The Earth Turns

An Audio Play for COP27

Released on 6 December 2023

Introduction

The Earth Turns is a climate-inspired performance created for the lead-up to the UN COP27 Climate Conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Adapted from We Still Have a Chance- 12 Stories for 12 Days of COP27, an anthology of micro-stories created by Climate Activists, Scientists, Health Professionals, Students, and Artists from The University of Exeter, Met Office, Ain Shams University, Banlastic, and The American University in Cairo. It originally performed as an Official side event selection of The Global Stocktake presented in the UN Secured Blue Zone for Delegates of the Sharm El Sheikh Tonnino Lamborghini International Convention Center. Additional invitation to perform in the Peace Pavilion of the Green Zone of the COP27 Conference for the public and the Historic Falaki Theater in Downtown Cairo. This version was recorded by company members across 10 countries on 5 continents to be released on the first day of COP28 in Dubai, UAE

Directors Note

According to renowned historian and philosopher Yuval Noah Harari:

Humans, homo sapiens, are storytelling animals. We think about the world, and our lives, in terms of stories. Very few people think of the world in terms of numbers, or equations, or statistics. This is the basis for all shared human cooperation, this belief in shared human stories It’s important to have human enemies in order to have a catchy story. With climate change, you don’t. Our minds didn’t evolve for this kind of story. When we evolved as hunter-gatherers, it was never the case that we could somehow change the climate in ways which were bad for us, so it’s not the kind of story that we were interested in. We were interested in the story that some people in the tribe are conspiring to kill me. So, we have a narrative problem with climate change. But the good news is that it’s not too late or too difficult to overcome.

I knew that when taking on a theatrical performance dealing with Climate Change my narrative problem was going to be the numbers and charts that we all have started to ignore. The fight to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius is an important action we must take, but it’s also a vague concept that I can’t wrap my head around. Instead, we would need to focus on what the Theatre does best: the Human Story. Being. Existing. Dreaming. Interconnections. Patterns.

These stories focus on the human experience of Climate Change. How those who are least contributing to this problem are the most affected. How lives can be upended by the coming changes we will experience. How we can despair, but also how we can come together to make meaningful changes that have a collective impact.

For me, the play you will hear is a centralizing event for a larger conversation. This performance isn’t just about Climate Change, but about Climate Action. Once we have touched you, made you feel something, anger, sadness, or hope, we want you to know what you can do, what you can actually do, to effect change in your little corner of the world.

It is incumbent on artists to lead the way, side by side with the scientists to point to the future we want to have. We know what we need to do. We even have ways of how to do it. These stories are why we need to do it, these human stories. The strangers around you, the strangers you see every day, we are all part of the same tribe. And if we don’t start working together, we will lose the last best chance to remain here as The Earth Turns.

Scenes

Prologue

Farida Abdel Aziz (Egypt)

Survival

Grandfather: Jit Dastidar (Bangladesh)