Gaïa Global Circus. Une Tragi-Comédie Climatique

Wed, January 29, 2014
Bruno Latour: Gaïa Global Circus
Une Tragi-Comédie Climatique


Theater Performance

The theater project "Gaïa Global Circus" began with the observation of a paradox: nobody can any longer avoid ecological debates, and although we are confronted with global warming and the end of the mankind, we feel nothing. We are unable to perceive and experience the so fragile and at the same time so powerful earth − "Gaïa".

With "Gaïa Global Circus" French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour addresses a problem, which he had already thematized in 2005 in the ZKM exhibition "Making Things Public": the gap between the significance of what is at stake and the limited repertoire of concepts and feelings with which we attempt to approach these questions.

"Gaïa Global Circus" is not a science theater, it is not a didactic or pedagogic venture. It far rather concerns a theatrical experiment, which facilitates the simulation of behavioral patterns and experiences, which do not exist. The tragicomedy presents the plethora of ecological discourses and conflicts and allows us to experience our own inconsistencies and our hesitancy in view of great uncertainty.
The one-and-a-half-hour play, which had its premiere showing in Toulouse 2013, and which can now be seen in Germany for the first time, will be performed in French with English subtitles.

Concept: Bruno Latour, Frédérique Aït-Touati and Chloé Latour
Direction: Frédérique Aït-Touati and Chloé Latour
Text: Pierre Daubigny
Actors: Claire Astruc, Luigi Cerri, Jade Collinet, Matthieu Protin
Scenography: Olivier Vallet (Compagnie les Rémouleurs)
Equipment/Costumes: Elsa Blin
Lighting: Olivier Vallet et Benoît Aubry
Music: Laurent Sellier
Production management: Gaëlle About
Assistance: Marie Sawaya

Bruno Latour (*1947) in Beaune, France
is a philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist, and teaches at Science Po, Paris. In addition to ethnographic studies in the fields of science, technology and law, he publishes numerous writings on the philosophy and history of science, on the politics of knowledge and political ecology, and curates the exhibitions "Iconoclash" (2002) and "Making Things Public" (2005) at the ZKM | Karlsruhe. In 2010 he founded the "Program of Experimentation in Arts and Politics" (SPEAP) at Science Po, and, in 2013, he was awarded the Holberg International Memorial Prize. His works include, among others, "We have never been Modern" (1993), "Pandora's Hope" (1999), "Politics of Nature" (2004), "Iconoclash" (2002), "Von der Realpolitik zur Dingpolitik oder Wie man Dinge öffentlich macht" (2005), "Rejoicing: Or the Torments of Religious Speech" (2013).

Camera: Paula Reissig, Christina Zartmann
Editing: Paula Reissig