Output details
35 - Music, Drama, Dance and Performing Arts
Queen Mary University of London
Amazônia (2008-09)
Abstract
Performance/workshops/publications exploring strategies for creating international cultural interventions on issues of climate change and environmental deprivation.
Research Imperatives
To create arts-based initiatives with a focus on climate change and environmental deprivation through the content, structure and context of live and recorded performance; to fuse traditional forms of community-based arts engagement with high-profile digital and performance arts practices; to share knowledge and thinking about climate change through creative exchanges between artists, educationalists, scientists, new technology experts and audiences.
Research Outputs
Community-based multi-arts workshop programmes and thematic performance Festival in Acre (Brazilian Amazon region); Festa - Lambeth/Southwark community performance project; Amazônia - mainhouse show at Young Vic Theatre (director/writer); educational pack produced by Young Vic; DVD of five short films from Brazilian filmmakers (produced and distributed by PPP); publication of playtext by Oberon Books (2008).
Engagement with Wider Research Community includes: Chico Mendes’ Legacy: The Role of the Arts in Environmental Activism (RSA 2009) debate with Paul Heritage, Jonathan Dove (composer), Charlie Kronick (Greenpeace), Vivienne Westwood (designer); presentation at Earth Matters on Stage, symposium organised by the University of Oregon (USA) and the Ashden Directory (Environmentalism and the Arts); films by Luciana Bezerra.
Impact
Practice-based outputs engaged with over 5,000 participants and audience in Brazil and almost 50,000 people in UK; major media coverage of Festa and Amazônia programme in all UK national press, including participation by Heritage on flagship BBC Radio4 programme Start the Week; inclusion of arts and climate-change dialogues as part of DCMS/Brazilian Ministry of Culture/ACE knowledge-transfer programme 2012-14; Heritage/PPP set up research and development for Climate Refugees Opera (working title) by Jonathan Dove/Alasdair Middleton – performance project for World Stages 2012-13 led by Somerset House, Royal Opera House Covent Garden in association with The Opera Group (London), Theatro Municipal and Nós do Morro (Rio de Janeiro).
