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

Tour dates

May 23-25 Dancehouse Lefkosia, Cyprus
June 13-14 Nurt Foundation, Szczecin
June 21-22, Nurt Foundation, Warsaw
July 28- August 1, Passage Festival, Helsingor, Denmark

Resisting Extinction invites us to look around and notice what we are losing. Together our bodies live inside this ecological crisis. This ecological crisis is an identity crisis. Everything is shifting. Recognizing grief as a legitimate response to this multi-species mass extinction. It is a vital step to expanding our understanding of what it means to be alive in this swiftly transforming moment. We can’t rely on models that perpetuate this crisis. We need to practice embodied knowing to repair our relational field with this more-than-human world. This is an opportunity to move collectively towards creating more ecologies of reciprocity. We must hone our skills. To improvise, to play, to experiment, to be receptive, to be in the unknown and trust we have resources in our bodies to negotiate, survive, and thrive.

We gather onsite and invite the audience to take part in :

– weather walk; an intimate journey where we transform our small talk about the weather. 

– in the missing the landscape comes alive, haunted by critically endangered multi-species beings.

– dying and decomposing practices into the land and sea, allow us to collectively practice for potential climate realities.

“…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

“sometimes you go to see art and you know that this experience will follow the rest of your life … its changing something inside me … ” interview with audience Ellen Hageman, November 17, 2022

“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.

Credits

Concept: Olive Bieringa

Direction & choreography: Olive Bieringa & Otto Ramstad

Co-creating performers: Sigrid Marie Kittelsaa Vesaas, Ornilia Ubisse, Hanna Filomen Mjåvatn, Kristina Gjems, Otto Ramstad, Olive Bieringa, Nina Wollny, Daniel Persson, Oliver Connew, Uma Ramstad, Laressa Dickey, Kosta Bogoievski, Josie Archer, Rachel Ruckstuhl-Mann, Olivia McGregor, Amit Noy, Maria Lothe, Eline Selgis,  Helina Karvak, Laura Kvelstein, Nele Suisalu, Joanna Kalm

Writers: Olive Bieringa and Laressa Dickey

Costume design: Kristine Gjems

Producer in Tallinn: Ann Mirjam Vaikla

Photo credits: Alissa Šnaider, Maria Lothe, Otto Ramstad, Arne Hauge, Guy Robinson

Past performances

2024
Weather walk, Kehä Festival, Oulu, Finland 

2023
Tantsuruum, Tallin, Estonia

Biotoopia, Tallinn, Estonia

Performance Arcade, Wellington, New Zealand

2022
SITE, Farsta, Stockholm
Bærum Kulturhus, Bærum, Norway
Bygdøy, Oslo

2021
DanseFestival Barents, Hammerfest
Bygdøy, Oslo
DansiT and Rosendal Theater in Trondheim
Field and Stream exhibit ArtStart, Rhinelander, Wisconsin, USA
The Embodiment Conference 2020, online
The Body-Mind Centering Conference 2020 online
Body IQ at the Somatics Academy, Berlin
Love in the Time of Covid online publication

Related curriculum

Ecosomatic Practices for Living and Dying on a Damaged Earth

Press

Perform Europe, supported by the European Union, is a funding scheme for the European performing arts sector. It facilitates international networking and supports inclusive, diverse, and eco-friendly touring projects across the 40 Creative Europe countries. Perform Europe emphasises practices rooted in sustainability and inclusivity, aiming to transform the performing arts sector and ensure a balanced distribution across the continent.

Perform Europe is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union and implemented by a consortium of six organisations: IETM – International network for contemporary performing arts, European Festivals Association (EFA), Circostrada, European Dance Development Network, Pearle * – Live Performance Europe and IDEA Consult.

 

 

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