Resisting Extinction offers practices for living and dying together on, in and with a damaged Earth.

Resisting Extinction invites us to look around and notice what we are losing. Together our bodies live inside this ecological crisis. We must hone our skills, to be receptive, to improvise, to play, to experiment, to grieve, to metabolize, to be together in the unknown and trust we have resources in our bodies to negotiate, survive, and thrive.

We invite you into the forest for a weather walk, a search through deep time for disappearing beings, and a dying and decomposing practice to prepare for potential climate realities.

In Resisting Extinction we confront an existential and urgent question that we feel is missing from much of the broader cultural discourse on the ecological crisis: How do we personally and collectively reckon with this crisis through our physical and emotional bodies? By accessing our bodies, we can begin to recognize, viscerally and tangibly, that we are not separate from our surroundings. Our bodies do not exist outside of the ecological crisis; they live within it.

Watch documentation
weather walk
the missing
dying and decomposing practice

Resisting Extinction invites audiences into a shared space to face the realities of ecological crisis together. Within the brief span of the performance, we turn toward grief, grief for personal losses and loved ones, for human suffering, for disappearing species and collapsing ecosystems. At the same time, we explore practices that support resilience, offering ways to stay present, embodied, and connected in the midst of profound change.

This work unfolds as an ongoing, iterative process through participatory and site-sensitive performances in sites of ecological importance, in forests and along bodies of water.

It provides a structure for ongoing research, mentoring, and exchange with local communities, scientists, activists, and local and international artists to learn about local ecosystems. Together working with local performers we adapt the performance so that it resonates with the specific socio-cultural, ecological, and geographical contexts in which it takes place.

The knowledge generation and exchange that is happening through this project is urgent and important for the collaborating artists and presenters, and we suspect for scientists and audiences, to forge new methods of working and being with the ecological crisis physically, cognitively, emotionally, behaviorally, individually, and collectively.

“In three acts, we were confronted with the myriad of life that the forest holds”  Anne Liisberg, ISCENE

“…like an extended science lesson where I get to feel my body. Resisting Extinction became a ritual where I could reflect on the climate crisis and its consequences.” Marte Reithaug Sterud, Norsk Shakespeare Tidsskrift

“Bieringa and Ramstad are deeply committed to their practice, to conversations, to inviting participants to connect more fully with their bodies to face dis-ease and the pains of our time. Its gruelling, honourable work as they grapple with the question of how this ‘practice’ can lead to action.” Lyne Pringle, Theatreview

“A flight of kakas, orange armpits flashing, herald Bieringa’s strong articulate voice as she delivers an intricate informed text about the process of drowning. It is an horrifically beautiful thought experiment – it is astounding how these states can nestle so closely with each other.” Lyne Pringle, Theatreview

“This production’s awareness of the environment and the ecological crisis takes on a rather experimental form in this dance scene, which distinguishes it from most of the works that have come out in recent years. This time, site-specificity is not merely in the service of decoration or showmanship: the site amplifies the theme, and the production is resonant of people’s direct experience of nature, albeit directed by the performers. The whole action is engaging and practical rather than distantly spectacular.”  Iiris Viirpalu, SIRP

“This is how Resisting Extinction does scientific work — we are not reaching for mastery, but working speculatively in search of an embodied practice to better feel, imagine, and be in crisis.” Amit Noy, BLOT

“What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel? BodyCartography Project’s Resisting Extinction” performer Amit Noy speaks to creators BodyCartography Project on making work in times of ecological grief for The Pantograph Punch.