Convenings

The Arts & Climate Initiative partners with various organizations to host national and international convenings that bring together theatre practitioners, leaders, and scholars working at the intersection of performance and climate change. The goal of these convenings is to encourage culturemakers to make considerations of climate change an integral part of their practice, and to devise strategies to increase the theatre’s impact on addressing the climate crisis.

We recognize the impact of air travel on the environment and strive to keep our carbon footprint as low as possible. To that end, and though this is by no means a perfect solution, we offset our carbon emissions through CarbonFund.org.

Miami Climate Retreat

Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center, Miami, June 3-5, 2019

With the support of Invoking the Pause, Chantal Bilodeau (The Arctic Cycle), Elizabeth Doud (Climakaze), and Roberta Levitow (Theatre Without Borders) hosted a climate retreat for a small group of theatre practitioners and scholars that made structured time available to discuss and plan concrete actions based on themes that had emerged in previous gatherings. The focus of the retreat, which overlapped with the 2019 TCG National Conference, was on organizing and leveraging greater networking and resources to do work at the intersection of theatre/performance and climate change so that deep thinking can translate to more numerous and impactful projects by a wide range of practitioners.

Climate Change: Reimagining the Footprint of Canadian Theatre

Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Banff, April 12-14, 2019

English Theatre at Canada’s National Arts Centre, in partnership with the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and several key organizations, gathered together nine Inspirers and fifteen theatre leaders from Canada, the US, Australia and the UK for a three-day conversation titled Climate Change: Reimagining the Footprint of Canadian Theatre.

This convening was co-curated by Associate Artistic Director of English Theatre, Sarah Garton Stanley, and Artistic Director of The Arctic Cycle, Chantal Bilodeau. The second part of this two-year project will take place in June 2020. Evalyn Parry, one of the participants, shared her reflections on this first gathering in her HowlRound essay “Holding This Climate in My Body.”

Theatre in the Age of Climate Change

Emerson College, Boston, June 8-10, 2018

HowlRound Theatre Commons, in partnership with Chantal Bilodeau (The Arctic Cycle), Elizabeth Doud (Climakaze), and Roberta Levitow (Theatre Without Borders), hosted Theatre in the Age of Climate Change, a convening that brought together a group of 30 artists, activists, scientists, and educators from the US and abroad, working at the intersection of climate change and performing arts for three days of reflection, strategizing, and sharing. Read the report “Art on a Damaged Planet” by MJ Halberstadt. Much of the convening is archived on HowlRound TV.