How Can We Communicate and Connect about Sustainability?

0:00 my name is Jessica Fogle I'm a professor 0:02 emeritus of dance here at University of 0:04 Michigan where I taught for 35 years I'm 0:09 a dancer and choreographer I've created 0:11 many dances for the traditional 0:13 proscenium stage and I've also created a 0:16 number of large-scale projects for 0:20 alternative sites in rural or urban 0:23 settings in which I've probed the 0:25 stories embedded in those sites and 0:27 often worked with a large 0:29 multidisciplinary team to create these 0:32 projects the arts play I think a really 0:36 important role in the future of 0:38 sustainability because the arts have a 0:42 unique way of approaching ideas through 0:46 the senses and getting audiences and the 0:49 public to connect in a visceral and 0:51 emotional way so it's not a question of 0:54 reading about things in a newspaper or 0:57 learning about data in terms of huge 1:00 challenges like climate change but 1:03 actually connecting on a personal level 1:05 and I think dance in particular and the 1:09 kind of dances I've been creating bring 1:12 the public into a place and get them to 1:16 connect through their bodies through 1:18 their senses and to develop a connection 1:22 and an empathy that will hopefully 1:24 promote desire for change and action in 1:29 favor of the environment and in support 1:33 of the environment so I think the arts 1:35 have that creative spirit that gets 1:38 people involved in a very connected way 1:41 all of the Arts invite a closer 1:45 engagement with one's senses and I think 1:48 dance in particular awakes a kind of 1:51 physical response in an audience because 1:54 an audience is watching dance with their 1:57 mirror neurons as it were they're 1:59 empathizing with the movement they're 2:01 seeing also in the kinds of dances I've 2:04 been creating in alternate sites often 2:07 the audience is moving along with the 2:10 performers they're traveling through a 2:12 site and what we call 2:13 a promenade performance and in that way 2:15 their their active partners they're not 2:19 sitting there passively in the in the 2:21 dark as they do in a traditional theater 2:24 but rather they are moving through the 2:26 performance they're contributing to the 2:28 energy of the performance they're 2:31 watching others watch the performance it 2:33 becomes a different kind of communal 2:35 experience which has a different kind of 2:38 impact through the skin through the 2:41 muscles through the senses I think we 2:43 have to keep seeking new ways for 2:47 speaking about a sustainable future and 2:50 finding ways to reach more people one on 2:52 one one person at a time and I think the 2:55 arts can do that I think that's what the 2:58 arts are about it so it's a one-on-one 3:00 experience sometimes it's a communal 3:02 experience but it has to hit a person to 3:05 the core it's not it's not data and it's 3:07 not off in the future it's now and it's 3:10 it's finding ways for the public to 3:14 really empathize and connect with the 3:17 planet and with place and with 3:19 environment and really care about it