The DANCING TREES aims to sensitize the audience and encourage urban initiatives in defense against excessive tree felling. By using performing arts, the artists wants to inspire citizens to connect and network, be proactive in the defense of trees and forests. In addition to the dance-theater performance, the project included talk-back sessions after the show, round tables, webinar “Create Your Action“, digital platform, documentary and short film based on the project/performance.
National
Serbia
Belgrade [capital]
Niš [south of Serbia]
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2021-10-28
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): DAH Theatre, Reserch Centre for Culrure and Social Changes Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Jadranka Last name of representative: Andjelic Gender: Female Nationality: Serbia If relevant, please select your other nationality: Serbia Function: Project co-director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Bulevar despota Stefana 53 Town: Belgrade Postal code: 11000 Country: Serbia Direct Tel:+381 64 154 8003 E-mail:jadranka.andjelic@gmail.com Website:https://drveceplese.com/?lang=en
Dancing Trees-Arts for Environmental Protection Project, through its multidisciplinary approach centred around performing arts, inspires community members to become proactive in climate sustainability efforts in general and the tree protection efforts in particular. DAH Theatre-Research Center for Culture and Social Change created the project reacting to a growing uncontrolled tree cutting in Serbia. The Project emphasizes the role trees play in our ecosystems and raises awareness about nature preservation, while encouraging urban initiatives against any form of unbridled exploitation. It addresses the need for active participation of citizens in the process of transforming Europe into a climate-neutral continent.
The Project uses multidisciplinary approach through a range of activities:
o Outdoor dance-theatre performance Dancing Trees, created for city parks or forests. The performance focuses on the importance of preserving trees, with an aim to awaken the spectators/citizens to the local and global ecological issues. Regularly performed, the performance invites them to observe their natural environment in a life-centred rather than a human-centred perspective.
o Post-performance talkbacks, surveys, and video interviews aimed at hearing audience voices regarding the climate change;
o Round tables with experts, activists, and artists about climate change and potential solutions;
o Webinar Create Your Action provides support, tools, and guidance in civic activist initiatives;
o Digital platform Act Together curates news about artistic, activist, and civic projects, in addition to stimulating ecological organizations networking;
o Documentary film about the project and short film inspired by the performance facilitate faster dissemination of the major project’s points;
o Development of materials for a case study in Teaching Artistry for Social Impact course on Kadenze.com
Preservation
Forestation
Creativity
Comunity
Empowerment
o Raising awareness about the importance of trees and forests in our community;
o Raising understanding amongst our fellow citizens about intersection between ecology, economy, and politics;
o Activating citizens of all ages to protect trees and forests;
o Putting in touch related initiatives and their networking in order to speed up the information exchange and activities at the city and national level;
o Unifying in the mission of popularizing responsible behavior regarding the forest/nature protection;
o Inspiring artists and their institutions to participate in concrete actions in protecting our natural and civic environment through the artistic means;
o To advocate for more legal regulation in trees and forests protection.
The project itself is long lasting and aspires to facilitate change in citizens’ attitude, behavior and discourse. At the performance, audience learn about importance of trees and receives a printed program (on recycled paper) together with seeds of a tree and instructions how to plant it, in an effort to stimulate them to take an active part in reforestation and recognize that they can take a very concrete role in it.
The PR and marketing campaign, as well as extensive media coverage accompanied by two films about the project, all contributed to raising public awareness, while public round tables and discussions with experts offered possible solutions to the sustainability concerns. Through these, the project galvanized local communities to start new ones or persevere in already existing local efforts to protect nature.
During the webinar Create Your Action, we offered creative tools to the participants, helping them to improve their own initiatives.
The project is set up as exemplary tool in the pioneer course Teaching Artistry for Social Impact on kadenze.com platform.
The project was recognized as one of five model international projects by Austrian Radio Ö1's Fixing the Future -Climate Innovation.
The project creates cultural experiences for people, which lead to changes in their attitudes on the way to building a climate-neutral society. The audience is invited to realize the fact that the entire world is one entity and that we have to empathize with one another. Empathy is one of the most effective drivers for collective action and art in all its forms is a perfect agent to provoke it. Using artistic language that reaches directly the hearts and minds of the spectators, we stimulate our fellow citizens to actively participate in the fight against environmental degradation/climate change.
The performance Dancing Trees utilizes dance, theatre, video projections, original music score, poetry, and facts to speak about the life of trees. Through it, we share specific information about the trees’ importance for planetary ecosystem alongside data related to the local ecological condition, as well as stories about civic actions in tree protection. It is staged at night, with light design that favours trees as we consider them the partners to the performers. Video projections invoke the breathing of the trees, fire, car pollution, and shoal of fish on dry land. The staging elements create magical atmosphere that gives time to the audience to appreciate it, but in contrast with frightening facts presented, it invites it to reflect the consequences of the tree/nature destruction.
The performance gathers community in the public parks with an aim to create togetherness and inspiration for common action. In an effort to minimize ecological footprint we used specially designed seats for audience, made of recycled cardboard. It is regularly performed in centrally located Belgrade Student Park and also tours whenever an opportunity occurs.
Two Films –Documentary about the project and the Short Film inspired by the performance, use cinematic language to create a strong impact on wider audiences, that can watch them at the film festivals as well as online.
All activities and contents associated with the project are free of charge and open to the general public.
This is an inclusive project that serves as a model for incorporation of audiences and collaborators of various generations, abilities, professions, classes, etc. We created a performance for a public space in order to reach as wide audience as possible, especially having in mind members of our community who are not theatre goers. Belgrade performances, which take place in popular Student Park, assembled very diverse spectators-elderly and children, students and adults, both those who intentionally came, as well as accidental park goers, some of them witnessing live performance for the first time.
Among other accounts and facts, the text of the performance includes local narratives about different civic actions against tree felling, for instance, the one when citizens of one Belgrade neighborhood defended their local park by tying themselves to the trees. The dramaturgy is open for inclusion of new local stories from other cities in Serbia and abroad. At the end of the performance, the spectators are invited to come closer to the trees and thus become a part of the event and have opportunity to express their own feelings. Without exception, our audience spontaneously started to hug the trees, most of them very moved and some in tears.
In talkbacks, surveys, video interviews, as well as during round tables, or webinars, we invite members of the community to speak up their minds, emotions, and doubts in relation to the global climate change and tree protection in their own city.
We got evidence that our fellow citizens feel a great need to do something about the issue, but not knowing how. Thus, we offered webinar Create Your Action for interested citizen to share our knowledge and experience. Being case study for an open source online course (Teaching Artistry for Social Impact) project is accessible free of charge to the worldwide audiences on kadenze.com.
Belgrade lost 20% of its trees in past few decades and continues to do so at an alarming rate. While citizens are growingly concerned, they frequently do not know how to address the problem. The project is designed to serve as a bridge between communities—the expert communities already engaged or willing to engage with the issue and fellow citizens whom we galvanized to get involved, to actively defend the trees and nature.
In Serbia, there is a very low ecological conscience, accompanied by a lack of systematic information about the measures to fight climate change. The Governmental policies are way behind and civil society is not well articulated in their demands and rights. Therefore, we created digital platform Act Together that benefits civic society both as an information source as well as a platform through which they can connect, creating an activist network for mutual help and support.
The performance in the park, amongst the trees, reminds us that we are part of the nature, even if in an urban surrounding. It inspires the audience to contemplate what is their place and role in our ecosystem and how they can help to protect it. According to our surveys and interviews, all spectators learned some new facts that changed their way of thinking about trees/nature, all felt urgency of the current situation, and all expressed willingness to contribute to the solution.
Many reported on planting their own trees, while others went a step further and started their local initiatives. Some of those citizens-turned-activists participated in our webinar, Create Your Own Action, which gave us a direct insight into the impact the project had on our fellow community members. Participants came out of the webinar with concrete plans to devise their own creative actions.
Films are accessible to the wider audience and further promote the ideas of the Project thus inspiring more citizens to reflect about the future actions.
The changes such as the ones needed in Serbia and defined by the European Green Deal need everyone to get involved urgently, so we invited diverse organizations at different levels to unite with us. We were joined by fellow artists, activists, experts, NGOs, and community members, with financial support of many organizations, including ministries as well as municipal powers.
All these participants, no matter the rate of their involvement or support, contributed to spreading the project ideas, reaching the new audiences that started observing the world around them with a fresh, more ecologically conscious eye. Apart from actively engaging each of these parties in tree protection and planting, with each encounter, we shared our knowledge and gained new insights that we further disseminated, empowering communities to protect their right to a healthy living environment. Common engagements thus resulted that the Project has an effect of the Environmental Campaign in our society.
The project gained support at all levels and by very diverse organization and institutions.
The project is financed by:
ITAC – Climate Impact;
Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs;
International Relief Fund of the German Federal Foreign Office, the Goethe Institute, and other partners: http://www.goethe.de/relieffund;
City of Belgrade – Secretary for Culture;
Ministry of Culture and Information of Republic of Serbia.
It had technical support of Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade and logistic support of Cultural Centre PAROBROD [Belgrade]. The production was realized in collaboration with Dance Institute in Belgrade. The 2022 performances were supported by EU Delegation in Serbia and Šuma Peva [Forest Sings], ecological NGO.
18 organizations joined our platform Act Together, thus creating a mini eco-network. Especially stimulating was cooperation with ITAC that resulted in a worldwide accessibility and recognition of our project.
The project brought together various disciplines such as science, economy, performing arts, visual arts, music, cinema, social activism, and digital technology.
Scientists and other experts in climate change were involved in the research process about the trees and ecosystems. Their analysis (written studies and interviews) were important input for the project’s concept and its results. Some of the experts from the field took part in round tables and public discussions, as well as contributed to the web platform. Activists were involved in networking, contribution to the web platform, and sharing ideas about the project activities.
Apart from taking part in the production, performing artists were also involved in the research process and learning about trees, climate change, and ecosystems. Composer Ivana Stefanovic created mesmerizing original music score for outdoor performance especially inspired by the life of the trees. Visual artist, Jelena Rubil, created video projections, inspired by effects of the climate change.
Film artists were involved in shooting of the documentary and short film in different locations in the city and in local forest, as well as in their production and post-production. They embraced the ideas and worked on promotion of the necessity to restore our forests and make our environment more resilient to the climate change.
Digital experts constructed online platform Act Together while web designer created the website that reflects the ideas of the project and its ecological mission.
Scientific data was transformed into artistic forms, likewise the artistic tools inspired scientists, ecologists, activists in communicating the urgency of dealing with the protection of nature. For instance, a video projection of fish was created that illustrates a close relationship between tree protection and water life.
As a result of this joint effort, change in citizens’ mindset, behavior, and understanding of their place in ecosystem occurred.
While main beneficiary of our program is the general Serbian public as we deal with the problem that concerns all, the project turned out to be particularly successful with young people and students. The premiere of the performance was in October 2021, since then we have reached the audience through different means: newspapers, live TV and radio appearances, online through our Facebook page, Instagram, and mailing list (Newsletter). According to our Facebook analytics, we have reached 48.496 people so far. More than 1200 visited the performance in Belgrade. According to the press clipping reports we have reached more than 81.900 people through printed newspapers, online portals, TV live shows and radio. This is just the recorded reach, while in our experience each affected audience member influences his/her family and friends as well.
Additionally, two project films further promote our mission to preserve the trees and nature. The short film premiered on Art and Human Rights Festival in February 2022 and was selected by the Green Fest Film Festival, November 2022. These films are available online and further our impact beyond metrics.
Other direct beneficiaries are various ecological civic initiatives that took part in webinars, round tables, and networking that shared knowledge and strategies, thus empowering each other; for instance, Sodros Survival Camp near Novi Sad that gathers citizens in defense of local forest that invited us to present the project as an encouragement to their local action.
Upon receiving award Fixing the Future, the project concept was presented at Innovation Festival in Graz, which increased our international reach. It has also been presented at Conference Potentials of Ecological Turn in Culture (Belgrade, June 2022).
As The Case Study in an open access course the project has global reach. The same is true of our bilingual digital platform Act Together that makes topic of climate change more visible and activist networking easier.
The project was recognised as an original concept right away, when it received the Fixing the Future -Climate Innovation award 2021 by Austrian Radio Ö1's as an international original project, and participated at the innovation festival Market of the Future in Graz, October 1-3, 2021.
We are witnessing that traditional information sources, statistics, political speeches, and conferences change things very slowly in practice and even create certain passivity in citizens, who then tend to leave the responsibility to someone else. The artistic language we use is created so that it impacts spectators emotionally and intellectually, moving them to contemplation and ideally to action.
The original multimedia theatre work we created is put in an innovative dialogue with other disciplines and fields, such as science, activism, and digital networking, thus creating a unique amalgam of disparate endeavours, brought together by a single goal—environmental protection. We translated scientific data into theatrical language that is easily accessible on different cognitive levels.
The project also addresses the growing need of many people and organizations to defend the rights of all living beings to a dignified life. It calls for a reconsidering of the anthropocentric culture and profit-orientated view of the nature.
Unlike classical approach that would make the performance about the trees, Dancing Trees is a performance with trees. Its structure and dramaturgy are created in such a way that the trees have a central role, together with performers. The light design, the relation between trees and performers, and the time we give to the audience to feel and observe the surroundings provide an opportunity for them to feel and reconsider the role trees/nature have in our lives as well as the role of the human beings in it.
As a research centre that has always felt compelled to address burning social issues, we recognized that we need to address the local problem of excessive tree cutting that troubles all (urban) areas in Serbia. Thinking about the ways to tackle the topic, it was clear that we need to invite collaborators from other disciplines.
Contemporary global trends follow the pattern of a culture of unsustainability, in which dichotomous, linear thinking dominates more holistic and embodied ways of knowing—we knew that we need to seek the opposite. Therefore, from the onset, the project aimed to integrate insights from different knowledge systems, including sciences, humanities, indigenous wisdom traditions, and artistic processes. That holistic approach emphasizes the importance of awareness of complex and dynamic interdependence of humans with the natural world.
We started with extensive research about trees, ecosystems, climate change, and we did that both alone and together with experts at private and public discussions and round tables. Through the research the concept and original scenario for a dance theatre production was born, the idea that it would take place in a natural surrounding and that it will plead on behalf of trees and nature on kinaesthetic, emotional, and intellectual level.
But we also knew that we want to go beyond aesthetic reach, so we devised various ways to relate the production to different forms of education, networking, and activism. Knowing that production may travel only so far, we decided to create films that may be presented at festivals, but also shared online. The same is true of the digital platform we created. Learning about challenges activists face and learning about potential solutions, we also decided to develop a webinar. All of these activities are interdependent and the process was very organic.
The project itself is conceived as long lasting and all its activities are replicable and transferrable in any other national or international context.
It contains universal topic and information, easily accessible language of dance-theatre, film, and visual arts. The facts about the trees and climate change used in the performance/films are universal and refer to the life of the trees, relation of the citizens with the nature and parks, sensation of belonging, fears from the future, and anxiety—motifs that are all globally relevant. In addition to the obvious importance of the survival of trees on the planet, we refer to its historical and symbolical values countering the view of the trees as a market good only.
The spoken text in the outdoor performance can be easily translated in any language and main part of it is transmitted from loudspeakers, which makes the translation issue easily solvable. It also includes a possibility for any local dramaturgs, researchers, and performers to take part in it and to perform it in local languages and include local stories.
The digital platform is bilingual, Serbian/English; talkbacks, round tables, and webinar formats are applicable in any place in the world. The project welcomes the local community, artist, activist and experts to participate.
The documentary and short film are subtitled in English with a prospect to have them translated into other languages as well.
The project was motivated with excessive tree felling in Serbia but it aims to sensitize the citizens to the notion of our planetary co-dependency and importance of nature protection in every corner of Serbia, Europe, and the world.
We are witnessing excessive tree cutting in Belgrade in order to build shopping malls, parking, luxury residences, gondolas, and other tourist attractions. Faculty of Forestry (Belgrade) data shows that in 2018 alone, 19% more trees were cut down in Serbia than in previous years. In 2019, the number increased by 2% and the negative trend continues. Global deforestation continues at an alarming rate as well: 7-8 million hectares of forests are destroyed every year, which is approximately size of Portugal. The world average green area per capita is 20-30m2. In Belgrade, it is mere 1,5m2.
Moreover, Belgrade is too often on the top of the list of most polluted cities in the World. In the last 20 years, Belgrade lost 20% of its green area. This is extremely upsetting in the light of the effects of climate change, as trees are an important factor in the fight against rising global temperatures/pollution, due to their ability to absorb carbon dioxide.
Majority of natural scientists agree that planting trees is currently the most efficient solution to the climate change in the world. Researchers claim that if the world wants to limit the growth of temperatures by one and a half degrees by 2050, it is necessary to plant another billion hectares of forests globally. European Green Deal’s goal is 3 billion additional trees to be planted by 2030. The 2022 FAO report emphasizes the role of trees in recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in combating biodiversity loss.
Having all that in mind, it is clear that addressing this burning local issue and seeking solutions to it, we are also addressing the most urgent question the world is facing today.
