Terra Incognita

Climate change poses a problem for the performing arts. How can such a monumental threat to humanity ever be properly comprehended, interpreted and represented? There’s a difficult balance to strike between optimism and pessimism, and a decision to make on which is more likely to inspire audiences to try to affect change.

This physical theatre piece opts for the morbidly apocalyptic. Temper Theatre offer a series of visions that choreographically imagine the destruction of the natural world, intercut with recordings and satirical sequences of politicians bickering ineffectively over under-ambitious preventative measures.

Dramatic scenes of urban violence erupt between the movement sections, as resources run dry and cities become uninhabitable. There’s clearly real anger and fear driving this piece—its programme is full of references to recent political and corporate failures to address the scale of the problem—but that rigour and detail doesn’t always come through particularly subtly in the work itself. 

However, the movement is technically impressive and often imaginative – strikingly lit, it’s certainly aesthetically pleasing and moving to watch. The sizeable cast develop some hauntingly beautiful motifs, at one point coming together to form a giant puppet of a ghostly, decaying fish drifting through the poisoned oceans; and at another holding an arrestingly still pose under a whirling snow machine. There’s a central narrative of a couple journeying through the ecological end of days, which puts a touchingly human—if a little sentimental—face on the issue.