The Forest’s Trial - 2024
(part 2)
After experiencing this performance (live or re-enacted in the book) you would be ready to:
See: video documentation of the performance, trailer, and the In-performance documentary film:
In the Libretto-Book, you have access to experience the full performance and to the QR code that leads you to VOTE and SIGN UP as forest’s guardian.
Order the book-performance: saragebran@yahoo.com, or buy it at Charlottenborg Kunsthall bookshop or write me to get a free PDF if you are poor.
Photos: Peter Boel.
THE FORESTS TRIAL premier 07-12/10. kl. 18:00 Metropolis - Københavns Internationale Teater: information in danish: https://www.metropolis.dk/the-forests-trial/
"The Forests’ Trial" is a fictional trial performance, inviting the audience as representatives of Nature to take on the role of judges pointing out the responsible for two environmental disasters: the pollution caused by the Cheminova factory in Lemvig and by the illegal mining of the Amazon rainforests in Venezuela.
By transforming the theater into a courtroom, "The Forests’ Trial" creates a space for both human and more-than-human voices to assemble, a kind of “Parliament of all Beings” and of all Things, to direct our collective action to safeguarding our planet's conditions of habitability.
"The Forests’ Trial" explores a still novel concept — Nature as a legal subject with constitutionally-protected rights. In this immersive theatrical tribunal, participants engage in a creative process of political self-representation, taking action where our local and global political systems appear to have stopped, or at least to be extremely slow in doing so.
The power of this fictional courtroom is to test, develop, and practice new strategies, and to be prepared in the remote case that our opinions begin to matter, and our creative ideas do become solutions.
Dance, text, film, song, and a sound installation (Nature’s Symphony) are media used to create this fictional courtroom.
The 35 minute film is narrated and sung live by the 4 performers and sometimes by the audience, as Nature's Representatives. The film implicates those responsible for the environmental disasters in the two case studies presented.
Audience members receives a book with a libretto that follows the performance’s progression and a guide to continue the trial at home, extending the courtroom into their own lives and communities.
"The Forests’ Trial" is the second part of a four year project dedicated to defend and protect the worlds’ forests and advocating for the Rights of Nature.
DATE: October 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th at 18:00
LOCATION: Teatersalen, William Wains Gade 11, Refshaleøen, 1432 KBH K – see location
WHAT: Performance
TICKET: 100 kr (includes a book) Buy here ->
PERFORMANCE & IN PERFORMANCE FILM DOCUMENTARY:
Directed by Sara Gebran
Concept, research, libretto, film & dance by Sara Gebran
Libretto written with contribution by Marie-Louise Stentebjerg.
Performance created in collaboration with Marie-Louise Stentebjerg.
Lyrics: Sara Gebran
Singing Composition: Anne Eisensee
Performers: Marie-Louise Stentebjerg, Anne Eisensee, Snorre Elvin and Sara Gebran.
Courtroom stage design: Tor Lindstrand & Sara Gebran
Sound installation “Nature’s Symphony”: George Koutsouris
Costume: Sara Gebran
Film editor: Toshie Takeuchi, directed by Sara Gebran
Research & images on the Danish case study: Sara Gebran & Peter Boel.
Videos of Høfde 42, Cheminova & Thyborøn: Peter Boel, Sara Gebran & Bjarne Hansen
Research & images on the Venezuelan case study: Sara Gebran
Images of mines in Venezuela: Yris Paul Infante & Mercedes Castro Lanz.
Contributing with images of Venezuelan Tepuis: Orlando Corona, Ruth Garcia & Karim Gebran.
Light, video & sound: Emil Vodder
Set design manager : Niclas Heydorn
Project Coordinator: Kim Wrang Henriksen
PR photo: Peter Boel
Flyer: Susanne Cleworth
Wepage design: Inés Britas
LIBRETTO-BOOK:
Book’s author, concept & compositional design: Sara Gebran
with articles contribution by:
Yaku Perez (international Judge of the Rights of Nature, Defender of Water, Kichwa Kanari/Ecuador), Alessandro Pelizzon (environmental lawyer and environmental researchers affiliated with The Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature), Catherine Haas and Caitlyn Sutherlin (Australia & USA), and Marie-Louise Stentebjerg (choreographer, DK)
Spanish translator: Javier Orozco, with support by Sara Gebran
Editor: Izabella Borzecka
English text revision: Michael Langan
Graphic Design: Susanne Cleworth
Book publisher: PAM
Support:
The Danish Art Foundation, Nordic Culture Point, Danish Actors Union, Knud Højgårds Fond, Sonning Fonden, William Demand Fond and Copenhagen Municipality.
Co-production: Metropolis.
Residency: Forsøgsstationen and Trevor Davis.
Thanks: Alessandro Pelizzon, for one year coaching on the implementation of The Rights of Nature, the video interview at the end of this film and the seminar pre- sented on the 13th of September, 2024 at Copenhagen University. Johanne Mygind for the use of the book “Stemmer fra Høfde 42”, and for suggesting the Cheminova scandal as a case study. Thorbjørn Brunander Sund for aerial image of Cheminova. Ida Elisabeth Larsen for joining the initial research of this project.
Produced & Fundraised: Sara Gebran/Public Eye