My conversation with Dr. Kim Richards, a post-doctoral fellow in public energy humanities at the University of Alberta, about the role of theatre in the climate emergency during a soundwalk around Trout Lake Park in Vancouver on Monday, November 1, 2021. With excerpts from e44 bilodeau, e59 pearl and e36 fanconi.
Dr. Kim Richards, Vancouver, November 1, 2021
e76 kim richards – seeding a green new theatre in canada is my conversation with Dr. Kim Richards about the role of theatre in the climate emergency. With excerpts from e44 bilodeau, e59 pearl and e36 fanconi. Dr. Richards is currently a post-doctoral fellow in public energy humanities at the University of Alberta and is building an open-access video archive of performance-based strategies to promote a just energy transition. Kim recently co-edited an issue of Canadian Theatre Review on “Extractivism and Performance” (April 2020). This conversation took place during a soundwalk around Trout Lake Park in Vancouver on Monday, November 1, 2021. Note: to access Dr. Richards’ writings contact her at: kskyerichards@gmail.com and for information on her work see https://ualberta.academia.edu/KimberlySkyeRichards
Canadian Theatre Review on “Extractivism and Performance” (April 2020).
Excerpt:
I wrote an article called Seeding a Green New Theatre in Canada that is drawing on a lot of principles of conversations happening around a green new deal in the United States and elsewhere, as well as other kinds of social justice movements happening on both sides of the border and thinking through what's the kind of theatre and what are the plays that already existed in Canadian theatre history and what are more of the kinds of stories that we need to be telling and sharing and how to think about the transition that we're facing socially from a justice perspective that really advances and brings forward the impact of the existing system by racialized communities, low income communities, the people who work within the energy or extractive development sector. There are a number of really quite remarkable pieces of work, many of which hadn't been produced a whole lot of times that addressed those issues.
Tree in Trout Lake Park, Vancouver,. that we listened to while on our soundwalk