Hi everyone! My name is Rebekka, and I’m the Artistic Director of Awaken Dance Theater. Beginning in early 2014, the company has 15 truly stellar dancers, and aims to make bold statements on social and political issues through dance.
The project we are working to fund is a multidisciplinary exploration of climate change. It will focus equally on educating the viewers with accurate scientific information, discussing the human response (or lack of response) to our changing environment, and appealing to the raw emotions of our audience members. Personally, this topic is important to me; I took a full course on climate change at Boston University and it terrified me. I can’t imagine what life will be like 50 or 100 years from now, or how I will be able to explain to my children how humans let this happen to our planet.
The finished project will be approximately 45-60 minutes in length, with multiple sections showing a specific consequence or side of climate change. The first section will explore non-living changes we will and are currently experiencing: increasing storms, changing currents, higher temperatures, sea-levels rising, forest fires, etc. The second section will address wildlife, including multiple “animal solos” with different dancers being different species that are suffering direct consequences of climate change, like different migration patterns, shrinking habitat, food scarcity, etc. The final section will be about how humans are affected, and will touch on everything from agriculture, hunger and heat exhaustion to refugees, economic changes, and how different populations/countries can better adapt due to finances.
The piece will also be accompanied with either a projection or spoken word presentation of actual data on the topic. I’ll be interviewing different professors and researchers in the field and making sure to present as much factual information as possible.
This piece will be very long when finished! We are hoping to present sections of it in a few months, with the complete premier in 2016. Most likely, it will be shown at the Second Annual Awaken Dance Theater Gala. It will definitely be performed in New York City, and hopefully in other US cities eventually.
To make this project happen, your support is absolutely critical. Working on a dance teacher’s salary, the company is funded entirely by supporters like you. Without you, we would not exist.
All of your donations will go directly into this project. They will be used to pay for the following:
For your support, you’ll receive goods from the company, such as photos of the dances, and/or tickets to an upcoming performance. RocketHub is not an investment or charity. It is an exchange: funds from supporters for Goods from me. It’s a “keep what I raise” funding mechanism: if I don’t reach my financial goal I get to keep what I raise.
Climate change is happening! It is something we shouldn’t and can’t ignore. It should be a concern to all, and Awaken Dance Theater wants to bring it into the hearts and minds of dance audiences. I believe that dance can affect people in ways that other things cannot. Perhaps an audience will react strongly and want to create change themselves, contact their representatives, recycle more, drive less, teach their children about the earth, etc.
Please give what you can to make this project a success. Your generosity is greatly appreciated! Every dollar helps.
Thank you so much in advance, for helping to make this Study of Climate Change through Dance possible.
Awaken Dance Theater is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions for the charitable purposes of Awaken Dance Theater must be made payable to Fractured Atlas only and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.