People, Planet and Performance: From Africa to the World.
About the project.
A Series from Africa on Climate Emergencies, Sustainability Practice in the Arts, and Planetary Crises.
This is a broad-based interdisciplinary, intercultural, and cross-sectoral exploration of climate justice within the context of theatre and performance with a focus on the Global South. The series comprises seven episodes and two articles.
Guests range from theatremakers to climate change artivists/activists to scholars from the Global South sharing their perspectives on different topics within the broad theme of the series.
Produced in partnership with The Centre for Sustainable Practice in the Art (CSPA, Centre for Socially Engaged Theatre (C SET), and Theatre Emissary.
C-SET Publication.
People Planet & Performance Webinar Series.
Environmental Theatre and Climate Justice in Africa
How Did We Get Here? How Do We Move Forward?
Aleya Kassam || Taiwo Afolabi || Wednesday 5 July 2023
Environmental theatre in Africa has been a vital medium for creating awareness of and learning about climate change on the continent. Artists are aware that climate change has come to stay, the need to engage the art to discuss issues such as climate change mitigation strategies, anticipatory adaptation modes and climate justice. This episode introduced the series. Guest speakers reflected on the question of environmental theatre and climate justice in Africa. Particularly, we reflected on the past and imagine the future. Questions explored include how did we get here? what are the challenges of doing environmental theatre on the continent and how can environmental theatre fully promote climate justice on the continent? And how do we move forward?
Panelists
Aleya Kassam is a Kenyan feminist, storyteller, writer, and performer. Her work, which is often eco-feminist in nature, explores the spaces between imagination and memory, and uses ritual as a way to access those realms. She is also a co-founder of the award-winning content studio, The LAM Sisterhood, which fills the world with stories for African women to feel seen, heard, and beloved including the children’s podcast KaBrazen.
Ecotheatre
Decolonizing the Colonized Narrative
Ogutu Muraya || Philip Sarbah Jehoshaphat || Taiwo Afolabi ||Wednesday 12 July 2023
Climate justice is not complete without decentring colonial narratives and practices in Africa. For instance, many theatre projects/initiatives on climate action in Africa have been the brainchild of actors from the Global North. Which increases the tendency for such projects/initiatives to reinforce follow the colonial narrative. Although curators and co-facilitators of such projects are sometimes indigenes of African countries, the agendas of foreign interventions are imposed on the creative process. Also, the question of climate emergency and urgency has been a concern for Africans, but it did not become a global concern until the Global North deemed it so. Some of the questions for consideration include what are some colonial narratives that need to be changed. In what ways can the colonized narrative be decolonized? What are some of the values guiding Africa’s framing and thinking about climate change? How can environmental stewardship and sustainability be re-centered in African theatre?
Panelists
Jehoshaphat Philip Sarbah (Ghana) is a Research Data Manager (RDM) for the DAAD-funded Sustainable Development Goals Graduate school entitled Performing Sustainability: Cultures and Development in West Africa (a cooperative research project between the Universities of Cape Coast, Ghana; Maiduri, Nigeria; and Hildesheim, Germany. He is also the recording engineer for the A.W. Mellon-funded early-career cooperative research program project entitled Recording for Posterity (RePost): Ghanaian Musical Traditions and Futures. He holds a B.Mus. degree and an M.Phil. in Music Education from the University of Cape Coast.
Ogutu Muraya (Kenya) is a writer and dramatist whose work is embedded in the practice of orature. His art seeks new forms of storytelling in which socio-political aspects merge with the belief that art is an important catalyst for questioning ineluctable facts. He studied international relations at the United States International University-Africa in Nairobi/Kenya and graduated from the Academy of Theater and Dance at the University of the Arts in Amsterdam/Netherlands with an MA in 2016. He has been published in the Kwani ? Journal , Chimurenga Chronic , Rekto:Verso , Etcetera Magazine and NT Gent’s The Golden Book series , among others. His performative works and storytelling have been featured in several theater performances and festivals including La MaMa (NYC/USA), Hay Festival (Wales/UK), HIFA (Harare/Zimbabwe), SICK! Festival (Manchester/UK), Ranga Shankara (Bangalore/India), Afrovibes Festival (Amsterdam), SPIELART Theaterfestival (Munich/Germany), Zürcher Theater Spektakel (Zurich/Switzerland), Festival Theaterformen (Brunswick/Germany), Theater is A Must Forum (Alexandria/Egypt), Theater Commons Tokyo (Tokyo/Japan) and within East Africa. Ogutu is based in Nairobi, where he continues his artistic practice and has also taught part time at the Department of Film and Performing Arts at KCA University. Currently he is running Maabara Atelier Group of companies which focus on performance incubation, touring, science and technology, investment, collaborations, film and creating art using the Maabara Method.
Retooling Green Tools for Theatre in Africa
Insights from Practitioners
Adam Marple || Mawukplorm Harriet Abla Adjahoe || Taiwo Afolabi ||Wednesday 19 July 2023
Greening the theatre is crucial to the sustainability of theatre and the planet. Theatre designers such as lighting personnel, set designers, costumers, property designers, and sound engineers are rethinking and retooling for the purpose of creating a more eco-friendly, sustainable, and environmentally just and responsible theatre practice. In this episode, we bring theatre practitioners (such as designers and eco-scenographers) who are advancing sustainable artistic values in their practice. We explored how sustainability plays a significant role in creating an ecologically conscious theatre. For instance, what needs to be considered in the creative process? How does the choice of materials, the use of colors, arrangements, recycling etc. support the green movement? Furthermore, what are the challenges encountered by scenographers and designers in their attempts to construct sustainable stage? What is needed for theatre designers on the African continent to employ ecological designs for theatre performances?
Panelists
Adam Marple (Egypt) is the Co-Artistic Director of the internationally recognized The Theatre of Others and the co-host of The Theatre of Others Podcast (with listeners in over 80 countries and in the top 5% of podcasts worldwide). He is also the founder of The Sustainable Theatre Network, an international partnership of over 15 theatre schools and organizations from every continent dedicated to researching, creating, codifying, and amplifying less wasteful theatre practices worldwide for use at all levels of theatre-making. He has been practicing and teaching Viewpoints for over twenty-five years having worked with its founders Mary Overlie, Anne Bogart, and Tina Landau. His research centers on the expansion and testing of Viewpoints as an Interdisciplinary and Transcultural pedagogy. Published: “The Viewpoints as Transcultural Pedagogy in Western Theatre” in Global Contexts: Directing and Teaching Culturally Inclusive Drama around the World (Routledge) and “Applying the Viewpoints to Multimedia Performance” (Global Performance Studies).
Mawukplorm Harriet Abla Adjahoe (University of Cape Coast, Ghana) is a theatre practitioner a researcher, and an educator whose works centers on the place and power of arts amid sustainability issues. Particularly, her current research interest stems from the many incidents of flooding coupled with the high risks of health hazards associated with waste. Mawukplorm holds a Bachelor of Arts (Theatre Studies) from University of Cape Coast and an MPhil (Theatre Arts) from University of Ghana where she developed a pictorial representation of the history and trends of set design in Ghana for a span of forty years. With over a decade of spirited practice, she is keen on researching into performing arts practices and social and behavioral change; arts history; and promotion of alternative materials for technical theatre practices. She actively participated in a two year arts workshop for children where she taught props making with waste materials to incite the interest of recycling at an early age. In 2016, she co-founded and became the administrator of The Oguaaman Performance Studio (TOPS) operating under the auspices of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies, University of Cape Coast, and subsequently becoming the Artistic Director. As Artistic Director she successfully superintended a number of outreach programs in Senior High Schools in the Central and Western Regions. She was a Demonstrator at the Department of Theatre and Film Studies from 2016 to 2019. She is currently a PhD candidate awaiting her final oral examination.
Responses to Climate Crisis and Emergencies
Storytelling from the Performing Arts
Anna Maria Nabirye || Emma Blake Morsi || Taiwo Afolabi ||Wednesday 26 July 2023
Different art forms (such as theatre, film, visual arts, and social media) have often been used to communicate, educate, and promote climate justice issues. This episode offered the opportunity to hear stories of practitioners using their art forms in this era of climate emergency. We focused on theatre practices and digital art forms and ask guests to share their work and that of others from the continent.
With over a decade in the creative industry, Emma Blake Morsi is an award-winning multi-disciplinary arts producer, production and partnerships manager of Enviral, non-exec director of Rising Arts Agency and former Bristol City Council’s Culture Board member. A prolific storyteller, she predominantly works across film, photography, writing, design, events, and sound and has been training as a creative intersectional environmentalist following years in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Her research consisted of developing a sustainable circular system repurposing waste substances to experimental hybrid tools for inclusive nature-inspired experiences and producing inspiring environmentally-conscious AdGreen and Albert productions. With international projects and creative public engagement activations across the Middle East, the United States, Africa, and Europe, she challenges approaches to inclusion and innovation in the spaces she works, producing work that can be experienced by all but most importantly gives visibility to and engages those from marginalized groups.
Anna Maria Nabirye (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist and performer working across visual arts, performance, fiction, documentary, theatre, screen, social practice, and fashion. Recent works include multimedia visual arts work Up In Arms, which centered conversations on the complexities of interracial friendship. Co-created with Annie Saunders, this social practice work forms an exhibition, three channel film, and performance, commissioned by the De La Warr Pavilion and produced by Artsadmin. The Funnest Room in the House Afterword was an audio work commissioned for Whitstable Biennale 2022; after her original installation was destroyed by fire, the work combined documentary and myth as it explored Black British Kitchens as portals to ancestral homelands. Her social practice works include an ongoing collaboration with Metis Arts (the Barbican, Cambridge Junction, Wellcome Trust) exploring the intersection of climate disaster, life in London, and anti-racism. Other credits include Motherhoody (the Albany) and One Prick At A Time (King’s College) with Jess Mabel Jones. Acting credits include the National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Almeida Theatre, the Gate Theatre, Film4, BBC1, and BBC2. Nabirye is also an educator and director and has worked and created programs and workshops for Yale School of Drama, National Theatre Institute, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Half Moon YPT, and London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Junior Artists. Nabirye co-directed and performed in Ruptures with Noorafshan Mirza and Brad Butler (London Film Fest/Home/Delfina Foundation). Other collaborations with Mirza and Butler include Everything For Everyone And Nothing For Us (Mirror City-Hayward), Hold Your Ground (FVU), and Deep State (FVU). Nabirye co-founded and runs Afri-Co-Lab, a creative community dreaming space in East Sussex. Commissions and collaborations include the Royal Court, V&A, SBC, Brighton Museum, Guest Projects, Eggtooth, Home Live Art and DLWP. She also runs sister company AfroRetro, an ethical upcycling label working with makers both local in Southeast England and Southern Uganda.
Eco-Films in Climate Action
What Impact can the Eco-Film Genre Make in the Journey Towards Climate Justice in the Global South?
Angie Emurwon || Taiwo Afolabi ||Wednesday 2 August 2023
Since the first decade of the 21st century, Hollywood films have explored diverse challenges posed by climate change. In fact, eco-filmmakers seem to direct the blame around climate change on anthropocentrism and the rise of the capitalist economy. These films have centered on how climate change impacts more on rural indigenous communities, the politics of anthropocentric and capitalism, and the imperative of man’s revaluation of his relationship with the environment.
Interestingly, most films on ecology have been churned out of the Global North than from the Global South despite the South’s being affected more by the climate scourge. The films of James Cameron, such as Avatar and The Way of Water, and documentaries such as The Nigerian Oil Thief: The True Price of Crude Oil and Delta Blues, are examples of the Global North telling the story of the South. Thus, questions that emanate at this point are, what could be the reason for the dearth of themes of ecology in the cinema of the Global South? In what ways have the films produced in the Global South responded to the discourse of climate change? What impact can the eco-film genre make in the journey towards climate justice in the global south?
Angie Emurwon is an award-winning filmmaker, playwright, and a storytelling dramaturg for both stage and screen. She recently wrote and directed a 10-episode web series Enno Laavu (2023) that is currently in post-production; has directed 3 short films: Keycard (2021), LayLay (2019) and Sunday (2018); as well as 13 episodes of the Ugandan TV show Mama&Me (2021) on Pearl Magic/Mnet/DSTV. Her first short, Sunday, won Best East African Short (2019 MAAFF – Rwanda); 2nd Prize, Films by Women (2019 NWFF – Ghana), and Best National Short Film (2019 GIFF – Uganda), as well as screening at several festivals including the 2019 Durban International Film Festival – South Africa, and the 2019 Silicon Valley African Film Festival – USA. LayLay screened at the Durban International Film Festival and Ngalabi Short Film Festival – Uganda. While Keycard was selected for the April 2022 Indie Short Fest (Los Angeles International Film Festival) where the film received a Best Producer nomination for Douglas Dubois, Best Director (female) for Angie Emurwon, as well as winning the Outstanding Achievement Award for a Film Noir Short. Keycard was selected for the 2022 Sophie Short Film Awards (New York) where the film was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Oyenbot), and won the Outstanding Styling Award for a short film (Guy Jarius Zziwa with Daphine Tukamushaba). Her radio plays The Cow Needs a Wife (2010) and Sunflowers behind a Dirty Fence (2012) have both won BBC Radio Drama awards, while her Climate Change Theatre Action commissioned short plays have been staged all over the world with the most recent, Initiation (2021), being among the 4 plays selected for the inaugural 2021 Kick-off event, Dispatch To The Future, at Central Park, New York. Angie is a storytelling resource for fellow filmmakers, and has mentored emerging screenwriters from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Germany through the Maisha Film Lab training program.
Performance and Climate Finance/Sustainability, Capital and Planetary Justice
Addressing the Elephant in the Room
Naomi Andrew Haruna || Taiwo Afolabi ||Wednesday 9 August 2023
The concept of climate finance refers to monies provided by those responsible for climate change to ease the burden of the crises on those who bear the brunt. This is a situation whereby the polluter pays as much as they pollute. The attention placed on climate finance dominates the narrative of climate change mitigation since polluters are able to pay monies allocated to them as climate finance. Climate finance has not fully addressed the issue of the elephant in the room.
Many climate activists such as Nnimmo Bassey have advocated against climate finance. They argue that it is not the way forward toward achieving planetary justice. In what ways could a total ban on the extraction enterprise prevent further depletion of the environment of the Global South? In this episode, experts discuss the concept of climate finance, its impact on planetary justice, and ways climate finance can chart novel ways of sustaining lives and communities and achieving planetary justice.
Dr Naomi Andrew Haruna is currently a Senior Lecturer with the department of Visual and Performing Arts University of Maiduguri, with a PhD in Cultural Sustainability. She holds a master’s degree in Advertising and Marketing from Coventry University, UK, and a bachelor’s degree in Creative Arts with a specialization in Graphics from University of Maiduguri. As a cultural enthusiast, Naomi is combining her training in Creative Arts, Visual Communication, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) with her passion for Cultural Studies to find ways in which to sustainably promote peace, promote sustainable environmental practices, gender equality, and arts education within her community and society at large. Her research is mostly qualitative using bottom-top approaches using artistic practice methodologies. Her recent research has mostly been on the use of culturally based visual representations for the promotion of peace and harmony amongst Internally Displaced Persons in Northeast Nigeria. Another recent interest is promoting sustainable environmental practices by stopping tree-felling digital story telling techniques among her community members and the use of community theater for education. Further, her research interests include Peace Media, Development Communication, and Gender Studies.
Performance and Reconfiguring Human and Non-Human Species
How Can Eco-Performance Be a Push for the Transvaluation of Human and Non-Human Species?
Henry Ajumeze || Taiwo Afolabi ||Wednesday 9 August 2023
Notable scholars and renowned activists in the climate change discourse advocate that for the climate crises to be combated, humans will have to reevaluate their relationship with the environment. In other words, the place of man on Earth as a living entity ought to be redefined. There needs to be a shift from human-centered thinking to eco-centric learning, where man will have to view the world as more than the human entity.
While animal rights have begun to gain ground in some countries of the Global South, such as India, countries in the Amazon region have also started making legislation for rivers as a way of giving agency to rivers and the inhabitants of the aquatic world. A number of revolutionary eco-performances that center on this discussion abound. In 2020, there was a string quartet performance in Barcelona, which had two 2,292 potted plants as the audience. This eco-performance, which is the first of its kind, was aimed at putting plants into the center of performance and creating space for a human and more than human discourse. How can eco-performance be a push for the transvaluation of human and non-human species?
Dr. Henry Ajumeze is lecturer in theatre studies at the School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures at the University of Manchester. He studied at the University of Ghana and the University of Cape Town in South Africa, and has been a fellow or awardee of several prestigious organizations, including the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), African Humanities Program (AHP) of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Consortium of Humanities Centres and Institutes (CHCI). His research is at the intersection of postcolonial theatre and environmental humanities, interrogating the performance culture of ecosystems—human and nonhuman—in the politics of global capitalism.