In the same instant as I say yes, I feel my breathing speed up. The sensation of pressure building inside me, like a body of water ready to overflow the banks.
The news and the information coming in daily about the climate crisis is overwhelming, increasingly terrifying, unprecedented, paralyzing. Too much to take in.
I’m adding another trip to my already packed schedule. I have been on tour a lot, flying to places with a show about climate change and colonization, an uneasy paradox. I’ve been away from home and from Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the company I lead in Toronto, too much. But this invitation feels important. Urgent. How can I say no?
I think, I am holding this climate in my body.
I think, Banff will be a time to listen. To immerse myself in this critical conversation, to strategize with colleagues. To be inspired.
Or maybe it will be the thing that finally sends me over the edge.
Anyway, I say yes. Yes to attending the Summit, yes to writing this reflection.
Because I recognize this feeling of terror in my guts. It’s a signal. Over the course of my career, I feel it whenever I embark upon any truly meaningful new creative project. When I step into the fray with the determination to harness ideas and visions and translate them into something concrete, to create something that doesn’t yet exist. The terror is not knowing: not knowing if I have what it takes to do justice to the task at hand, or what the outcome will be, or if I’ll succeed or fail. But I do know that saying yes to the attempt is the only way ambitious and meaningful things ever get made.
The news and the information coming in daily about the climate crisis is overwhelming, increasingly terrifying, unprecedented, paralyzing. Too much to take in.
We arrive at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, a conference centre and artist retreat in the Rocky Mountains. Stunning alpine vistas in every direction. Nature stops me in my tracks, many times a day.
Most of us have flown great distances to get here. This irony is not lost on anyone.
We are theatre leaders inside a small industry working in a geographically enormous country. Many of us do a lot of flying. Touring, working in other cities, attending festivals. Canadians generally have a big carbon footprint. Our geography and climate implicate us inside resource-heavy infrastructure: sprawling distances between our major urban centers; long drives or flights between stops on tour; long winters through which we must heat our homes, theatres, and public spaces.
We gather in the BP Canada Energy Room. Paradox at every turn.
It’s oil money that pays for this amazing retreat centre, and that’s no secret; we are in Alberta, home of the tar sands. It strikes me that we are in a moment equivalent to the one just before the arts sector unilaterally rejected the sponsorship of big tobacco back in the nineties.
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I like how you guys can come together as a community and talk about such a serious topic like this and try to make things better one step at a time.
Thanks Evalyn for this. I was there also in Banff with you and this group and have experience similar emotions to yours. I wrote an article called Terrified Awakening that I will publish soon that outlines my journey in relation to my 17 year daughter who is now studying science with a view to contribute to the issue. I like your idea of ‘holding this climate in my body’ and will think more about this. I’m doing doing some work on art and climate change where I work at Canada Council and am monitoring what artists of all disciplines are doing in and around sustainability issues. Let keep the conversations going and somehow overcome our terror. Thanks again for putting yourself out there. Claude