SAVE THE WORLD 2015

CLIMATE CHANGE - a festival with artists and experts

"There’s hardly any topic as boring as climate change."

With these words, the film-maker and biologist Randy Olsen seeks to remind us that what is probably the biggest man-made disaster of all time provokes hardly more than a yawn in the public discourse. However climate change is not just a disaster scenario, but confronts mankind with one of its most exciting creative challenges.

All over the world, a surprising number of people are committing themselves to encouraging a re-think in matters relating to the climate. The approaches range from local and simple to global and complex, including both scientifically well-founded and symbolic artistic solutions. ‘If not us then who?’ is the name of one NGO with whom we have collaborated this year. One couldn’t make the point more clearly.

Politicians are looking for an agreed solution too. December 2015 will see what is probably the world’s largest joint effort in this direction: 195 signatory states will be taking part in the UN climate conference in Paris, in an attempt to decide on a new and comprehensive climate protection treaty. This is no easy task, because the local traditions and economic interests of the 195 member states of the UN could hardly be more different. But for all the contradictions, the climate-change conference is going into its twenty-first round this year, and thus giving a signal for idealism, creativity and the will to co-operate.

Theater Bonn is taking advantage of the unique concentration of multilateral activities on its doorstep, so to speak, to stimulate an exchange between artists and UN experts, along with NGOs based in Bonn, in the fight against global warming. Our festival SAVE THE WORLD confronts climate-relevant issues and in the process links artistic spectacle with scientific expertise. In this way saving the world becomes an enjoyable event, for where art and science meet, the result is innovative avenues of thought, as in the rice show OF ALL THE PEOPLE IN ALL THE WORLD, one of the high points of this year’s festival.

The climate parcour, the heart of the festival, is where our team of artists and experts research, analyse and tinker. We have compiled a climatological tour de force for you: a thousand pages of scientific facts and twenty years of political struggle condensed into fifteen minutes. Together we shall reveal the CO2 absorbers, and with the help of Powerpoint demonstrate choreographies showing the effects of climate change on animals, and, using twoton bricks, illustrate that great things can be achieved with small actions.

‘I am not alive, I am just a puppet,’ says Moses, and so he is, the charming but cantankerous star of our visiting production THE TABLE, which has toured the world. Moses does not want to take social responsibility, let alone face the consequences of his actions. And so it’s up to us to face our joint responsibility this year too with the help of an unusual climate-rescue programme.

So here’s a cordial invitation to save the world together!