Fighting Climate Change with Dance | KQED Arts

Used with permission of KQED Arts. 

KT Nelson's Dead Reckoning is an amazing dance that deserves to be seen and discussed. 

In the above six and a half minute video, ODC/Dance Co-Artistic Director KT Nelson says “With this thing called climate change, we have scientific evidence, we have statistical analysis. I think maybe the missing ingredient is our emotional world. Dance, because it is human beings on stage in a world, can help us can help us embody the meaning of climate change. [. . . .] Where we are with climate change is that we are navigating blindly right now. I think we’re in the middle of dead reckoning. [. . . .] The natural world to me is a friend, is a best friend. I think if a dear friend is sick any one of us would turn around and care for them. Yet, here is our planet. It’s in trouble, and I don’t think we realize we need to care for it. [. . . .] One of the things I want to convey is this feeling of being lost in this world of climate change. The panic. The franticness. The futileness of it. [. . . .] [In the Dead Reckoning dance] they eventually step on this other person, and smash her. So at the end I ask the question ‘Is what we do to the environment also what we do to each other?’”

In a previous post I quoted Forbes writer James Conca who noted September 10, 2019, "To bring this home, all you have to do is see how climate scientists are seeking psychiatric help for the depression, anxiety and PTSD that happens when you see a train wreck coming but no one seems to want to do anything about it - and you’re on the train."

In a 2016 interview at The San Diego Union Tribune I said, "People are just overwhelmed paying the rent and taking care of the kids and it was like, 'Why are you bringing us this painful information?'” [. . . .] I gave a reading at Cascadia College (in Bothell, Washington), and after it students asked me what they should do. My answer was that climate change is such a serious issue, if you are a graphic artist or a musician or an accountant, whatever you are, we need your help."