Canva Ai generated Dying Sonoran Desert, photo realistic, prompted by Rick Wamer
The Climate Project, Part 2: Life’s Metabolic Footprint, Earth, & Water
University of Arizona, School of Theatre, Film & Television, September, 2025
The Climate Project is an ongoing project of a full-length Theatre of Metamorphosis project, a devised physical-theatre production based on a workshopped segment entitled, Water:Requiem for a Reef, developed for Mannakin Theatre and Dance, San Francisco, with University of Arizona Students from the School of Theatre, Film & Television, Fall of 2024.
The full-length Theatrical production will include five sections based on the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Life’s Metabolic Footprint.
The next workshop production, focusing on earth (Sonoran Desert), water (Requiem for a Reef) and the Evolution of Life’s Metabolic Footprint will take place in the Fall of 2025 as part of the 25/26 University of Arizona’s School of Theatre, Film & Television’s (TFTV) production season, September 2025 at the Tornabene Theatre. This performance iteration will engage low trapeze aerial choreography by students who receive trapeze training as part of the Arts Research +Resilience project, The Climate Project: Trapeze Training for Resilience and Performance, with funding support from Arizona Institute for Resilience, UofA College of Fine Arts, and school of TFTV.
An exhilarating, viscerally engaging, and inspirational form of Theatre for our contemporary times of challenge and change.
From Left to Right, U of A School of Theatr Students: Rear - Tesfaye Jones, Jade Belden, Jarmon Floyd (behind Jade), Julia Ferret/front - Nika Aguilar, Brie Baker
Trapeze Training for Resilience and Performance: Resilience training and creative practice through Aerial performance - training up to 10 student/actors May 19, 2025 – June 27, 2025
A Theatre for the Anthropocene
The way we tell our stories is how we live our lives. Stories can amplify the building of personal and community resilience in the face of unexpected and systemic change and can lead to considerations of a variety of possible solutions courageously acted upon, while reducing related stress [1] (see References) when communally shared through the practice of theatre. With the additional elements of theatrical storytelling in the form of devised physical Theatre of Metamorphosis, it is the physically embodied challenges encountered by the actor in training, creation, and performance, (who “is” the art and artist at once), that builds and supports resilience. This offers opportunities for the creative actor and audience to consider multiple solutions to climate change issues raised as the evolving research-centered story is being guided into manifestation and when embodied in the performance experience. Traditional western storytelling often creates a sense of other. Loosely defined, it hinges on a central character experiencing some form of lack who dominates whatever stands in their way in pursuit of what they wish to gain. It relies on conflict (the more the better) and conflict requires otherness - a binary of right and wrong, good, and bad. Framing our world in this way orients us towards scarcity and oppression leaving room for only one hero to possibly rise above all the rest. In the Theatre of Metamorphosis, whereas traditional theatre is a place where we must hold space for all of humanity, we are dealing with a theatre where we hold space for all of creation. The embodied actor, is the image, is the art, is the story.
My arts research/creation seeks to evolve stories that are embodied in the physical life of the actor and builds personal and community resilience through the physical challenges acquired in accessing new skills such as trapeze artistry, while depending upon ensemble support for the creation of embodied stories, where the actors are the performed images that manifest an embodied story as exemplified in our first foray into this research, Requiem for a Reef, [2] evoking affective, empathic connections among the audience members and encouraging communal responses of resiliency when confronting climate change issues. [3] This creative approach used to make work within the form of the Theatre of Metamorphosis is one that places respect and confidence in the student/actors’ agency to engage and collaborate in the creation of theatre as a call to action. This approach to storytelling “moves beyond the binary into generosity, inclusion and care.” [4] We hold space for all of creation.
The Climate Project Performance, September 2025
The participating student/actors, will development a deeper capacity to create and perform, within a collaborative creative community, using the acquired trapeze skills to support further construction of The Climate Project during a performance supported by the school of TFTV in the Fall of 2025. This process will empower a resilience in collaborative devising of physical theatre among the participants that exposes climate change issues, seeks solutions, and encourages and inspires audiences to do the same. Engagement will include interdisciplinary visual artists creating a pre and post show immersion experience that will extend the performance with community education outreach and inviting calls to action to engage locally with efforts to tackle local climate challenges.
1- https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-stories-of-our-lives/202106/storytelling-isgood- for-us-and-our-bodies: “Stories connect us as a human family. We all understand this from our own experiences sharing stories, but new research by Brockingham and colleagues shows just how deep these human connections through stories run. They asked whether storytelling could modulate physiological responses to stress for children in the ICU as compared to a control group who engaged in riddle games for the same amount of time. Children who listened to someone telling stories for just 30 minutes showed decreased cortisol responses; cortisol is a hormone that is released in response to stress and higher cortisol is related to increased bodily and psychological distress. More striking, these children showed a marked increase in oxytocin, a hormone that is related to human bonding. Higher levels of oxytocin are related to greater feelings of love and empathy. And these increases in oxytocin and decreases in cortisol were also related to lower ratings of pain and higher levels of positive emotion about feeling better and getting better. Stories helped these children heal.”
2- Link to view Requiem for a Reef, August, 2024, Choreographer’s Festival, Mannakin Theatre and Dance, Minneapolis, MN, A-Mill Artists Lofts: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cs2iw24LHrCyNBZOgT3_3kxZEBhTajur/view?usp=sharing Time Code: 23:09
3- “Dr. Emunah’s clinical work inspires me to integrate drama into my own practice and teaching, for it clearly fosters vulnerability, authenticity, mindfulness, empathic connectin, and the courage to change. This book also depicts the use of drama to foster well-being and inclusion outside of clinical arenas, including acting against injustice, thereby creating a healing force for community.” Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, PhD, professor, Stanford University School of Medicine; Praise of Renee Emunah, PhD research and book Ac$ng for Real: Drama Therapy Process, Technique, and Performance; Rutledge Press, New York/London, Second Edition, 2020.
4- “The Theatre of Metamorphosa is centered around “Requiem for a Reef” created by Rick Wamer and his ensemble (the ten students devising performers engaged in the course) in which the audience is invited into a suspension of disbelief more complicated and robust than “buying into” what they see as they follow the journey of their hero. In “Requiem” the performers are bodies in space, but they are also seaweed, and ship and wave - and one does not disbelieve the other. This type of invitation to hold two truths together is also at the root of practices like restorative justice, conscious parenting, and emergent strategy. In the practice of Metamorphosa, as Wamer describes it, “the piece is its own living organism that asks us (the ensemble) to nurture it into its’ full expression.” There is no preconceived notion to force onto the story and so hierarchy is replaced with interdependence. Organizing our theatrical practice around these principles moves us beyond the binary into generosity, inclusion and care.” – Nikki Martinez, TFTV Instructor, upon viewing Requiem for a Reef, the first section of Wamer’s ongoing performance-based art research.
A full community evening production of The Climate Project is planned for Spring, 2027.
Contact Rick Wamer with any questions:
rwamer@arizona.edu
Requiem for a Reef
Facing Tides is a documentary film by Clinton Lee Willis, student film-maker at the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television. The film follows Rick and the cast throughout their journey of creation and the performance process from June - December, 2024. This is a small teaser of what is yet to come.
