In the frame of the international “UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA” research & creation residency project, the company Gray Box organises a free intensive training, designed for people who want to create and initiate instead of execute and follow. The training is led by the lecturers Anna Ádám, Rebeka P. Kiss and Eva M. González.

Participants during this research & creation workshop explore the psychosocial consequences of climate change on a personal level and point out how humans are acutely dependent on the environment, deeply entwined with it on a physical, emotional, and spiritual level. With the use of different techniques and tools (dance, performance, choreography, drawing, writing, video, photo…), participants relate major socio-political and ecological contexts to psychological and mental symptoms (anxiety, denial, aggressiveness, critical rejection, ignorance…) discuss their parallels, open new questions and perspectives. So as to stimulate different parts of the brain and the body, participants will move back and forth between moving, writing and drawing. They will also receive one-on-one mentoring (including critical feed-back in the analysis, application of the method and the clarity of details) during the development of their own original artworks.

RESEARCH
Through the exploration of animal and vegetal, nature and environment, power and society, queer and feminist ecologies, we will dress the limits and possibilities of how performance is able to challenge the anthropocentric conundrum. We examine our relationship with environment, rethink and redefine the concept of human, consider the effects and potentials of the posthuman. We place equal weight on critical theory and movement practice, develop ideas and fluency through the creation of individual and group choreographies on our engagement with nature, the protection of ecosystems and the psychosocial consequences of climate change, including scepticism, denial, critical rejection, anxiety, indifference and many more.

ACTIVITIES
Choreography making, performance making, movement research, writing, drawing, video, photo, narrating and composing through improvisation and movement, searching through historical material, archives and divers audiovisual resources, discussion, screening, presentation, feedback.

SESSIONS & DATES
The workshop explores the psychosocial consequences of climate change.

• SESSION 1: June 7, 10-13h: Topics: fear, frustration, anxiety, stress
• SESSION 2: June 8, 10-13h: Topics: domination, oppression, exploitation, control
• SESSION 3: June 9, 10-13h: Topics: the feeling of being trapped, difficulty to act, to go beyond our material and mental barriers 
• SESSION 4: June 10, 10-13h: Topics: the feeling of being without perspective, without horizon, without issue​, without future
• SESSION 5: June 11, 10-13h: Topics: powerlessness, being lost, overwhelmed
• SESSION 6: June 12, 10-13h: Topics: violence, aggressiveness
• SESSION 7: June 12, 14-17h: Topics: apathy, depression
• SESSION 8: June 13, 10-13h: Topic: skepticism, doubt, critical rejection
• SESSION 9: June 13, 14-17h: Topic: ignorance, denial