Yearly Archives: 2017

Top 5 Tips: EdFringe Sustainable Practice Award

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Are you planning on applying for the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award? We’ve put together some quick suggestions on how to make your production a contender!

The award strives to recognise efforts taken by artistic productions to create a show that acknowledges the various strains of sustainability, and/or demonstrates sustainable behaviours throughout the production process.

While sustainability is often simplified to its environmental components, The Sustainable Practice Award recognises that sustainability exists in many forms. For this reason, productions with topics regarding social, economic or environmental sustainability are all excellent candidates for the award, and shows that lack themes of sustainability can be considered for the award if they worked towards creating a sustainable production.

Much like the broad definition of sustainability, our judges look at a variety of components in order to determine if a show will qualify for the award! After applications close on August 11th, we’ll announce those shows shortlisted for 2017!

Apply now for the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award!

Five Top Tips for Creating Sustainable Productions:

  1. Consider sustainability in your travel decisions. Consider how the members of your production are travelling to Edinburgh. Different modes of transportation have different levels of impact on the environment depending on the amount of carbon that they emit. Websites like Traveline Scotland and Loco2 are helpful in determining the most sustainable mode of transportation. Also consider where you are staying in Edinburgh. Staying in areas that surround the city centre allows you to access most venues by foot, helping to greatly decrease your carbon footprint.
  2. Consider sustainability in your production. Use sustainable materials when creating costumes and a set for your show. Gather materials from second hand shops and reuse props in order to decrease the amount of waste your production produces.
  3. Consider environmentally friendly marketing options.Online marketing options are increasingly popular and should be relied upon most heavily when promoting productions. Flyering is frequently used throughout the Edinburgh Festival Fringe but its environmental impact can be reduced! If no other means of marketing is available, choose a sustainable supplier such as PR Print and Design.
  4. Consider how ‘green’ your venue is. Have a conversation with your venue to find out what measures they are taking to create a sustainable environment for your production. Do they have a sustainability policy? Are they a member of the Green Arts Initiative? Have they informed you of any sustainability policies you must follow while performing at their location?
  5. Consider what you are going to do with your materials post-production. If you must dispose of set pieces or costumes after the show, make sure to recycle them. The Fringe Swap Shop takes place at Fringe Central (venue 2) from 27th – 29th This allows you to recycle pieces you do not need and possibly obtain recycled items for your next show! Similarly, make sure to recycle unused flyers properly at the end of the festival rather than just leaving them with your venue or disposing them into a normal rubbish bin. For more information on what will be accepted at the Swap Shop, contact participants@edfringe.com.

Apply now for the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award!

The project partnership of Creative Carbon Scotland and The Centre for Sustainability in the Arts introduced the Fringe Sustainable Practice Award at the Hollywood Fringe and Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010.  The award is run with support from PR Print and Design, and media partnership from The List. For more information, please contact alana.laidlaw@creativecarbonscotland.com

 

The post Blog: Top 5 Tips For The Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

 

About Creative Carbon Scotland :

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Open Call: Season for Change 2018

Creative Carbon Scotland, Open Calls

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

In 2018 over 150 arts organisations are coming together to programme events, conversations and performances under the banner Season for Change. The season will be about inspiring creative actions on climate change.

Season for Change will run from June to December 2018 encompassing the shortest and the longest night. There will be a huge variety of events right across the country with the intention to build on this with a 2020 Season for Change. Both seasons will link into the global “COP” talks (responsible for the Paris Climate Agreement) and aim to raise public interest and conversation about our environment.

Callout for Ideas:
In addition to all the events across the county in 2018, Season for Change are hoping to commission an inspiring national project which will happen on a single day in Autumn 2018. They are looking for a creative, playful idea that will stimulate conversations about our environment.  The idea, when carried out in a single location, is likely to be something simple which engages diverse groups of people and captures the attention of local media. But when the idea is carried out across the country, in multiple locations, on the same day, it will also capture national media attention and demonstrate a united response to the most urgent issue of our time.

Deadline Monday 14 August.

Interested in submitting an idea? Read more here, and use this online form to submit.

The Season for Change is coordinated by a national consortium of arts organisations led by Julie’s Bicycle, Inspired by conversations across the What Next? network.

 

The post Opportunity: Season for Change 2018, Open Call appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

 

About Creative Carbon Scotland :

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland

Radical Reciprocity: Wildly Expressive earthBODYment Artivism

Announcements

Join Bronwyn Preece for a weekend radical earthBODYment intensive on Lasqueti Island, BC, Canada
Arriving Friday, August 18 and leaving Sunday, August 20 late afternoon.

$250 (Canadian) includes workshop, all meals, camping and transportation on Lasqueti.*

How do we tune into our sensuous experiences with the other-than-human world and creatively engage and express them through a radical reciprocity?
How does site-specific deep improvisation: an arts-based corporeal process of exploration of interconnection, translate to a vitally potent politics? I
n the current politically and ecologically fraught era, what might gathering together on an off-the-grid island in Traditional Straits Salish Territory with artistic intention and focus — birth in ourselves and with/for others?
Where are our borders in these ‘wild’ times?!

Facebook event posting: https://www.facebook.com/events/627341657464916/

earthBODYment incorporates solo and whole group processes: movement, sound, language, collaborative writing and painting practices, music, yarn ‘bombing’ and other creative manifestations of presence and resonance with the places we find ourselves in.

The workshop will take place at a variety of site-specific locations around the island

The workshop will begin with an evening session on Friday night. Sunday morning’s session will begin pre-sunrise. Days will be full.

Participants are asked to bring appropriate clothing for walking and working in the forest and on the shore, a headlamp, waterbottle, journal, costume elements and musical instruments, if possible.

Participants need to bring their own tent and sleeping bags for camping (indoor accommodations are possible, at extra expense). Please be aware that Lasqueti Island is an off-the-grid, rugged environment with limited infrastructure and a highly sensitive ecosystem… please be prepared for ‘roughing’ it: with gorgeous ocean views.

earthBODYment is inspired by Bronwyn’s extensive training, and as a teacher, of Action Theater™ for more than 17 years (studying with Ruth Zaporah); her work with Deep Ecologist Joanna Macy (the Work that Reconnects); her work with Butoh dance; her community-engaged Applied Theatre work; her own extensive explorations with embodied and expressive activism, and her more recent work with La Pocha Nostra…and a host of other movement and radical arts based modalities.

Space is limited: for further information and about registering, please email Bronwynat improvise@bronwynpreece.com

*Arrival and Departure from Lasqueti: Depending on the number of participants, a chartered water taxi may be arranged for from French Creek, Vancouver Island on the Friday: taking you directly to the South End, closer to the location for workshop. However these details will not be known until closer to the time. Otherwise, participants will arrive on the 2:30 ferry on Friday from French Creek, and will depart on the Sunday 4:00 ferry from Lasqueti. Please note that the above price does not include transportation costs to and from Lasqueti. Coordiantion is key as Lasqueti Island has limited passenger-only ferry access, and limited on-island transporation options.

Arrangements may be made to arrive earlier and leave later — extending this time into your own residency — arrangements to be discussed with Bronwyn.

“I am full of gratitude for the other day. You have such a beautiful ability to give space, and to offer ample space for us to be. How powerful to speak to us about our choices being perfect. I have only ever rarely seen that degree of honouring our nature and potential in any tradition. You are a gem and a revolutionary and inspiring leader.”
~ Mariko Ihara, earthBODYment participant

“Bronwyn’s workshops/exercises were raw and unconventional; engaging all aspects of our being in spawning individual/collective expression. It gave me a shiver of excitement each time before the class as I really didn’t know what to expect. I love those scary unknown places and the challenges proposed because there is no choice but to show up! Bronwyn skillfully directs and facilitates the work while stepping aside to allow participants to dive into the depth of their own experiences.”
-Thomas Loh, Nelson, earthBODYment participant (from 2014 Leviathan intensive)

“Bronwyn is such an elegant, feminine, powerful artist and facilitator. I was blown away her presence and her self assuredness to give me (us) the space to fully trust in her process and to experience a wonderful workshop.”
~Joanna Bond, earthBODYment participant (Penpynfarch Studio, Wales, 2015)

About Bronwyn Preece:

Bronwyn Preece is a site-specific, improvisational performer, poet, author, visual and walking eARThist. She is currently pursuing her PhD: using site-specific improvisation to explore the overlaps between ecology and disability. She holds an MA and BFA in Applied Theatre. She is the pioneer of earthBODYment and became Canada’s first certified teacher of Action Theater™. She is the author of three books, among other publications. All of Bronwyn’s work focuses on connection to place and interdependence — interrogating the dichotomies between culture and nature, self and environment. Highlights include performing at World Stage Design in Wales (in an outdoor edible set), at Women’s Caucus for Art in NYC, with Kokoro Dance in three of their Wreck Beach Butoh performaces; and performing with the La Pocha Nostra international winter school in Mexico. She facilitates workshops internationally and works with communities and within classrooms to engage with timely issues through the arts. She served two terms in local politics as the youngest woman ever elected to her post with the Islands Trust, the municipal level government for the Gulf Islands of BC (2002-2008). Learn more about Bronwyn at www.bronwynpreece.com

Recipe for Change

Artists and Climate Change

This post comes from the Artists and Climate Change Blog

What is your favorite food? Not your special-occasion favorite, but your everyday, go-to favorite thing to eat. Are you picturing it? The form it comes in, the smell, the temperature, the flavor. Zoom out on that picture. What’s the context? Where you eat the food, how you eat it, the place you get it from. Zoom out a little further. The place where you get this food from: where does the food come from before that? Can you visualize it? Is the image blurrier now? Maybe not, maybe it’s clear as day. But you see how this sequence could go on and on, so that at some point, the link between you and the food you eat is muddled. I am interested in this sequence, this telescoping through the lens of what we eat and where it comes from. I situate my thoughts on food alongside my theatrical processes, as I pose questions about our relationships to one another and to our natural environment.

At this time three years ago, I was composing my undergraduate thesis production. With this play, GAIA: an eco-theatre project, I posed questions like: How do we—humans—impact the natural environment? What do our actions, in relation to the natural environment, say about what it means to be human? Through found text, live music, movement, video, and processes of improvisation, my ensemble and I built a sequence of scenes that brought audiences on a journey through varying perspectives on how citizens in Western culture—in our culture—make everyday choices with regards to food, transportation, and energy. We sought to challenge ourselves, and by extension our audience, to see beyond what is printed and spoken, and to enrich our knowledge through continued exploration.

Scene from GAIA: an eco-theatre project, Julia’s thesis production at Butler University. Photo by Madeline Carey.

I am not suggesting that the work I make in theatre has answers, or that any potential solutions laid out are the magic bullet for ending climate change, not at all. But as climate disasters persist—displacing people from homes they’ve had for decades or longer—and with our country’s political climate fueled by fear and hate, I am thirsty for alternatives. We need change, and we needed it yesterday. In the couple of years since GAIA, I have collected additional ways of thinking about how theatre artists can address climate change, about what elements make up the stories we tell ourselves, and how we can deepen those themes in the theatre to help us navigate a rapidly transforming world.

Last year, I gathered with a group of artists and climate activists for an exploratory conversation on performance, climate change, awareness, and resiliency as part of a weekend conference with Theatre Without Borders and NoPassport. We shared our questions, our thoughts, our practices of how we use art to tackle the vast topic of climate change, and we shared in the unexpected: pickle making. Looking back, how could such a gathering not have included some good-old-fashioned transformation? With the ingredients gathered and the recipe structured out, we collectively prepared the cucumbers for their new form. I found playfulness in the process. Sometimes recipes are strict: if you have slightly too much of something, it could compromise the consistency of the entire thing. But with pickling, especially in a group of at least fifteen varying preferences, there is flexibility. A few weeks stood between us and our homemade product, but like so much of the theatrical projects I work on, the final product was not the purpose of the pickling exercise. It was about the preparation. As artists, we must prepare for our work, build a structure and be willing to adapt. And as humans in an age of climate change, we must prepare for the major shifts that are already impacting our ways of being.

Pickling preparation at the Performance and Climate Change Exploratory Conversation as part of the Theatre Without Borders and NoPassport conference in March 2016, facilitated by Emily Mendelsohn, Sarah Cameron Sunde, and Moe Yousuf. Photo by Sarah Cameron Sunde.

This idea about preparation has stuck with me. What are the ingredients we must assemble as we formulate a more sustainable future? We need critical thinking, undoubtedly. Critical thinking is at the foundation of uprooting the current status quo of oppressive systems on local and global scales. Here lies part of our responsibility as artists: what are the relationships we are putting onstage, who has the power, and how is it distributed? These What, Who, and How questions manifest in some way through every theatrical narrative, and we must be intentional with the ways in which we lay them out, for ourselves, and for our audiences.

In his recent documentary, artist and activist Josh Fox collects stories of communities around the world directly impacted by climate change, from Hurricane-Sandy-stricken Rockaway Beach to heavily-polluted Beijing. How to Let Go of the World and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change highlights these stories to illuminate factors that make us human, that we can use to keep up with the global climate. Across all of the communities depicted in the film, moral imagination arises as a key factor, a bedrock for bridging the categories of “us” and “them” and “present” and “future.” Along the lines of a collective consciousness, of viewing the world through a lens beyond our own, we can use a moral imagination to visualize the unforeseen consequences of human action, or inaction.

In my current play, UPROOT, I seek to re-draw the connection between Americans and where our food comes from. Fueled by food documentaries including King Corn and Darwin’s Nightmare, and by writers like Michael Pollan, UPROOT strives to empower individuals to (re)consider the situation of their choices. The characters in my play are personified foods, displacing literal human circumstances for more symbolic relationships, and therefore orienting the scene in an absurd, ridiculous way—it’s talking food after all! In stepping back, and metaphorically seeing ourselves in our food, I want to employ critical thinking and moral imagination as part of the process in reconfiguring our culture’s unsustainable status quo.

Picture your favorite food. What senses does it light up? Zoom out. What’s the context? Are there others around? Maybe you hear conversation, laughter, community. Is there talk of where this food came from? Maybe. Are you enjoying each other’s company? Definitely. The elements are there. The directions are structured out. It’s up to us to put it all together and get cooking.

Learn More
Julia’s play UPROOT performs August 22 and 23 at HERE (NYC), as part of SubletSeries@HERE: Co-Op, HERE’s curated summer rental program, which provides artists with subsidized space and equipment, as well as technical support. You can follow the play, and her entire series, The Food Plays, via Facebook.

(Top image: From the staged reading of UPROOT as part of the International Human Rights Art Festival at Dixon Place, March 4, 2017. Photo by Ariella Axelbank.)

This article was originally published on HowlRound, a knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, on September 23, 2016.

About Artists and Climate Change:

Artists and Climate Change is a blog that tracks artistic responses from all disciplines to the problem of climate change. It is both a study about what is being done, and a resource for anyone interested in the subject. Art has the power to reframe the conversation about our environmental crisis so it is inclusive, constructive, and conducive to action. Art can, and should, shape our values and behavior so we are better equipped to face the formidable challenge in front of us.

Go to the Artists and Climate Change Blog

Edinburgh Festivals: A Summer of Sustainability

Creative Carbon Scotland

This post comes from Creative Carbon Scotland

Here at Creative Carbon Scotland, we’re lucky to be based in the home of some of the world’s largest cultural events and festivals! This summer there are lots of sustainability and cultural events taking place: both run by CCS, and by our collaborators – take a look and see what’s on.

The Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award

Running since 2010, one of our major summer projects is the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice award! Any production taking part in the 2017 Edinburgh Festival can apply for the award, and Creative Carbon Scotland the Center for Sustainable Practice in the Arts are also running a help session for anyone wishing to apply: ‘How to Win the Edinburgh Fringe Sustainable Practice Award’ ! 

We’ll also be holding an award ceremony at the end of August! Keep you eyes peeled for more information!

Events for Artists and Industry Professionals at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

On Monday 21st August, Creative Carbon Scotland will be participating in The Fringe Fair, alongside other key strategic and supportive organisations for the cultural sector. With drop-in advice on specific issues, to information about first steps in sustainability, there will be plenty of chat! 

Part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s Participant’s Programme, Creative Carbon Scotland will be hosting ‘Sustainable Shows: Emerging Trends’ on Wednesday 23rd August: a facilitated workshop for cultural producers, directors, writers and other arts professionals. With speakers from the USA, the UK and Australia, the session will actively examine how to integrate sustainability into production planning.

As in previous years, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society will also be running The Fringe Swap Shop: a zero-waste initiative that aims to re-purposes props, costumes and materials from Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows for new productions!

Events as part of Edinburgh Art Festival

With a core theme among commissions of Sir Patrick Geddes, this year’s Festival explores some of the better physical, social and emotional ways of living, inspired by the town planner/polymath/conservationist. Responding to Geddes’ key work ‘The Making of the Future: a Manifesto and Project’, EAF’s The Making of Future: Now summer meeting at (Green Arts Initiative member) North Edinburgh Arts is essential for those engaged in exploring the legacy of Geddes, and the role of artists in city regeneration.

Equally, combining the work of Geddes at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh, and the urban ecosystem, Bobby Niven: Palm House (part of the Festival’s commissions programme) will be based at the Johnston Terrace Wildlife Garden from July 27th – August 27th.

Image credit: David Monteith-Hodge

 

The post Edinburgh Festivals: A Summer of Sustainability appeared first on Creative Carbon Scotland.

 

About Creative Carbon Scotland:

Creative Carbon Scotland is a partnership of arts organisations working to put culture at the heart of a sustainable Scotland. We believe cultural and creative organisations have a significant influencing power to help shape a sustainable Scotland for the 21st century.

In 2011 we worked with partners Festivals Edinburgh, the Federation of Scottish Threatre and Scottish Contemporary Art Network to support over thirty arts organisations to operate more sustainably.

We are now building on these achievements and working with over 70 cultural organisations across Scotland in various key areas including carbon management, behavioural change and advocacy for sustainable practice in the arts.

Our work with cultural organisations is the first step towards a wider change. Cultural organisations can influence public behaviour and attitudes about climate change through:

Changing their own behaviour;
Communicating with their audiences;
Engaging the public’s emotions, values and ideas.

Go to Creative Carbon Scotland