"When Forests Dream” & “Assembly”
Metropolis Cph summer program.


"When Forests Dream” 
06-12 September kl. 19:15 - 20:45 (1:30 hour)

A procession for a collective hope, grief and ecological rebirth – by Sara Gebran and collaborating artists

In WHEN FORESTS DREAM, you encounter the wondrous spirits of a forest that has disappeared due to deforestation. Four performers lead a luminous, joyful procession of sound, song, and dance – spreading light in the twilight – to guide audience on a sensory voyage of transformation and collective dreaming.

Rooted in Yanomami indigenous cosmology, you are invited to “dream the other,” reimagining a future where humans and nature thrive together. Through movement, song, sound, dream narratives, holographic images and spectacular scenography, the performers summon the spirits of all Beings - human and more-than-human - to evoke new forms of collective coexistance.

A carnival of hope unfolds. Giving form to the unseen, the performance acts as a spiritual sanctuary - a call to grieve, heal, awaken, and grow our bond with the land, sustained by community.

WHEN FORESTS DREAM is the 4th chapter of the eight-year project The Forests’ Imaginary Trial (2023–2030), proposing the use of the theatre as a "fictional courtroom," where the audience is invited as a jury in defense of Nature, engaging with questions of responsibility, the "Rights of Nature," and ecocide.

This year, an ASSEMBLY will be held on the final day, serving as a powerful culmination of WHEN FORESTS DREAM performance. 


CREDITS WHEN FORESTS DREAM

Concept & choreography: Sara Gebran
Text & lyrics: Siegmar Zacharias & Sara Gebran
Song composer: Sarah Buchner
Co-creating performers: Olivia Riviere, Sarah Buchner, Snorre Elvin & Sara Gebran
Costume & Hat: Frida Barfod 
Fire Hat: Sara Gebran & Frida Barfod
Prop designer: Frida Barfold & Sara Gebran
Space & hologram design: Sara Gebran
Scenography: Bendixen & Barüel
Videoanimation: Mathias Westbrook
Wood work: Janosh Heydorn
Dramaturg Consultant: Jonas Schorn
Artistic consultant & researcher: Margô Assis
Communication: Sophie Engelhardt & Karen Vestergaard Andersen
Creative producer: Carlos Calvo
Administration: Kamma Siegumfeldt
Graphic design: Susanne Cleworth
Produced by: Public Eye 
Photographer: Per Morten Abrahamsen & Marine Gastineau

Support: Statens Kunstfond, Københavns Kommune, Wilhelm Hansen Fonden & Knud Højgaards Fond

Co-production & residency: Metropolis – Københavns Internationale Teater, Refshale Anneks
Thanks to: Cirka cph.



Photos: Per Morten Abrahamsen



Vertical photos: Per Morten Abrahamsen


Photos Marine Gastineau (Horizontal)



Photos Marine Gastineau (Horizontal)







Assembly 2026, Where Art Ignites Ecological Justice

13 September kl. 14:00-18:00, at Teatersale

The ASSEMBLY is a half-day gathering situated between performing arts, activism, and collective dreaming to reimagine law rooted in relationship.

Refusing law’s stories of separation, the Assembly offers intimate law as a practice of making visible the webs of relationships in which we are all – differently – entangled. Whose lives and love have we failed to notice? How can we become porous enough to hear the teachings that have always been present? What new ways of relating are demanded of us if we take the time to listen?

We invite you on a journey through embodied practices to remember our more-than-human teachers, through rituals to grieve habits and thought patterns that no longer serve, and finally begin the work of recomposing laws rooted in intimacy – in listening, gratitude, and responsibility.

Through smaller and larger group discussions, shared reflection, rituals, sound scape, and embodied practices, the ASSEMBLY fosters a space for thinking, sensing, and acting together.  

The Assembly gathers specialists from diverse fields including law, rights of nature, anthropology, sustainability governance, environmental pedagogy, literature, journalism, dramaturgy, shamanism, arts, eco-social work, activism, etc.

To grow our bond with Nature, we will all be gifted seeds during the performance of WHEN FORESTS DREAM to be planted together at the ASSEMBLY. A call to move beyond grief and dream, toward tangible solidarity and systemic change.


CREDITS ASSEMBLY

Sara Gebran (choreographer/dancer/writer/educator),
Katarina Hovden ( (Postdoc University of Copenhagen, rights of nature & relationality) &
Siegmar Zacharias (Artists/death doula, herbalist).

Special Guests:
Miriam Cullen, Stine Krøijer, Johanne Mygind, Lorenzo Benini, Malou Juelskjær, Jonas Schnor, Nadia Alma Avoghlian, Karin Olesen, Søren Stig Andersen, Anette Lytzen, Victor Valqui Vidar, Jesper Saxgren, Carla Rafaela Denalie, Christine Fentz.

Co-production:  
Danish Arts Foundation, Copenhagen Municipality, Wilhelm Hansen Fonden & Knud Højgaards Fond

Co-production & residency: 
Metropolis – Københavns Internationale Teater, Refshale Anneks and The project “Home in Crisis” (CHANSE/HERA, DFF) hosted at Copenhagen University (PI, Miriam Cullen)





Rehearsal photos: Liv A Muus & Sara Gebran


Ideas-in-progress, net textiles for Things and Beings to move through; luminous Beings at night; holographic reflections communicating with us.