about it and that it's too late and it's not It's really not So I think the wisdom out there from some of the IPCC the intergovernmental panel on climate change And that's the largest body of scientists in the world The most recent wisdom from them is that we have 12 years But by the time which is the time by which the entire world systems must change It's it's not actually impossible. It sounds impossible, but it's not there are there are policy proposals that are On the table that would make the changes that are needed It's really a question of the political will to make those proposals go through So some of the work that I'm involved in specifically specifically within the theater and arts sector Right now there's a group of us that are working on What we're calling a green new theater? Which is which is actually recognizing The role that the arts this very specific role that the arts can play in shifting the narrative one of the great things that we are gifted with in this field is storytelling and emotional impact and Getting people to shift the way that they're telling the story of what is happening in the world and what actions need to be taken so some of the work around a green new theater will be working on at the TCG conference in Miami in June and then There'll be ways for more folks to get involved in that and implement that in your organizations and in your practice after We sort of like workshop it in June so I Yeah, I wonder if you could also talk a little bit about your work with just transition and unsettling America because As you say we need a we need we're transforming now you're you're encouraging us to transform our practice and systems through in In all aspects. It's a holistic Yeah, yeah, yeah, so if y'all haven't heard of this concept of a just transition Very much encourage you to just like Google it one of the best resources out there is movement generation They have a really nice graphic that explains Pretty holistically how to get from an extractive economy, which is what we're living in now to a regenerative economy and It's really visually well done like I they you they've done it you should really look at that It's movement generation the just transition graphic But like because I'm a theater artist why don't and we just are doing some participatory theater Why don't we do a little bit of this right now? So? so I'm about you from your seats to just like I do some of the wall work some image theater So make an image in your body of the word when you hear the word extraction What does your body do like make an image of that don't think too hard just whatever comes into your body? Okay, great. Remember that image Let it go and now if you can think about the word regenerative and Put that word in your body Whatever it makes your body do don't think too hard Remember that image great now can you try to connect the two of them and go from extractive to regenerative with just one movement It doesn't need to be complicated. How would you do it and just shout out words? What does that movement feel like? opening releasing tension flow letting go encompassing healing Giving rising right on right on and these are all words that are that are like implementable strategies To move us from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy. So if you go and look at that graphic It's a really great way to sort of like it shows it visualizes how For example, like the health sector has to change and how the education and like all of the different systems that are interlocking all contribute and all Can shift together Thank you, and you know keep keep your eye out for the bio engineers the guys who are and men and women who are taking Materials and finding ways to now cycle them through so that we're still using but we're reusing and reusing and that includes tires and And so there's there there's work on the practical level There's work on the mental level the emotional level lots lots of levels that we're working on Thank you. I'm one of the I want to press through because I really do want to get to questions I hope so I'm one of the things that I always think about in this situation and especially when I saw your Phantom limb video Jessica is how beauty makes the unbearable bearable and I wonder if you want to speak a little bit about how you incorporate Your your your images are indeed beautiful and I'm hoping we'll see that video But would you like to just take the mic and speak and show the video at your your choice? Maybe we could show the video let the images speak first and thanks Yeah, is that possible to to share the video that Jessica brought us? And there there's audio This land trilogy we've been talking about This subject of people's relationship to nature the environment for a decade the first piece was based in ice and then the second was the wood or the forest and You know as we're heightening our awareness about environmental issues water seems to be one of the paramount issues and There's a new radiation crisis in Japan in Fukushima So we thought what if we were to Try and create a new artistic response to that in collaboration because climate change is a global problem And that and that fallout is actually a global problem in the current to the ocean and so that what if we introduced Butto and puppetry what would happen? I went all over northern Japan really asking people about their experiences of Put the loss of home and loss of people It felt really important to speak to people who went through this and we're still going through it to this day Natural disasters are gonna happen more and more because of extreme weather and These people are showing us a picture of the future of our planet. I Set aside some time to work with butto master die Who is my collaborator in the piece in butto choreography and he's just did these incredible things where he was operating the public this feet and sort of passively happening and ideas that Never quite occurred to me butto Like they deal with a human body as material Also focuses on the theme of death I think butto and puppets have many similarities As you know as a puppet nerd I think the puppet as a as a as a blank canvas often we say or as an empty vessel that the viewer projects on to or into and In terms of butto they refer to the body physically as a vessel I realized I had been trying to create this new narrative or some really interesting drama I could never come close to Creating any kind of drama that is as powerful as what actually happened And so the story of the natural disaster itself is the fulcrum of the piece And we move fluidly through all these relationships and try not actually to identify One character as much more important than the other Because we wanted to communicate this sense that this loss is Not the loss of one This is all of ours. I think all of us because the problem is so big That there's nothing that a single person can do to really make an impact. And so we don't do anything And what I kind of heard and what I learned from these people is that the accumulation of many people doing small things is what heals the world and That we all need to keep doing that and in order to keep doing that you need to have a little bit of hope That that cat on the bicycle was in the exclusion zone and Fukushima. Yeah, thank you beautiful. Yeah I feel like that took up a lot of time and you and you understand a lot about what we're doing now from that but but to just speak to your question about beauty We've been we've been working on a trilogy about people's relationship to nature and climate change for over ten years and The when we made the first piece It's was like really not sexy to sell a show about climate change And it's still sort of isn't but people now know that they should be engaging with that topic But back then it was you know, I think just not not as happening. So if you can call climate change happening, but So we are my husband and I who have the company together visual artists first and foremost and we We always start with image with images and we work with kind of the theory of Imagesm as we create which comes from poetry, but when we create pieces of theater And and so we thought like let's lure people in with the beauty of what we do with this like, you know lavish Productions with projections and puppetry and you know architects working them set design and and then let's bring down the hammer and you know Like talk to them about something that's really important We felt like poetry and sort of images and was like a side door into something We needed to be talking about and I think now we've become more overt actually in the way that we speak about it But that's that's where we come from. Yeah, I mean it's interesting We've seen just we haven't seen your work in in example and Alisa But we've seen humor as an entry point to bring people in and beauty as an entry point And these are artistic strategies that have been used through time to bring audiences in to challenging situations and it's I just want to say that There's number of people in the house that came to see the show and the number of people here in the discussion Climate change is happening because it used to be like three people You know, it was really small crowd. So obviously it's getting bigger and now To my knowledge there are two Broadway shows about climate change SpongeBob the musical Yes, and Haiti Hades town. So we're we're uh, it's definitely It's definitely becoming It's a burgeoning Field of practice. So um, we have some time for questions from the house Panelists and performers for the next panels will have time for one question and then we can engage with the panelists outside So one question if anyone has one No pressure Yes too scared. Oh To be the one person Let's just go to end to what if we have a moment Let's just go to next steps because the I I know that a big part for all of us who are involved in this Intersection is we're not done. There's more to do urgency of now. What's next? So Anybody in the house have something that they're doing next on the climate change story Anybody want on from from from the group? So yes, I see you nodding Cassidy. Do you want to say something? Next Are you guys next what what's up for you next Robert? You're going to the hemispheric Institute, right? Yeah So one exciting development may be worth mentioning that is totally open to anybody in the room is coming out of a convening that Was created by Hal round last summer in Boston There's this kind of nascent group forming called the climate commons for theater and performance You can read more about it on Hal round But that group of people is investigating different ways of coming together different ways of researching and mobilizing Different aesthetic and organizational strategies for kind of figuring out ways of talking about this So one next step for that organization is a convening in Mexico City. That's going to be happening in June geared specifically towards like interrogating and hopefully Articulating in a published form like strategies Specifically for using humor in conversations around climate crisis So that's one next step that we're really excited about and Annalisa. You were just mentioning the TCG Conference, so there's a whole track and it's a climate justice track Yes, if you're coming to the TCG conference in Miami, and even if you're not there will be ways to participate digitally But there is now a conference committee on climate for the first time ever Which is great And there will be a whole series of events including a lab on Wednesday, June 5th from 9 a.m. To 12 p.m. And that is our Green New Theater lab, so we'll be really visioning what that looks like at that lab And then there's a sort of like nuts and bolts lunch session for basically like how do you make your actual production? process more sustainable like using better energy efficient technologies and Thinking about sustainable costume design. It's a really practical nuts and bolts and then there's going to be a panel Breakout. I think it's on Friday now That will be a whole slew of folks that are working at different Multiple different areas in the field. Some people will be for example Gulfshore Playhouse will be there talking about the flooding that they experienced and Planning for climate adaptation at their new building And I think some folks from OSF will be there to talk about the fires and how like, you know climate is actually affecting our Budgets right now And then I'm leading a session on Friday morning at the conference on contemplative movement and climate justice And that is more of the sort of embodied practice that I will share at the TCG conference That's great And just to restate a little bit the climate justice point, which is obvious to everyone I hope that those of us who are able to turn on the air conditioning when it gets a little hotter are in a very different situation than people around the world who Cannot and who are already on the move because they can no longer farm or or raise their cattle as they have before and so islands disappearing the the climate as they say as climate Impact is hitting harder on those who didn't create the problem in the first place So climate justice is a really important part of this conversation and we want to keep it forefront and centered Can I add one more thing about on that note? Something that I noticed in the piece too was the there's a moment of of sort of saying that like we did this and I think there was a sort of like we all did this And that's actually not true It's a very small percentage of the population that did this and they are not being held accountable and And where I look to for hope in my work is actually to indigenous communities who have been living in the apocalypse since 1492 and before that But like they have survival strategies and they've been surviving and they will lead us into a future where we need to survive Yes, thank you. Yeah Jessica, did you want to add something? Nothing is exciting. It's what you all are up to but I'm we're working on the the epilogue for the trilogy Because we can't stop and we won't And then we're just working on reach for our for a touring model. So to get outside of New York LA DC sorry, but places where people are I mean, I think it is important to all be talking with each other But but I'm even more committed to bringing work and conversations and community engagement In new and inventive ways to places where people aren't used to having these conversations They may not believe in these conversations and they definitely haven't seen Bouto and maybe puppetry and so we're like really working on opening up Hearts and and then broadening a conversation where it's not happening already. Yeah, and I Just say stop when we have to stop because otherwise I'll keep going but I just want to say that um those of us who have International networks, it's super important to keep those alive. Please those of you who live in other countries And who know people who do keep in touch. This is a global issue and the global networks that we have are Extremely valuable to us now so that we can keep that conversation global. Yes, Jessica I just want to say that in case you people don't come up to you and ask that the climate change theater action goes from September 21st No, sorry September 15th to December 21st this year and the more people that can do it the better and We're doing it all over the world and also Shantel is having a an incubator a climate change incubator Which is really fun. I've taught it a couple years and it's the Scientists and theater artists together at in New York. So just want to say that and for those here at Georgetown Maya Roth our incoming artistic director and the season has programmed a Number of climate performance projects including a love dub residency and more so there'll be a lot that will be participating in that Yes, so please join the join us if you wish and thank you so much and thanks to this wonderful