Narratives of Resilience - Theater

Over 2022-2023, a team of theater professionals, in partnership with WARC is leading a series of workshops in eco-theater as a method of social cohesion within a rural community on a common ecological cause. To hear about the consequences of a man-made ecological crisis, is not to have experienced it- rationing the school’s water supply to last the week; seeing your entire harvest wiped out by a dust storm overnight; holding the cold, bloated hands of your 10-year-old daughter with anemia. Our objective is to combine ethnographic research and performance to raise awareness about our relationship to the environment in the context of the Aral Sea crisis. Theater, a universal method of communication, allows a global audience to share in the simulated experience and trauma in a safe medium.

Proceeds from the performance will be used to fund the installation of a reverse osmosis filtration system at the schools to desalinate water and plant adaptable fruit trees in an area where a large number of teenagers suffer from anemia.

Two 3-day workshops have been organized in eco-theater at the end of which performances were shown to the community. "Water-Fire-Earth-Tree" in Kegeyli, April 1,2022, and "Letters to Water" in Kanlikul, October 1, 2022.