Music led public engagement project in response to the climate crisis
EXTREME SEASONS- a draft narrative
This is a rough outline should be read as a starting point, to show how the Vivaldi work can form a template for telling the story of our current experience of man’s relationship with the seasons. It need not be completely movement per movement. As the following demonstrates, when some parts of the story become more fleshed out there is scope for borrowing and re-versioning the original work non-lineally as the new story we are telling becomes clearer.
One could also imagine inherent in the work moments of disruption to the narrative that mirror how quickly we are humbled by the unpredictable and all powerful forces of our out of balance planet. At the same time hope comes in surprising forms and places, as does joy, humour and triumph. Moments of innovation in adversity, the unlikely partnerships formed and the pure stubborn will to live… these moments will also be strategically weaved into the over arching narrative leading the audience towards the ultimate feeling that life on this planet is extraordinary and lets be the urgent architects of a better, kinder future… for all earthkind.
Prologue:
Orchestra & Projection
The 1st movement of summer melting the 3rd movement of Spring.
ACT 1 (UNPRECEDENTED SUMMER- FIRE)
1st movement:
Orchestra, Voice, Live Stream projection
Indigenous Australian voices present a version of welcome to country connecting it with their sense of deep time, creation and custodianship of country.
We set up the present, this moment now, where we will reflect together on all that has been and what is to come. Asking the question:
Who and what do we, humanity- need to become?
Other indigenous voices in chorus from the Pacific host regions add their own colour to this concept. Could use live streams to beam groups from their own communities onto the central stage setting up a strong sense of the collective, massed gatherings around the planet.
Orchestra & Projection
Images of the 2019-2020 fires in Australia. Re-versioned strains from Vivaldi’s Summer soundtracks the feeling of endless heat and a landscape crisp ready to burn. The fires start and the sense of foreboding grows as out breaks take place in more and more places.
2nd movement- participation song.
Orchestra, Voice & projection
Based around the refrains and chords of the 2nd movement of Summer, we have a song that enters the internal dialogue of someone discovering it’s “too late to leave” and faces the on coming flames. The trauma of escaping death and witnessing unimaginable destruction and loss. A community forever joined by an unspoken survivor’s pledge- never again, never forget. The Chorus gives voice to the deep anguish giving way to the orchestral fire storm with super sized refrains from movt 3 of Summer. Imagery of the fires tornadoes, then floods, land slides, the relentless extremes til we meet a moment reprieve.
A moment to survey what’s just passed. The landscape is silenced. Black.
The bridge to the song returns, set to images of the fallen and too quickly forgotten- the wildlife, the habitat the agricultural animals. The scale of the destruction poses new questions about remembering and recovery. The new unknown.
remembering and recovery. The new unknown.
3rd movement:
But the landscape seems to recover. It feels miraculous. Yet still uncertain. The human cost is psychological and deep. The seasons are too unpredicable now. But there is a strength of spirit forged in nature’s cycle of renewal.
ACT 2: (AUTUMN OF EXCESS- AIR)
This season maps out the juxtaposition of human and animal life on the planet. The impact of progress and Industrialisation. An unbalance has crept across the planet. An unbalance of mankind’s impact on the natural world but an imbalance within humanity itself too… along with an imbalance of reason.
1st movement- Participation song.
2nd movement:
A montage of parents preparing children across the world for bed. Reminding us of the same instinct to love and protect our young ones. Maybe we include animals in here too.
3rd movement- Participation song.
A moment of levity and satire. An upbeat song that speaks with self mocking humour to how humanity has lead itself to so easily be responsible for, and bear witness to it’s own downfall. Vivaldi’s pompous call for the hunt becomes and heavy, industrial, hip hop with call and answers to the audience.
Great potential for sing a long silliness at our own expense. The man made system at work. Relentless consumerism and waste. Hedonism. We watch the skies thicken with our fumes. A chance for the Chorus to speak to the knowing, the wilful blindness and the whats stopping those in power to bring forth the right kind of change.
ACT 3 (WINTER OF TIPPING POINTS- WATER)
In this season we give voice to the peoples who live simply and seasonly. In particular the experience of small Pacific Island nations, surrounded by oceans.
1st movement:
The original work has the feeling of the people on he Titanic putting ice from the iceberg into their glasses of gin and tonic listening to the band as the ship slowly sunk.
2nd movement – participation song
Set to very accessible Ukulele part the song adopts a Polynesian melody and tells the story of life on an island that is slowly been eaten by the tides, wondering if the rich history of reading the seas and and harnessing the winds can help.
3rd movement:
Winds. Big tropical storms betraying the idea of paradise.
ACT 4 (THE SPRING OF POSITIVE TRANSFORMATION- EARTH)
1st movement:
A montage of the positive changes already a foot. Options. Questions.
2nd movement- participation song “for all Earthkind”
We summon the energy of hope and possibility, from one generation’s moment in history, where humanity united for one breathtaking moment when we delivered a man safely to the moon and saw our own planet for the first time. Many decades on that planet needs the same level of hope, possibility and expeditious “political will” for us to take the next giant leap, restore the balance and preserve life on earth- for all earthkind.
For all Earthkind 