Performance for Resilience

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Introduction to Shine

   • Beth Osnes

   Pages 1-16

3. Design of Shine as a Method for Engagement

   • Beth Osnes

   Pages 17-60

4. Outcomes from the International Tour of Shine

   • Beth Osnes

   Pages 61-134

5. Conclusion

   • Beth Osnes

   Pages 135-150

6. Back Matter

   Pages 151-158

   PDF

This book focuses on Shine, a musical performance about how energy, humanity, and climate are interrelated. Weaving together climate science and artistic expression, it results in a funny and powerful story spanning 300 million years. The first half is professionally scripted, composed, and choreographed to convey how our use of fossil fuels is impacting our climate. The second half - our future story - is authored by local youth to generate solutions for their city’s resilience. In rehearsing the musical, participants themselves embody aspects of climate science and human development. Ultimately, it demonstrates that performance can be a dynamic tool for youth to contribute to their community’s resilience.

Educators can use this book to guide youth in creative expression based on (or inspired by) Shine. Included are the script, links to the music and video of the performance, materials for building curricula, interviews with collaborators, and lessons learned along Shine’s year-long international tour.

• Performance Studies
• Theatre
• Environmental Design
• Environmental Studies
• Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Initiative
• Local Communities
• Climate
• Energy
• Humanity
• Youth Engagement

“An important guide for creatively engaging youth on the most critical topic our planet faces today - climate change. Youth not only have a right to be a part of building a resilient future in the face of climate change, they also have the passion and creativity to advance all of our thinking. This book provides practical tools and inspirational stories for involving youth in conceiving of a better tomorrow through the arts.” (Dr Victoria Derr, California State University Monterey Bay, USA)

“Through co-created climate communication, Osnes persuasively advocates for the centrality of creative youth participation in building climate resilient communities.  In sharing her experiences of using collaborative creative methods, she facilitates an important and vital shift for climate communication and engagement strategies, towards the inclusion of young people’s embodied and place-based knowledge as central to achieving inclusive climate resilience.” (Professor Julie Doyle, University of Brighton, UK)

“This is a project that rouses a sleeping giant — youth — to joyfully engage in authoring a new story for climate, energy, and resilience. It supports them in using their voice through art to act on the scientific knowledge that our climate is changing. This is an educational tool well-suited to anyone who trusts that youth need to be a part of our collective solution moving forward.” (James Balog, Director, Extreme Ice Survey and Earth Vision Institute)

• University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, USA

  Beth Osnes

Beth Osnes is Associate Professor of Theatre and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado. She is co-director of Inside the Greenhouse, a CU initiative for creative climate communication, author of Theatre for Women’s Participation in Sustainable Development, and is featured in the award-winning documentary Mother: Caring for 7 Billion.