When the teaching team began to craft the Middle School Activist Theater immersion and play block this year, we looked for ways to help our students work with the challenges of our time. Something that is haunting the young people we know is the belief that the world and its life forms are in great danger, and that there is nothing that can be done. A climate scientist recently said that the problems we face are not biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change, but rather their causes: human greed, selfishness, and apathy. But another problem embedded within the first is that so many of us feel a sense of futility and despair, which blocks our ability to take meaningful steps for change. Recent articles in the Washington Post, Seven Days and other sources have spoken eloquently about the negative effects of this “eco-panic.”
Vermont-based environmental activist Bill McKibben spoke about the need for theater to step up and respond to the environmental crisis we are living through. As we researched activist responses to this crisis, we came upon something called The Council of All Beings. This ritual was first performed in Australia to respond to the sorrow people were feeling about the destruction of the earth and the threat of nuclear war. The intention of its creators was to enhance humanity’s commitment to preserving life on our planet home.
Our teaching team and students have taken the form of the Council ritual and used it as a basis to create our performance. It was not a polished play, but a window into our process of building something meaningful to turn anxiety, fear, and a sense of desolation into a call to action.
The hope is that through a multi-platform artistic process, including mask-making, writing, and performance, we have built something that will help us all feel a greater connection with other beings, and a shared intention to heal the earth and our relationship with it.
As with all activist theater, our goal is that the performers and the audience feel a new power to work for what they are connected to, and what they love; in this case, to look at our future in the light of the inspiring words of Joel Kovel:
“What other generation has been given the chance to transform the relationship between humanity and nature and given the choice to heal such an ancient wound? What a fantastic challenge!”