Performing environments forum

The dancer who pulled a canoe on a Xingu river made of tarmac or The strength in the fragility of the solo Artivist or When I gave a white rose to BHP Billiton’s CEO

Tiago Gambogi recounts how his twenty year performance career culminated with him forcing a wooden canoe into a closed meeting at the offices of Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam’s consortium offices in Altamira, Pará, Brazil, supported by 100 local fishermen, indigenous people and NGO supporters.  He will discuss the Brazilian socio-political-environmental context and its relationship with globalization: Brazil’s economy is strongly focused on mineral extraction and exportation, de-forestation and the genocide of the Brazilian indigenous people.

Moving Rock: Embodied Correspondences with the Material World as a Force for Creative Action 

The French philosopher of science and imagination Gaston Bachelard, identifies the material elements of earth, air, fire and water as conductors of human imagination, ‘poeticising substances’ that guide our orientation to the world around us.

Ellie will discuss how in her research and international practice as theatre-maker, she adopts Bachelard's 'vibrant matter' as a force for devising theatre that urges us to join with the world rather than defend ourselves against it. This presentation shares some of the intercultural practices that have informed her research and introduces a larger project planned for the Atacama Desert, Chile (2019), which seeks to raise awareness of the challenges faced by communities living in volatile environments.

Moving Beyond: Site-Responses, Eco-Soma & other Performance – Activisms

This presentation introduces and discusses tendencies and strands of critical eco-performance practices through case-studies of works by various British and international artists and collectives. The author will also reflect on his own somatic-informed and site-reactive performance works and educational projects in international contexts.