Abstract
Ecodramaturgy, a critical framework that interrogates the implicit ecological values in any play or production, is explained here and then used to demonstrate the central tenets of climate theatre, including theatre’s potential for decolonisation, interspecies understanding, and community engagement. Burning Vision (2002) by Marie Clements employs a ceremonial performance form to unearth the hidden history of uranium mining on Dene lands as it argues for environmental justice and the authority of Indigenous oral traditions. Sila (2014) by Chantal Bilodeau foregrounds the interdependence of culture and community across species. Finally, Salmon Is Everything (2006) by Theresa J. May amplifies the voices of Indigenous communities most affected by ecological loss. Taken together, these plays and their productions underscore the potential for theatre-making to function as a democratising force in the Anthropocene.
Note
Portions of this article draw on the Introduction and chapter 7, “Kinship, Community, and Climate Change,” of my monograph Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater and are used here with permission.
About the author
is Professor of Theatre Arts at the University of Oregon. She is author of Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater (2021); Salmon Is Everything: Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed (2019), and co-editor of Readings in Performance and Ecology (2012).
Works Cited
Alaimo, Stacy. “Thinking as the Stuff of the World.” O-Zone: A Journal of Object-Oriented Studies 1 (2014): 13–21. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Allen, Paula Gunn. “The Ceremonial Motion of Indian Time: Long Ago, So Far.” American Indian Theater in Performance: A Reader. Ed. Hanay Geiogamah and Jaye T. Darby. Los Angeles: UCLA American Indian Studies Center, 2000. 69–75. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Arons, Wendy, and Theresa J. May. “Ecodramaturgy in/and Contemporary Women’s Playwriting.” Contemporary Women Playwrights: Into the 21st Century. Ed. Penny Farfan and Lesley Ferris. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. 181–196. Print.Search in Google Scholar
—, ed. Readings in Performance and Ecology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Arons, Wendy. “Queer Ecology/Contemporary Plays.” Theatre Journal 64.4 (2012): 565–582. Web. 22 Nov. 2021. <https://www.jstor.org/stable/41819890>.Search in Google Scholar
Bacon, J.M. “Settler Colonialism as Eco-Social Structure and the Production of Colonial Ecological Violence.” Environmental Sociology 5.1 (2019): 59–69. Web. 15 Jan. 2022. <https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1474725>.Search in Google Scholar
Bilodeau, Chantal. Sila. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2014. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Calarco, Matthew. Zoographies: The Question of the Animal from Heidegger to Derrida. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, Una. “‘There Must Be a Lot of Fish in That Lake’: Toward an Ecological Theater.” Theater 25.1 (1994): 23–31. Web. 22 Nov. 2021. <https://doi.org/10.1215/01610775-25-1-23>.Search in Google Scholar
—. “The Silence of the Polar Bears: Performing (Climate) Change in the Theater of Species.” Readings in Performance and Ecology. Ed. Wendy Arons and Theresa J. May. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 45–58. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Clements, Marie. Burning Vision. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2003. Print.Search in Google Scholar
—. Personal interview. 12 Nov. 2009.Search in Google Scholar
Cless, Downing. Ecology and Environment in European Drama. New York: Routledge, 2010. Print.10.4324/9780203851814Search in Google Scholar
—. “Eco-Theatre, USA: The Grassroots Is Greener.” TDR: The Drama Review 40.2 (1996): 79–102. Web. 22 Nov. 2021. <https://doi.org/10.2307/1146531>.Search in Google Scholar
Doremus, Holly, and A. Dan Tarlock. Water War in the Klamath Basin: Macho Law, Combat Biology, and Dirty Politics. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2008. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Edwards, Gordon. “How Uranium from Great Bear Lake Ended Up in A-Bombs: A Chronology.” Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility. Web. 17 Jan. 2022. <http://www.ccnr.org/uranium_events.html>.Search in Google Scholar
Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham: Duke UP, 2016. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Howe, LeAnne. “Tribalography: The Power of Native Stories.” Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism 14.1 (1999): 117–130. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Kenny-Gilday, Cindy. “A Village of Widows.” Peace, Justice and Freedom: Human Rights Challenges for the New Millennium. Ed. Gurcharan Singh Bhati. Edmonton: U of Alberta P, 2000. 107–118. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Kikkert, Peter. “Nunavut.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 24 Nov. 2021. Web. 21 Jan. 2022. <https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/nunavut>.Search in Google Scholar
Kozinn, Allan. “Tanya Tagaq Wins Canada’s Polaris Prize.” New York Times, 23 Sept. 2014: C3. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Laugrand, Frédéric, and J. G. Oosten. The Sea Woman: Sedna in Inuit Shamanism and Art in the Eastern Arctic. Fairbanks: U of Alaska P, 2008. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Lavery, Carl, ed. Performance and Ecology: What Can Theatre Do? New York: Routledge, 2021. Print.Search in Google Scholar
May, Theresa J. “Beyond Bambi: Toward a Dangerous Ecocriticism in Theatre Studies.” Theatre Topics 17.2 (2007): 95–110. Web. 22 Nov. 2021. <http://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2008.0001>.Search in Google Scholar
—. Salmon Is Everything: Community-Based Theatre in the Klamath Watershed. Corvallis: Oregon State UP, 2019. Print.Search in Google Scholar
—. Earth Matters on Stage: Ecology and Environment in American Theater. London: Routledge, 2020. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Mojica, Monique, and Ric Knowles. “Creation Story Begins Again: Performing Transformation, Bridging Cosmologies.” Performing Worlds into Being: Native American Women’s Theatre. Ed. Ann Elizabeth Armstrong, Kelli Lyon Johnson, and William A. Wortman. Oxford: Miami UP, 2009. 2–28. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Most, Stephen. River of Renewal: Myth and History in the Klamath Basin. Seattle: U of Washington P, 2006. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Norgaard, Kari Marie. “Climate Change Is a Social Issue.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 17 Jan. 2016. Web. 14 Jan. 2022. <https://www.chronicle.com/article/climate-change-is-a-social-issue>.Search in Google Scholar
Powys Whyte, Kyle. “Let’s Be Honest, White Allies.” Yes! 85 (2018): 47–48. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Reed, Ron, and Kari Marie Norgaard. “Salmon Feeds Our People.” Indigenous Peoples and Conservation: From Rights to Resource Management. Ed. K. Walker Painemilla et al. Arlington: Conservation International, 2010. 7–16. Print.Search in Google Scholar
“Tudzé.” CBC. Web. 14 Jan. 2021. <https://www.cbc.ca/north/features/waterheart>.Search in Google Scholar
Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin: U of Otago P, 1999. Print.Search in Google Scholar
van Wyck, Peter C. “Northern War Stories: The Dene, the Archive and Canada’s Atomic Modernity.” Bearing Witness: Perspectives on War and Peace from the Arts and Humanities. Ed. Sherrill Grace, Patrick Imbert, and Tiffany Johnstone. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2012. 174–185. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Vinyeta, Kirsten, Kyle Powys Whyte, and Kathy Lynn. Climate Change through an Intersectional Lens: Gendered Vulnerability and Resilience in Indigenous Communities in the United States. Portland: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, 2015. Web. 14 Jan. 2021. <https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr923.pdf>.10.2737/PNW-GTR-923Search in Google Scholar
Vizenor, Gerald. Manifest Manners: Narratives on Postindian Survivance. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1999. Print.Search in Google Scholar
—. Literary Chance: Essays on Native American Survivance. València: Universitat de València, 2007. Print.Search in Google Scholar
Watt-Cloutier, Sheila. “Nobel Prize Nominee Testifies About Global Warming.” Earthjustice, 1 March 2007. Web. 14 Jan. 2021. <https://earthjustice.org/news/press/2007/nobel-prize-nominee-testifies-about-global-warming>.Search in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
